Drawn to the Country

Since moving to the country just over a decade ago I have been compelled to record the beauty I find in the every-day, as the seasons come and go, and for a few years now, I have been sharing my thoughts and sketches on rural life through this blog.

I am, however, also a big fan of printed matter, of proper books with paper pages that can you can flick through over morning coffee. Books that will spend an evening with you on the sofa, lodge by your bedside or cheer up a good friend.

With this in mind, I'm really excited to announce the publication of DRAWN TO THE COUNTRY.

Arranged seasonally, over 128 pages, the book takes you through the delights and challenges of a year in the Suffolk countryside... You'll hear about my gardening exploits, be introduced to my chickens, meet some extraordinary Suffolk characters and take some day trips to the coast and beyond!  

"Mary has beautifully captured the unique character of my home county Suffolk in this delightful book." 

Paula Pryke OBE, Florist

For more info, and how to purchase, please visit www.conkerpress.com

Road closed

It has been positively Mediterranean in Suffolk this week.

I have not minded the odd imposed detour on my travels. 

All the better for soaking up the glittering landscape.

“Roadworks” in Suffolk often means that a three kilometre stretch of road is completely barred to 
traffic for a week to enable the methodical filling of a few potholes. 

The upside is that I had to take a diversion on the way to the gym yesterday. 

I discovered a winding lane fringed with barley, ears bent to the tune of the breeze 

and gleaming in the sun on the cusp of the hill.

Welcome to the cow shed

One of the drawbacks of living in the country is getting from a to b. Scant public transport and winding roads can mean a lot of time spent behind the wheel. But I treat this as an opportunity to revel in extraordinary skies, keep abreast of crop rotation and appreciate the richness of East Anglian architecture.

Time permitting, I would also mention that there are glorious surprises in store if one takes a spontaneous trip down a stony drive to investigate one of the many chalked up roadside placards. Sunday was no exception. I had completed my parental taxi duty and it was such lovely evening I decided to take the circuitous route home. I was soaking up the beautiful mackerel sky when I saw a sign that said ‘raw milk fourth left’.

Irresistible. 

It was a long drive.

Keep a troshing??

Norfolk dialect for carry on with the threshing, roughly translated as keep going! I think. 

Anyhow, I kept going. 

Past lawns peppered with geese and peacocks.

To a little wooden shed, with a fridge, an honesty box, and deliciously creamy raw milk, 

straight from the udders of six beloved Jersey cows named after Goddesses.

Yes, I’ll be volunteering for that taxi run every time!

Keep up with the developments @Old Hall Farm, Woodton, on social media, 

there are plans afoot for more local produce in a bigger shed! 

April

No matter how long the winter, Spring is sure to follow. 

Proverb

The lanes speak for themselves, 

The tenebrous shroud of winter is pierced by blackthorn blossom. 

Green seeps quietly into the thicket while yellow screeches from the horizon. 

I simply watch and wait, 

in wonder.

Hedgerow adagio

Colour is slowly being wrung from the hedgerows.

As the summer greens fade, coral and carmine briefly dazzle,

then slip in tatters.

Discarded pantomime costumes.

Leaving winter sketched on the horizon.

Along the lane

The countryside never stands still.
Straw bales have been collected up and loom in great stacks, leaving bleached stubble scrawled across the page.
Ancient hedge boundaries define the landscape, shadowy contours dividing the fields, like the well worn folds of a cherished letter.
Then the plough cuts deep, unfolding a veneer of mahogany and teak.
Resplendent in the pink tinged afternoon light. 

 

Late August

 Morning,

noon, 

and night.

The combine's hum,

draws the harvest home.

Suffolk skies

With Wimbledon fortnight well under way, what better excuse to relax and enjoy some changeable weather!

Country pursuits

The other week I stopped to admire the knapped flint tower of a local country church. 

From where I stood between a row of craggy tree trunks I wouldn’t have been at all surprised to hear the hollow drumbeat of a woodpecker echoing around the churchyard. 

