At the beginning of May I headed northwards to Oswestry. I was accompanied on my journey by Jeni (aka The Navigator!) who was coming to stay in Moelfre for a few days to celebrate May Day with our friends.
We headed off up the M5 and took the first Worcester junction heading for Leominster, Craven Arms and Shrewsbury. I'd told our hosts that we would arrive mid-afternoon around 3.00pm as I thought that Jeni and I would either have packed a picnic or we would stop and have lunch on the way. We passed Ludlow round about lunchtime and started to look for places to stop, eventually choosing, purely because of its name, The Lazy Trout Cafe. It turned out to be a transport cafe under new management and, at first, we were the sole customers. We ordered one of the versions of the All Day Breakfast and sat down. Shortly afterwards some bikers came in, and I was really pleased to see that it was three couples all about my age. They were obviously off for a short break over the Bank Holiday weekend and were very friendly. Breakfast when it arrived was really tasty and the cuppa wasn't bad either, but the poor chap was struggling to keep up with the orders when we left as several more customers had arrived by then and he was single-handed (not literally, you understand!)
As we approached our destination I glanced at the dashboard clock – 2.57pm. I must have inherited the punctual gene from my father, because he could estimate the time of a journey almost to the minute!
We were greeted with a cup of tea and a catch-up tour of the three-acre garden. They had had really bad snow in the valley only a few weeks ago and had watched helplessly as some ewes and lambs in an adjacent field starved to death because the farmer was unable to get to them. Next year they have asked him to drop a couple of large hay bales at their property and they will feed it to the sheep if the snow returns again. The garden had suffered some terrible damage too; a lot of the conifers had just split away and were bent out of all recognition; several trees had lost limbs; many of the young fruit trees had been nibbled by, what at first appeared to be, giant rabbits, until you realised how deep the snow had been, and many of the lavender bushes had succumbed. The worst damage was to their lovely summer house that was the focal point of the garden – the weight of snow on the roof had snapped the main roof support and the walls had started to collapse outwards, the whole structure was held together with ratchet straps, polypropylene rope and covered in a tarpaulin. As the insurance loss adjuster said: 'I think this shed has lost all its integrity!' Luckily, this does mean that they are able to replace it in the near future as Dawn now runs retreat weekends based in it (www.cilrhiw.org.uk).
On Sunday, May 5th, we got up quite early to prepare for the festivities; while Jeni prepared a rice salad, I cooked some cheese scones and Dawn scoured the garden for flowers. Over coffee we made our garlands using willow as the basic structure and then adding heather, primulas, grape hyacinths and daffodils as decoration. Tony had been the May King last year having won the stone ball-throwing contest, so was busy inscribing his name and year on the ball. Then it was time for the off. The Celebration was held at the same place as last year, at a privately-owned nature reserve not far from Oswestry. It is an ideal spot as there is an area of flat ground for erecting the Maypole and a small area for camping, plus a man-made hillock from which to get a grand view of proceedings. It is set in a disused quarry and everywhere amongst the trees were swathes of wood anemones and primroses (it has been a really good year for primroses) and, down by the stream, we saw some kingcups growing – 'like buttercups on steroids' as Tony said!
The weather had been overcast and a little chilly but once the Maypole dancing started the sun came out and it became quite warm. The actual Maypole dancers had been rehearsing the intricate dances for weeks, but the rest of us were not allowed to rest on our laurels as we all had to form a ring around the 'official' dancers and dance along with them. I ran out of steam ages before Jeni did so retired to the hillock to take photos. It was lovely to see people that I recognised from the previous two gatherings that I had been to and we were made to feel very welcome. Everyone brings food to share – hence the rice salad and cheese scones – and the variety and abundance is remarkable. It is just the sort of buffet food that I love so I didn't come away hungry. During the day a horn of wine is passed from male to female, female to male, etc. accompanied by a kiss, and it is incredibly difficult to drink from without sloshing it down your front – a bit like a yard-of-ale glass that you often find in country pubs. There is also one guy who makes absolutely lethal chilli vodka that he likes to share with people. I was warned about this the first year that I went, but still felt that I should try it, as I have done ever since. As long as you are ready for the burn, it is a really nice drink – very warming on a chilly day!
As with many customs that have their roots in the Middle Ages, there are some set characters; the May King (chosen by a feat of strength); the May Queen (chosen by the May King who chooses the garland that appeals to him most when they are placed around the Maypole); the Fool (who acts as a sort of Master of Ceremonies) and The Green Man (a mysterious, masked character who wanders around being enigmatic). Towards the end of the day there was also a play, written especially for the day some years ago and revived this year. It told the story of two brothers, (one good, one evil) who are wooing the Queen of the May. If the evil brother triumphs spring will not come, but luckily the good brother triumphs in the end (aided by the Green Man) and Spring bursts into blossom. It was reminiscent of a Medieval Mummers Play and great fun to watch.
For the second year running Tony won the show of strength, even though there were many more contenders this year, and most of them younger, but muscles honed through gardening on a steep slope stood him in good stead and we returned home in triumphant mood – all in all, a very lovely day.
The next day I put Jeni on a train and Dawn and Tony left for ten days in Brittany where they are trying to convert a small building into a dwelling that they can let out as a gite, eventually. It is slow work as they can only get out there once or twice a year for about ten days at a time, but I am sure they will make it.
With everyone's departure the weather seemed to go into a sulk, and despite the fact that it was May, the next ten days were typical April weather – a few sunny periods interspersed with torrential 'showers'. This was really frustrating as I wanted to do so much in the garden and just couldn't get out there enough. I did manage to weed some of the vegetable beds and planted out several rows of potatoes and also transplanted several self-set shrubs to better positions but there was tons more that I wanted to do, just to tidy up the snow devastation. Because of this, and also because I won't be that far away then, I have agreed to go back for another two weeks at the end of June when we can all work on projects together.
The ten days that I spent alone were very quiet. I had Jasper, the Miniature Schnauzer, and two cats for company, but the nearest neighbour is about a quarter of a mile distant with the tiny hamlet of Moelfre about half a mile away in another arm of the valley. There is very occasional passing traffic but for the most part the silence is only broken by the bleating of the ewes for their lambs in the valley bottom and the constant birdsong. As the floor of the valley is only a couple of hundred yards across and the sides are very steep, the echoes are incredible. When Jasper first came to live here he used to bark at his own bark as it reverberated back across the valley! Consequently, the dawn chorus (it starts at about 4.30am at the moment) is very loud but full of gloriously different birdsong – I counted more than 25 different bird species in or above the garden while I was there, and I also heard the cuckoo on several days. One morning, after an evening and a night of torrential rainfall, I awoke to a new noise – water. I leaped out of bed and pulled back the curtain to see that the small stream on the far side of the valley had breached its banks and was busy forming a new stream bed in the centre of the valley, with quite a large area under water. Luckily, the sheep could move to the valley sides easily and so could get out of the potentially dangerous area, and the house is situated many feet above the valley floor so was in no danger at all – at least all of the water butts in the garden had refilled overnight!
My hosts returned late on the Thursday evening and on Friday morning I packed the car and headed South, back to Somerset for a couple of weeks. It has worked out really well as Jeni's novel is having its official launch on Wednesday, 22nd May and I will be able to go along to Waterstones in Wells to take part and give her moral support. The book, entitled 'The Image of Survival' by Jeni Oborn, is available to order from any branch of Waterstones and can be purchased online from Amazon – OK! Proud-mother plug over!
No comments:
Post a Comment