Twelve Go Mad in Dorset*

"I say," said Moonroot one cold, wet winter's day. "I have an absolutely spiffing idea! Why don't we all go camping again this summer just like we used to! It will be such super fun!"


The others all agreed it was a grand idea, and just a few months later they packed their bags and set off down to Dorset for the summer hols. They even took Sancha the dog.


"Gosh, we are going to have such wonderful adventures! And lashings of ginger beer**!" declared Moonroot.


"Woof! Woof!" agreed Sancha, wagging her tail.


And they did.

* With apologies to Enid Blyton

** aka wine, beer and scrumpy.

365 Days

365 days ago...

You said, "I've got something to tell you. I've met someone."

I waited for the punchline. But there was no humour in the situation. Your china-blue eyes were deadly serious.

"We want to be together. I'm sorry."

I had no words. What could I say?

"I think it's best if I go now and give you some privacy."

Now I had words. Words like, 'why?' and 'how?' and 'when?', but when I tried to speak them, you turned awkwardly and walked away, drove away, away from me and into your new life. And I stood in the wreckage of the old one, alone and quite bewildered by the way everything had suddenly turned upside down.

Today, 365 days later...

He said, "I love you" and kissed the end of my nose as we prepared breakfast together.

I kissed him back, "I love you too," my heart so full as I gazed into his sea-coloured eyes.

The world has turned full circle, a complete year. And in that time everything has changed. Everything is right side up again, bewilderment replaced by contentment. I have lost a husband, but found true love. How has that happened in just 365 days?

Miracles may not happen overnight. But they can clearly manifest in less than a year.

Thank you, multiverse.

The Sacred Round

As a child, I was fascinated by the idea of saints days and festivals. I loved the notion that each day was sacred to a particular saint - be it those I had heard of like St John the Baptist or St Patrick, or someone a little more obscure and exotic, like St Willibald or St Gilbert of Sempringham. I also loved the folk customs attached to different times of year, such as cheese-rolling, well-dressing, maypole dancing and hobby 'osses. It made each day special in its own right, even if to most people it was just another Tuesday.

Later, when I recognised I was Pagan, a whole new calendar revealed itself to me. Rather than the year being broadly carved up into New Year-Easter-Birthday-Summer Holidays-Christmas (with the odd quirky diversion like Pancake Day (Shrove Tuesday) or Hallowe'en thrown in), I now had a 'Wheel of the Year' with eight festivals to celebrate, spread evenly through the year. The option of adding in ancient (and modern) Goddess and God festivals, plus the lunar cycle of new, full and dark moons added yet another rich strand to the tapestry of 'special days'.

My favourite element to the Pagan calendar is that it is specifically linked in to the natural cycle of the Earth - at least here in the British Isles! From Yule, at the darkest point of midwinter when we celebrate the rebirth of the sun, round through the first inklings of spring at Imbolc, the tipping into the light half of the year at Eostre, the full on burst of green fecundity at Beltane, the longest, midsummer day at Litha, the start of the grain harvest at Lughnasadh, the completion of harvest and tipping into the dark half of the year at Mabon, the entry into winter and the apparent hibernation of life at Samhain, back to Yule again. I love the way the Wheel of the Year connects me to the Earth and Her cycles.

Latterly, I have been pondering a personal calendar, tied in to the changing seasons around me. Just as the Native Americans named their moons to denote these changes - Leaf Moon, Ice Moon, Blossom Moon etc - I want to mark a connectedness between events in my own little bioregion and my calendar.

I have already written on here about my love for making elderflower cordial in early summer. So that is one of my personal calendar events. There is also the harvesting of the blackcurrants, which seems to fall around my birthday and never fails to remind me of childhood summers in my grandparent's orchard. Then there are the sweetpea flowers which bloom at about the same time and remind me of the little bunch that Grandpa always brought me for my birthday. The opening of the first snowdrops - mid to late February here, Halfway Up A Hill - and the annual return of the swallows in April. And in the greyness of late winter the magical flocks of starlings. Buffy sitting on her clutch of eggs in spring. Making sloe gin in autumn. The village show in late summer. Witchcamp.

None of these events have the same date each year, each depending on the weather and other variables. But each has a season, seasons which melt into each other and transform as the Wheel turns, swinging around and away and then back again with reassuring familiarity. They mark my time and place in this world.

What's marked on your personal calendar?

Gooseberry Jam for Eva

I first met Eva not long after moving to Wales. Within moments of meeting, she had signed me up as a volunteer at the Day Club for the elderly she ran in the village. She would have made a great army recruitment officer.

Small in stature (under 5 feet) yet huge in personality, Eva was a force to be reckoned with. Always immaculately turned out and with flawless coiffure and makeup, a lifetime of chainsmoking had left her with a deep, gravelly voice with which she belied her ladylike exterior by peppering her conversation with choice profanities. Blunt to the point of rudeness, never failing to call a spade a bloody spade, she prided herself on her fierce honesty and refusal to take any nonsense from anyone. Strong men quailed when confronted with her glare.

Yet she was also incredibly kind hearted, generous to a fault, hardworking and completely dedicated to both the Day Club and those she loved.

I was lucky that she took a shine to me straight away, and forgave any of my slip ups (such as the time I left a kettle boiling in the kitchen and got distracted, only to return twenty minutes later to find the room filled with dense steam) with a mild, "Well don't do it again!" rather than the strict dressing-down reserved for those who had truly offended her sensibilities.