In fact, as I circled the church I felt sure I could detect a rhythmic tap. But it had an unusual muffled quality, which ruled out the woodpecker, and anyway it appeared to be seeping out of an inauspicious village hall across the road.

Mystery solved as I pressed my nose to the window. I had stumbled across a weekly Wednesday morning orchestra rehearsal. The players were chomping their way through Beethoven’s ninth with palpable application, and due consideration for arthritic fingers. 

The tap I had heard earlier was from the resonating skins of a pair of shiny kettle drums.

The timpanist stored her spare drumsticks in a vast wicker basket…. now that’s very country!  

And I've a sneaking suspicion there was room in that basket for some foraged wild garlic on her way home too!

We are still not amused.

Last weekend we visited friends who have just made the move from city to country. It was lovely to share in their excitement, to oooh and ahhh about drifts of daffodils and clumps of hellebores, fruit trees in blossom, clipped yew hedges.... slippery paths, crumbling entrance gates, ivy covered walls and neglected woodland.

Their emotions will fluctuate.

An owl hoot at dusk takes your breath away. But, trying to contact plumbers, tree surgeons, telephone engineers and bricklayers whilst still waiting to be connected to the internet leaves one struggling for air.

We should know.

Having moved here over a decade ago we thought we were old hands. Except, since a dramatic hailstorm ten days ago we have had no internet nor phone connection. We are blue in the face, and can empathise completely with newly arrived Jane and Ben.

Welcome to country life, inhale slowly and focus on the horizon.

“I found the poems in the fields

And only wrote them down”

John Clare (1793-1864)

I'm delighted that "Rapeseed Ripple" (above) will be for sale over the Bank Holiday weekend at Art for Cure with all the proceeds going to the very well deserved charity. Lots going on at a wonderful venue... definitely a date for your diary.

April

What a heady couple of days! 
A real burst of spring sunshine. Perfect conditions for gardening and bread making; which should never go hand in hand of course. I have lost count of the number of times this weekend I have interrupted my weeding, to unlace muddy boots, scrub my nails, then shape a ciabatta or check the plumpness of a hot cross bun. 

I have sown seeds, grubbed out brambles and divided perennials to the repetitive warble, whoop and twitter of happy bird song. Fat bumble bees have been flying loop the loop in the sunlight. Fingers crossed they found the broad beans that have been in flower since February and the plum blossom in the orchard.
My son tackled the jobs I have been trembling at for years. Those requiring a pickaxe, a drill and the energy of a teenager. 

For all the ebullience of spring, however, I am going to miss the criss-cross outlines of winter which have become so familiar. The generous outstretched arms of the oak, the clatter of poplar branches in the wind, and the matronly willow stripped down to her crinoline. 

Swollen

There’s no plan that can handle the vagaries of March

Sicilian proverb

One day the sun is bright, the air is brisk and I can be tempted into the garden. The velvet grey pussy willow buds are dusted with yellow pollen and the birds are frantic in their song.

Then it rains again. The pond level rises, the drive is more puddle than gravel, I have to make the dash from studio to the house with an old towel draped over my head and the front door won’t open without a forceful jab from the hip. Gardening is reduced to cosseting tomato and cucumber seedlings on the windowsill. They cheer me up.

When the sky clears it’s a different story altogether. The hedges glisten with swollen rosy buds and the occasional burst of spring green. Wispy blades of winter wheat and barley shimmer to the horizon and I can hear the skylarks high over head.

And if it rains again at the weekend? 
I’ll be content to stay indoors, I’ve got 4 kilos of oranges to turn into marmalade. 
Carpe diem.

Shrove Tuesday

batter, noun; 
a semi-liquid mixture of flour, egg and milk or water, used for making pancakes or for coating food before frying.

batter, verb; 
pummel, pound, buffet, thrash, lash, clobber, bop, biff.

It has been a lively week.

