With a 9 am therapy session scheduled for this morning, I was up a little earlier than I have tended to be. The session itself went well enough. Perhaps deliberately so, these sessions tend to evoke strong feelings, and I can sometimes find myself engulfed in emotion. We explored my tendency to over-prepare, and my sometimes compulsive need for organisation and planning. I’m apparently supposed to allow the inner child in me to surface some more, at the expense of the adult in me wanting to assert itself. These dictates are all well and good in the confines of the therapy sessions, but putting theory into practice can be harder than it sounds out in the real world. Of course, this is but one of what will surely be a wider range of topics we will explore together, so it’ll be interesting to see how the therapy sessions take shape in the coming weeks and months. I’m at the very least a willing participant going into it all with an open mind.
With the therapy session out of the way, I parked myself in the back garden to relax and soak up the atmosphere.
The back garden here is open, but secluded. From my vantage point, there is no direct line of sight to any other property—the perfect place to sit and write at my laptop. John placed a table for me on the paved patio area, sandwiching me between the grassy section of lawn and the pergola behind me, covered in climbing plants that provide shade to anyone sitting on one of the benches nestled there between ceramic planters. Beyond the grass is the garage, built to match the style of the house. Encircled around me are a range of flowering plants in full bloom, runner beans, strawberries and trees. A small bird bath water feature sits perched atop a makeshift stand. Like everything else here, it’s cobbled together with recycled bits of this and that. The red-brick house is mostly obscured with climbing hydrangea in full foliage. The white petals complement the reds, purples and yellows on display around me. You really get the sense you are a part of nature here.
As I sit here, the sounds and senses of nature surround me. The gentle rustling of the wind comes and goes, letting me sense where the trees are around me. Bumblebees hover around the garden, as do many other insect species. An occasional butterfly comes into view. The various bird calls join the rustling leaves as the backdrop to a typical British summer’s day in the countryside. Numerous species of birds occasionally land on one of the many bird feeders dotted around the grounds. Woodpeckers, bluetits, blackbirds, robins, sparrows and others are regular visitors. A breeding pair of swallows has taken up residence in the garage rafters. Like everywhere else in this region, sheep bleats can be heard in the various hedgerow-lined fields undulating up and down adjacent to the property.
I can see half a dozen or more clearly defined fields backing onto the garden. None are planted with arable crops at the moment. Most are lying fallow or being used as grazing land. Each is a subtly different shade of yellow or light green. Beyond those fields, a densely forested hill rises in the distance, some two hundred metres away, directly behind the back garden. The hill is like a flattened dome, filling much of the skyline. An adjoining hill to one side creates a natural valley, which is where the wind tends to come from. Where the fields become too steep to be cultivated, the hill’s treeline begins. Those trees cover the entirety of the hill as seen from this vantage point.
All the senses are engaged here. The wind carries a range of scents through the air, stimulating the senses in ways you aren’t always conscious of. I can smell the sweet scents of the flowers around me, the unmistakable essence of freshly cut grass and wet leaves. Being surrounded by so many fields of grazing sheep and cattle, there’s also an unmistakable farmyard scent in the air.
The sights, sounds and scents all around me combine into a single, enveloping presence of sensory stimulation. I’m strangely both conscious and unconscious of it all at the same time. It’s almost like an ever-present white noise occupying every one of my senses simultaneously. It’s peaceful. Restful. Calming. It embraces me, creating a sense of security, taking me back to a simpler time when I played outdoors growing up, exploring the nearby woods and fields. That connectedness with the environment I felt back then echoes here in the wind.
Besides nature, the other ever-present aspect of life here at John and Lisa’s house is quizzes. Like myself, John and Lisa are avid brainiacs who love nothing more than a good quiz or brainteaser. All of us like nothing more than to sit at the table playing cards or board games. When we’re not doing that, we’re sitting by the TV participating in the numerous TV panel quiz shows. There’s a radio musical quiz show called ‘10 to the Top’, which Lisa plays along with every day like clockwork.
