A rite of passage

‘There’s a vegan café in Seaton,’ said Frog on Thursday morning.

    He’d read about it on Facebook where he spends quite a bit of time each day – at least I think that’s what he’s doing when he’s down in his ‘den’ and there's no sign of him listening to music. I don’t venture down there very often as the room’s semi-underground and makes me feel faint. My room is carved out of the loft. We call it my ‘eyrie’. Frog only comes up to my eyrie when he wants to crawl into the eaves of the house through the small door behind my desk in order to check some pipe or cable.

Frog in his den

My eyrie

We try to go out one day a week - it’s our way of reminding ourselves what’s important – and today was looking like that day. I’d suggested one of our usual itineraries but now Frog, completely uncharacteristically, was suggesting something different. I grabbed the opportunity, and suggested that we could combine a lunchtime visit to this new café with an exploration of the coast path east of Seaton, somewhere we’d never been before. We try to keep everyone happy. Ellie likes the bright lights, Frog likes food (even if it’s vegan), and I like exploring the countryside.

Seaton – which we hadn’t visited for 42 years – turned out to be a pleasant, quiet town in a wide bay with stunning white cliffs.

Seaton

Tourism was low key but lots of people milled around and the vegan café had no space for us. We found somewhere else and sat in the baking sun eating prawn sandwiches (me) and a tuna and cheese panini (Frog). A long way from vegan, but jolly nice. A man on the esplanade sang songs from musicals to original backing tracks. ‘Feed the birds . . . Tuppence a bag . . . ’ Ellie hoovered up crisp fragments under our feet and tried to make friends with everybody who walked past. One of the waitresses gave her a biscuit and we could see Ellie adding Seaton to her mental list of Places She Liked (Glastonbury being another). 

Ellie eating out at Glastonbury

The route to the coast path took us up a steep but thankfully shady lane and then through a golf course, which wasn’t on my map. Walkers were tolerated so long as they kept to the designated route which was, I presumed, the old footpath. Small pockets of rough grass . . .

 . . . had been left among the manicured lawns . . . 

Lovely view but . . .

. . . and I silently mourned what the hillside must once have been. Why would you pay £25 for a round of golf when you could walk for nothing? (Joni Mitchell would agree with me.*)

We reached a proper footpath and then we saw this.

This was more like it, I thought. Frog looked slightly green.

Even though Devon didn’t change to Dorset until you got to Lyme Regis, the soil - as the white cliffs indicated - was now chalky rather than red sandstone and the landscape was completely different - drier, greyer, less lush. I felt as if I was in a different country.

There were few wildflowers around. Just this Old Man’s Beard (a wild Clematis) which likes chalky soil . . .

Old Man's Beard

. . . and this lovely (Small?) Scabious, another chalk plant.

Scabious

Scabious (and bee), to try and show you the size of the flower, which is about 3/4 inch diameter

The sun beat down and the one small bottle of water we’d brought was nearly finished. There were no puddles or streams for Ellie and she had to share our bottle, drinking from Frog’s cupped hands.

 After about an hour, we arrived at this.

The board was covered with warnings about the dangers of the wood we were about to enter . . .

. . . and strict exhortations to Keep to the Waymarked Route.

It said that the next five miles took most people at least 3 1/2 hours to complete, repeated the information that there was no way out either inland or down to the sea and added that there was no mobile-phone reception either.

So far we’d met one other walker but he was too serious to stop and talk, and a runner who was too exhausted to do more than nod his head in our direction. We wondered if they’d come all the way from Lyme Regis. No doubt we appeared to them like rank amateurs, Frog in his sandals and me in my sneakers.

This stretch of the coast path was starting to feel like one of those rites of passage like crossing the Nullabor Plain in Australia (when I went there in 1975) or the Camino de Santiago, the Spanish pilgrimage Frog’s brother had done.

   ‘I think we ought to turn round now,’ I said, knowing that if we didn’t Frog would be put off the area for life.

   Frog nodded gratefully.

   ‘But we could always come back another day,’ I continued. ‘After all, we only have to go as far as we want and then we can turn back.’

   ‘Indeed,’ said Frog, surprising me for the second time that day. ‘And I’ve got my ship-to-shore so we could always contact the coastguard if anything happened.’