One day grey skies, the next blue.

One day calm and the next unruly.

All the more beguiling.

I have watched the wind carouse with hitherto orderly rows of poplars.

I have heard the wind whistling through the gaps in tight-knit hedges.

It has scattered fragments of untidy clouds across the horizon.

But the ash tree stands firm. Resolutely clinging to fat bunches of keys, waiting to unlock spring for us all.

Winter woollens

"The leaves fall, the wind blows, and the farm country slowly changes from the summer cottons into its winter wools. " Henry Beston 1888-1968

I discovered some allotments the other day. 

Fine drizzle blurred the patchwork of frost damaged leaves, listing beanpoles, sagging netting and spent stalks. 

The season was gently unravelling.

Bright red chard, leeks and brassicas stood proud of the roughly tilled ground. 

Great cheer to the gardener.

A Hint of Romance

As we coast along towards Valentine’s day here’s a couple of recent sketches. 

Spot the romantic details! 

Remembering

“As long as this exists, how can I be sad.” Anne Frank

A diary entry about a single chestnut tree that Anne could see from an attic window while she was in hiding.

I haven’t counted the numbers of trees I can see from my studio window but I appreciate every unique twig and even more so when I think about Anne Frank’s unreservedly thankful attitude.

A Guided Tour

I thought the new year would be a good time to take you for an unhurried stroll around my local market town. The impressive church dates from 1470, there’s a “butcher, a baker and a candlestick maker”, fish on Fridays and early closing on Tuesdays! 

It’s a wibbly-wobbly kind of place with many of its ancient and creaking buildings testament to the fifteenth century when East Anglia was, second to London, the wealthiest and most densely populated area of England! 

The narrow streets are a medley of tilting lintels and lopsided gables. Tipping facades are painted in elephant, caramel, turkish delight, turmeric, vellum, and candy floss.

When we arrived ten years ago cappuccino had not been added to the Suffolk dictionary. Now we have a heady choice of four locations to enjoy a decent coffee, and even better, if you’re around for the Wednesday morning market you can buy locally roasted beans that make the best coffee ever. 

Well, in 2015 it's a far cry from London and that’s the way we like it!

September

How did we so quickly tumble into September? 

Carrots, sweetcorn, lettuce, beans, courgette, cucumber and plums, the succulent currency of August, 

has been exchanged for Autumn’s apples and blackberries. 

 The drone of heavy farm machinery competes with approaching thunderclouds as summer is rolled swiftly away. 

Rural idyll? 

Two buzzards were calling to each other last night; an extraordinary experience and an extraordinary sound, but every thirty-five seconds for two hours?  As I lay awake, I was wondering how I could most accurately describe the hullabaloo they were making. Imagine a terrier chewing on a squeaky toy and you’re somewhere close. 

Sweet dreams!

May diary

Tues.
Sunny and blustery. The ground beneath the wisteria is strewn with petals, brutally torn from their elegant racemes. I feel the same disappointment as that of a child whose carefully threaded beads have slid, unstoppable, off their string.

Weds.
There have been a couple of blackbirds on the lawn all day. Dad is run ragged, dashing to and fro scooping up beakfuls of food. Baby, who is as big as daddy, unabashed, sits and squawks, waiting for the next morsel. Mum’s keeping well out of it!

Thurs. 
Ah, what a gentle and soothing timbre; rain falling on my studio roof. Rain falling on the garden. Rain filling up the pond and water butt. Gentle, caring droplets, dancing around my seedlings encouraging them to sing. 
There’s a tap-tap-tap on my window. I can see the tail feathers of a long-tailed tit but its scraping beak is blocked from my view. A quick look outside and I can see it’s pulling spider egg cocoons from the window frame to build its nest. Spider silk and moss most perfectly crocheted together.

Fri.
Galloping romping May. Boundless greens yelping from the hedgerows. Daubed with towering chestnut blooms and spattered with dizzy cow-parsley.