With the daily 10 to the Top routine dispensed with this morning, we decided to head out for a drive around the countryside. We didn’t go far. One of the limiting factors is Mercy, the dog, who is old and frail. Still, we all enjoyed a couple of hours of scenery, blackberry picking, litter picking and a brief exploration of one of the nearby dammed lakes. From the level of the water behind the dam, it’s plain to see the UK hasn’t received anywhere near the rainfall it would normally get this year. John took Mercy down to the now considerably lower waterline. That would typically be uneventful, but the new shoreline is considerably muddier than it normally is. Mercy got stuck in the mud after wading in a little, so John had to retrieve her. He ended up submerging himself up to the ankles in gloopy mud as a result—all part of rural life here in Wales.
Back at home, we whipped up a few sandwiches for lunch. After writing up the first section of today’s blog, I had an impromptu video call with both kids. They looked and sounded happy enough, though Joey in particular does seem to be missing me, which is sweet.
As I was sitting here typing, Lisa commented she spotted a glaring error in the blog entry from a couple of days ago. She felt it was a stretch for me to declare that both she and John are healthy eaters. Like most couples, John gets ribbed mercifully by Lisa whenever the opportunity arises. I’ve only managed to come out unscathed over the past few days because Sandy isn’t here. It’s like the old joke: if a man is standing in the middle of a forest talking, and his wife isn’t there to hear him, is he still wrong?
While enjoying the last of the pleasant summer warmth, I was going back and forth with Claude, my AI friend, on polishing the day’s blog writing. This is something I got into the habit of doing while blogging our holiday in Florida last year. I don’t use AI to write anything, but I do solicit its feedback on whether I have missed anything, where there might be hidden errors or inconsistencies and so on. I much prefer that my writing remains in my own authentic voice, but I do benefit from the amazing skills the AI brings to the table to help with polish.
I’ve been giving some thought to what to do tomorrow. I’m considering taking the car out and exploring what there is to see a bit farther away. Lisa helped me with some ideas, but I think I may head out toward Aberystwyth. Dad was evacuated there when he was a kid during World War II. When we were kids, we holidayed at Butlins holiday camp in Pwllheli, North Wales. During that holiday, Mum and Dad took me along with them to Aberystwyth to visit the foster family Dad stayed with back then. I remember the visit well, and have fond memories of that day. I doubt I’ll remember the place itself, but I don’t really need much of a reason to choose any particular day trip destination, and these memories are as good as any.
John laid on a wonderful, traditional roast dinner this evening. It was made all the more special given it included vegetables picked on the spot fresh from the garden. Delicious.
As has been the case with almost every other night, dinner was followed with more board games around the table. Tonight was especially hilarious because Lisa had an uncanny run of bad luck with the feature cards, which coincidentally kept sending her backwards down the board, ruining the good forward momentum she had otherwise enjoyed. I struggled to contain my laughter when she got tantalisingly close to the finishing line only for me to get the ‘Swap spaces with a player of your choice’ feature card, sending Lisa back towards the beginning again, where I had been languishing. Oh how John and I laughed. Lisa…not so much.
The weather is forecast to cool off considerably over the coming days. It will drop down from the 28-32 ºC we’ve been enjoying over the past week to a much more British 17-20 ºC. That won’t change much from my perspective, other than I’ll end up not sitting behind my laptop in the garden quite so much.
It’s looking like I will be here in Wales for a few days more than I originally planned. I’ve been in touch with some of our extended family in South Ockendon. Uncle Dave and Auntie Lilly’s family—so much a part of my childhood—have seven children, and they get together occasionally. I’ve arranged with Carol to join them on the 14th, so I will stay here until then.
It has been another eventful day of doing relatively little in the grand scheme of things. I thought I’d be struggling to find things to write about by now, but every little thing has a story to tell. I surprise myself with how interesting a story I can spin out of doing nothing. John and Lisa have been great. They’ve allowed me to simply be, affording me the mental headroom to just exist and be at peace with my surroundings. It’s hard to put into words how welcome this has been for me. I think I’ve needed this. Despite living so far apart, it’s an ever-present source of comfort to know they are there whenever I need them.