   He brought his marine-band radio whenever we walked along the coast and amused himself listening to ships from all over the world calling the ports, conversations in French from just over the Channel, and two potty-mouthed fishermen who whiled away their days at sea complaining to each other.

   ‘We could even go all the way to Lyme Regis,’ I pressed on, ‘and get a bus back.’

   ‘We could,’ said Frog, sounding almost excited.

*'Big Yellow Taxi'

Arable weeds - a treasure-trove

This is a very long post, so you might like to read it a bit at a time.

We’ve had a stressful week (trying to change our phone and broadband suppliers) and, even though we’d had two outings and I’d wanted to write about them, I’d either not had time or discovered when I did sit down to write that I was too tired and nothing worked out. Today however after a good night’s sleep I’ve decided to abandon all those ideas and write instead a simple post about my dogwalk round home yesterday. Or at least that was the idea . . .

*  *  *

Saturday 12 September

As usual I climbed the track behind the house, on the way catching up with two delightful women with five Shelties (Shetland Sheepdogs) between them. The youngest of the dogs, Coco, had been born just before the lockdown and so had never had a chance to get used to strange humans and was frightened of them. I spent a while in a squat talking to her and managed to get her to take a biscuit from my hand three times. I felt very proud and hoped I’d helped.

As they were going the same way as me and as their dogs were very yappy and had got on Ellie’s nerves, I squeezed through a hole in the hedge and sat down to wait while they got ahead.

I was in a field which had been full of some sort of grain last time I visited several weeks earlier. Now the grain was cut but the field hadn’t yet been ploughed and I began to notice that it was full of wildflowers and buzzing with insects (which Ellie was amusing herself by trying to catch).

*  *  *

The first flower I noticed was this.

It’s called 'Spotted' Persicaria after the dark blob in the middle of its leaves and also Red-legs because of its red stalk. It's common on waste ground and a type of Bistort, and I knew all about the Bistorts because I’d seen the larger Amphibious Bistort (which grows both in and beside water, hence its name) on one of our outings during the week and done some research.

Amphibious Bistort on a river bank.

The Bistorts get their name from their twisted rhizome and one type is also known as Snakeweed for the same reason. As I read that I was struck - as I so often am - by how much our ancestors knew about wild plants and the natural world. Would we notice the shape of a plant’s root, would we care, and would we even have the opportunity to discover it as it’s now illegal to dig up wild plants without the landowner’s permission? How many of us have seen a live snake in the English countryside?

*  *  *

I already knew about this Scarlet Pimpernel because it’s always popping up in my veg beds. It has many country names including Change-of-the-weather, John-go-to-bed-at-noon and Poor-man’s-weatherglass (or just about anything you want to invent) because it opens in the morning and closes mid-afternoon or in wet weather. I can’t say that I’ve ever observed that myself or taken the time to notice it – I just read about it - but our ancestors obviously did.

Scarlet Pimpernel

According to Isabella Tree in Wilding (which I’m always quoting), the seeds of Scarlet Pimpernel are eaten by Turtle Doves. The bird’s numbers have declined rapidly in the last 60 years (from a quarter of a million to fewer than 5,000) and one of the reasons is intensive farming which doesn’t have time or space for these so-called weeds.

*  *  *

A plant I've only discovered recently and saw again now is Field Madder. It has minute mauve or pale-pink flowers probably no more than 2mm across (but I haven’t actually measured them), so you don't notice it unless your nose is on the ground.

Field Madder (with Spotted Persicaria and Scarlet Pimpernel)

Strangely though, all my books show the plant with darker purple flowers, which is not my experience.

If you’re a long-term reader of this blog (and paying attention), you may remember me mentioning Wild Madder, a close relative of this plant. I’m puzzled though because the flowers of Wild Madder have five petals and those of Field Madder four (but then I don’t know very much about how plants are classified). Their flowers do however have the same propeller-like shape, which is very distinctive.

*  *  *

Many of the other flowers in the field were tiny and not immediately noticeable, but no less lovely because of that. Such as these . . .

Speedwell

Chickweed

. . . as well as Forget-me-not and Wild Pansy, whose photos came out blurred so aren’t included here. (It was on this walk, because of all the tiny flowers, that I used the flower setting on my camera for the first time, but not sadly for these two plants.)