About five years ago, Eva suffered a serious heart attack. The Day Club went into a kind of numb shock. Eva was the heart, soul and backbone of the club. No one had truly understood the extent of her dedication and sheer hard work until suddenly she wasn't around. After a few months of limping along without her, she returned, yet the heart attack had taken its toll on her health. She continued organising there for another year or so, yet it was clearly too much for her. Eventually, she skilfully manouevred me into replacing her as organiser of the Club, and (by now in her seventies) became one of the members instead of the chief worker.

However, it was hard for Eva to sit on the sidelines and watch, where once she led. For a while she didn't come to the club, preferring to stay at home alone. Any solicitous enquiries about her welfare or whether she was lonely were met with sharp rebuttals. "I have plenty of friends!" She would snap. "You don't have to patronise me!"

Happily, she eventually began to attend again, although I believe she never stopped seeing it as 'her' club. She certainly never hesitated to tell me what I was doing wrong or how I could do it better! But at the same time, our relationship deepened into mutual respect, and more than that, true friendship. Eva couldn't drive, so I'd take her shopping sometimes and together we'd happily trawl Carmarthenshire's plant nurseries, second hand shops and markets, or go to the local village fetes together. She would also advise me on how to live my life, sometimes quite hilariously. One of her choicest bits of wisdom, which made me laugh out loud, came earlier this year. She knew that T and I had split up, and when I said I was going on holiday to Spain with a (female) friend, Eva advised me "That's the spirit! Find a nice bloke, and enjoy yourself for a couple of hours." Awww, I thought. She wants me to find a holiday romance! But then she added, "Then tell him to p*** off!" which had me in stitches.

It turned out that I loved making jam and Eva loved eating it, so she'd save all her old jam jars for me and I'd send them back re-filled every time I made a new batch. One day when I went round, she'd found an old jelly bag and the stand for it which she no longer used, and gave them to me. Needless to say, her kindness was well-repaid in all flavours of jelly! I think of her every time I use it.

Eva particularly loved gooseberry jam, so I always kept her well-stocked. She declared the batch I made last summer the best she'd ever tasted, and having just completed this year's batch, I would love her opinion on how it compares.

Sadly I can't get Eva's opinion. Sadly my dear, irreplaceable friend died, quite suddenly, in April. Sadly, I didn't realise just how much she meant to me until she was gone.

Eva was a true character, a one-off. Fierce, kind, uncompromising, funny. I will think of her and smile every time I make jam. Especially the gooseberry.

Strawberries and Cream

My head said, "You can't eat strawberries and cream for breakfast!" as I searched the fridge for inspiration this morning. "Be sensible. You always eat something low fat, high fibre, low sugar for breakfast."

***

My head said, "You can't start a new relationship. You're just on the rebound. You aren't even properly divorced yet."

and few weeks later,

"You can't be in love. It's too soon. It's not safe. You're too old. It's too late."

***

I smiled.

Sometimes my head doesn't know the whole story. Or even the half of it.

But my heart does.

***

This morning I ate strawberries and cream for breakfast.

They were sweet and juicy and delicious, and my head had to admit that sometimes my heart knows best.

***

Summer Solstice Blessings

Yesterday, I joined with friends to celebrate the Summer Solstice. In the garden of one of the Moot members, we first blessed the area he has earmarked for what will eventually become a stone circle within a grove of trees. The area already feels magical, sacred. I hope we will all celebrate many more festivals together there over the coming years.

Then, as the evening sun slanted through tall trees we watched a ritual drama unfold. The Oak King and Holly King battled for supremacy - the Holly King (of winter) eventually claiming victory over the Oak King (of summer) whose strength begins to decline along with the sun now that the longest day has passed.

However, the visualisation that followed reminded us that there is still plenty of summer left to come, many more blue skies and sunny days before the cool breath of autumn is felt on our skin. The visualisation took us to a midsummer celebration where we took stock of our many blessings at this time, and afterwards we were each given a pouch (handknitted by Pinky) to which we added shells and beads to symbolise those blessings. I took a small, yet perfect spiral shell for mine, which seemed to me to sum up the simple contentment with life that I currently feel.

Having found myself again I have also found new love. My relationship with - well, let's call him IB for now - is blossoming and I am very, very happy.

I am planning for my future and examining ways that I may be able to stay at Halfway Up A Hill, instead of moving as I first thought I would have to when T and I parted.

I have begun co-teaching a series of magickal workshops with a friend, which are going even better than expected and bringing in a little extra cash.

And later this week, my parents will finally - after all kinds of delays and disappointments over the last two years or so - move into their new home, about 10 miles from me. It will be so lovely to have them close by.

So many blessings, summed up in one tiny shell.

Today, Halfway Up A Hill...

Today, Halfway Up A Hill, the sun was shining, and the sweet, heady scent of elderflowers drifted on the breeze.

Bees bumbled happily in the comfrey patch, swallows swooped and dived in a blue sky and a cheeky blackbird feasted on newly-ripe redcurrants.

The cats - Bear, Marley and Herbert (who had stopped by for a visit) sunned themselves on the warm paving.

The chickens wandered happily through lush summer grass, scratching for delicacies and murmuring gossip to each other. The geese cooled their feet in the pond before dozing in the shade of the elder tree.

And Moonroot worked in the garden, enjoying the sensation of warm, damp earth on her hands and the sun on her back. Later she picked the first strawberries of the season and planned an afternoon of elderflower cordial making...

Life is sweet.