According to the books, Forget-me-not has the alternative name Scorpion-grass because the flowering stem curls at first like a scorpion’s sting. (How did our ancestors know that? Do we have scorpions in this country?)

Wild Pansy has the alternative name Heartsease (no one says why) and when I lost a baby (see ‘Mother’s Day’) the hospital gave me a folder with a picture of the plant on the front in which to keep mementos. (Would they do that now?)

*  *  *

Slightly larger was this Black Nightshade, named for its black berries.

Black Nightshade

Black Nightshade is poisonous like all members of the Solanum (nightshade) family, except potatoes, peppers, tomatoes and aubergines. Deadly Nightshade was cultivated by monks for medical use but is I believe usually removed nowadays because it’s so dangerous. (I have a vague memory of it popping up in the local churchyard when I was a child, and grown-ups talking about it in hushed voices.)

*  *  *

Also in flower was this Scentless Mayweed.

Scentless Mayweed (with Heartsease, below centre)

It looks like Ox-eye Daisy but has slightly smaller flowers and different leaves – those of the Ox-eye Daisy look like dandelion leaves whereas the Mayweed's look like fennel.

The fennel-like leaves of Scentless Mayweed (with Heartsease, below left)

It's a common arable weed and can appear in quantity, like here in this picture which I took nine years ago.

Scentless Mayweed and Ellie in July 2011 when she was one year old

It’s called ‘Scentless’ because of its sibling ‘Rayless’ Mayweed which has no petals but smells strongly of pineapple when you step on it – and that I have discovered for myself. Unsurprisingly the rayless plant is also known as Pineappleweed.

*  *  *

I also saw Charlock - a cabbagey plant with lemon-yellow flowers, Gorse with its golden blooms, and our old friend Cat's Ear (see 'A wet walk' and 'Blue'), as well as this large plant which I’d never seen before.

It turned out be Dame’s-violet, a type of rocket and a ‘cottage-garden favourite now widely naturalised’. It’s also ‘very fragrant’ - but sadly I didn’t know that then.

*  *  *

What a treasure-trove that field turned out to be, and how thankful I am that I stumbled across it and took the time to explore.

Trusting the process

One of the comments in the recent critiques of my novel was about plot. Plots, the Reader said, should be allowed to develop organically so that they didn’t sound contrived. I understood that comment completely and realised that the problem in my case is one of trust. It’s quite something to let your novel write itself. Or anything, in fact. Not just novels. The same could be applied to life.

So, with that in mind, I’ve stopped trying to pull ideas for a new novel out of the ether and concentrated instead on developing (organically) the writing I already do. Namely, this blog.

I love blog-writing. Response is immediate and supportive, I’m in charge of the whole process (no publisher to interfere) and there’s no pressure for me to be anything other than myself. I write what I want, when I want. Writing this blog is helping me discover myself.

There’s one part of me however that doesn’t appear in the blog, except in brief hints, and that’s my deeper more troubled self, the one that appears when I have my migraines. At the end of each migraine however, after I’ve battled with pain, depression and demons, I come out with some new insight, some new understanding of life and my way forward.

This always makes me think of C S Lewis’s The Silver Chair (Book 6 of the Narnia series).

SPOILER ALERT Do not read this paragraph if you haven’t yet read the book and think you might do so. Each night a mysterious black knight is tied to a chair because each night he goes mad. The children are instructed that they should on no account untie him, however heart-rending his pleas. They do of course untie him and it turns out that he has been enchanted and imprisoned by a sorceress (why is it that all C S Lewis’s baddies are female?) and that the night-time prince is the real non-enchanted one.

In other words, the migraine me is the real real one, and perhaps if I let it out into my other life I won’t need to be ill any more.

But how do I do that? Do I write about it? Do I write about it in this blog? Do I start a whole other blog? Do I write it as if for a blog – because I like the format so much – but don’t yet post it?

With that in mind, I started a file called ‘My Secret Blog’ and planned what I wanted to say in the first post.

But before I could write it, I received this email from my sister’s partner P, a writer and editor himself as well as gardener, house-husband and all-round lovely person.

You should write a book about wild flowers. Write about them the way you do in your blog. All the old wives’ tales, folklore, natural healing properties, threats to their survival etc etc.

I sent back a lukewarm reply, thinking there were already far too many nature memoirs around, and he continued:

Walking and wild flowers through the changing seasons - like your blog - make it chatty and personal, with all your musings. You write so well - I love it when your blog is all about you and Frog and the dog and your walks, with your lovely photographs of the flowers too.

Hmm, I thought. Perhaps it would be a way to present some of my opinions to a wider audience, and how many nature memoirs are there by women anyway? I could only think of two:

And he’s the second person to have said that, the other being creative writing teacher Roselle Angwin, who’s kickstarted several of my writing projects.

So now, I have two ideas. And I wasn’t even looking for them.

An anniversary day out

Tuesday 1 September

Tomorrow is our 42^nd wedding anniversary but today is forecasted to have better weather so we decide to take our celebratory day out today. We head for the coast planning to have what may be our last dip of the year in the sea.

We have lunch at a garden centre on the way, sitting on a spacious terrace in the dappled shade of an olive tree with Ellie at our feet. Unfortunately I've left my camera in the car and I can't be bothered to put my mask on and go back all the way round the one-way system to get it.

The path starts at the back of a village's churchyard, . . .

. . . crosses a small stream via a wooden footbridge . . .

and then climbs through a wood.

We pass a clump of Knapweed in full sun. It’s covered with what I think are moths, judging by the way they fly.

Why so many? Is this their favourite nectar-plant? Is there a colony living nearby? Or is it just that the knapweed is at its best? I know very little about butterflies, and even less about moths.

Soon we glimpse the sea.

We head down to our favourite beach, accessible only on foot or by boat. Unfortunately there’s been a landslip and the path has been diverted and we take several wrong turnings - which, as you may have realised by now is normal on our walks. Luckily, today they’re the result of Frog’s choices so I don’t have to feel guilty.

Ellie starts to look unhappy and I wonder if she’s remembering our last visit with my sister and niece three weeks earlier. Because of the diversion, the final climb down to the beach has to be made on a precarious ladder 20 or so feet long. Then, even though she was shaking, Frog was able to pick her up under his arm and carry her down, but today she struggles frantically and (by mistake) makes bloody gashes all the way up his forearm with her claws.

Somehow though we all make it down. The beach is empty . . .

. . . which is a good thing as Frog has forgotten his swimmers and has to go into the water in his birthday suit.

The water is divine. Calm, clear and surprisingly warm. I put my head under several times, hoping to clear my slight migraine. I wonder if the migraine is the result of the significant date which makes me even more aware than usual of my inadequacies (of which more in another post, perhaps).

We bask in the sun, while Ellie lies in our shade, panting and drinking copious amounts of water. Last time we brought a sunshade for her but then we had an athletic 18-year-old with us who carried it. We decide it’s time to move. 

Ellie is much happier getting back up the ladder, mostly under her own steam with Frog helping.

Now we’re more sure about the path, we have time to savour the walk through the undercliff. I remember that early new potatoes used to be grown on terraces here up until quite recently and I wonder how on earth they managed to clear some space.

As well as wildflowers there are berries everywhere, including these which I think (and later confirm) belong to the Common or Purging Buckthorn.

In spite of its name, it’s apparently much less common than the Alder Buckthorn, which has red or purple berries and I think I may have growing in the garden from time to time but have yet to confirm, and strongly laxative as you might expect. According to Richard Mabey in his Flora Britannica: ‘when the latrine pits of the Benedictine Abbey at St Albans were excavated in the 1920s, great numbers of [Purging] buckthorn seeds were found mixed up with the fragments of cloth the monks used as lavatory paper.’

It grows on chalky soil and, as we’re on the East Devon coast where (as I’ve said before) the soil starts to change from sandy to chalky, that makes sense.

I’m interested in the Buckthorns because at the start of the Lockdown I saw my first Brimstone butterfly, a gorgeous lemon-yellow fluttery thing, and the Buckthorns are where the female lays her eggs. (What was I saying earlier about each type of wild plant having its niche . . . ?)

As we turn inland to walk back down to the village, I take my last look at the seascape - it may not be as stunning as the Mediterranean, but I love the soft blues and greys  . . .

. . . and at the village church . . .

. . . which makes me think of that other church where Frog and I married all that time ago, in that other village where we still live.

Just married