Sharpham House - retreats, reedbeds and rewilding

Even on a wet winter’s day, nature’s beauty can still astonish me. Here’s a pond I’ve walked past countless times, but it was only yesterday that I suddenly realised how picturesque it was and was inspired to take a photograph of it. Perhaps it was the season revealing the bones of  the corner.

 

Pond. (I wanted Ellie in the view but she raced off to bark at something at the critical time.)

I love tree skeletons, and here is a row of them that caught my eye as I sat in a soggy field a few days ago having my quiet moment.

 

Tree skeletons

I’ve now been on my retreat (mentioned in the previous post - I lied about the timing) and it was a wonderful experience. Beautiful warm house, fabulous setting, excellent teaching and lovely people. Here are some pictures.

 

The view from my room. That's the River Dart you can see below.

The house was built in the eighteenth century and here is its marble staircase - lethal if you're not wearing proper shoes

As a result of the retreat, I’m trying to meditate regularly - currently short sessions three times a day. The explanations make it sound so simple but the practice is anything but, and the more I try to meditate the more questions I have about it. Maybe I need to go on another retreat, such as Mindfulness for Beginners – another Sharpham event that’s caught my eye.

I do feel different though, so I perhaps I did have the ‘reset’ I wanted.

Here are some more of the pictures I took at Sharpham.

A sunrise from my room

A strange henge in some reedbeds down by the Dart

Pristine mudflats and reedbeds stretching back upriver towards Totnes. I spotted herons, geese, seagulls and a little egret, but I know such habitats are of international importance and I'm sure there was a lot more that I didn't spot. (It's drizzle, not my technique, that's misting the picture.)

Sharpham is rewilding a chunk of land leading down to the reedbeds, but I didn't have time to get much further than this information board

Kinder Rising

In April this year, the Right to Roam campaign organised a mass trespass and trespass-swim at Kinder Reservoir in the Peak District, Derbyshire, in memory of a 1932 trespass on Kinder Scout, the Peak District’s highest point.

The 1932 trespass was in protest at losing access to the wild hills and moorland of the area. These were a lifeline for inhabitants of nearby cities like Sheffield and Manchester, pretty grim places at the time, but landowners had begun to fence them and keep people out. 

The trespass led eventually – a long time later - to the establishing of National Parks (1949) and long-distance footpaths (1965). However, as the Right to Roam says, the business is unfinished. See my earlier post for the shocking facts about how little of our countryside (about 8 per cent in England, for example) is, even now, open to us.

The Right to Roam made a moving film of the day. Do watch it.

In the film two people, Alex and Jo, talk about what nature means to them and Alex in particular expresses what I feel, but he says it so much better.

Like Alex, I love to sit quietly in nature – to think and dream and breathe and connect, to just be - and I try to do it every day. I like to find new places, and I like to find somewhere I can’t be seen. Here are some recent hideaways. (I've lived here long enough (45 years) for the farmers to tolerate me, so I'm not trespassing, but they do all think I'm a bit of a loony.)

 

An early morning, inside an oak hedge

On top of a hill camouflaged by long grass. (Spot the dog.)

 

Underneath a giant oak tree, with its canopy reaching to the ground all around me like a tent.

A Right to Roam?

First, a story. Perhaps an over-simplification, and there may be inaccuracies (history and facts are not my strong points), but this is how I see things.

Since the invasion of the Normans (in the eleventh century), we in this country have become separated from nature. Firstly, the Normans parcelled up huge chunks of land (like Cornwall) and divided them among themselves, concentrating land ownership in the hands of the few. Then in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, these few decided to take for their own the common land which ordinary people used for food and fuel. They fenced it off and instituted a more intensive form of agriculture which meant that many lost their homes and livelihoods. With the advent of the industrial revolution, these destitute country people moved to cities to look for work (where they lived in poverty and squalor and probably never saw even a blade of grass).

We are still suffering the effects of these events, to the extent that 1 per cent of the population of England owns half the country (Who Owns England? and The Lie of the Land by Guy Shrubsole, 2019 and 2024) and about 85 per cent of us are urban. We are excluded from 92 per cent of the land and 97 per cent of its waterways (The Book of Trespass by Nick Hayes, 2020).

This is not healthy, either physically or spiritually. We need fresh air and exercise. We need nature for the world to make sense. We need the sense of freedom that wild nature brings. We need to know about nature so that we care for it and protect the planet.

The Lockdown emphasised this, as nature was all we had left. Many more people than before went out for walks in the country and, unfortunately, some farmers and landowners reacted badly to this, enclosing footpaths with wire fences and padlocking gates. Making the situation even worse.

I call this sort of footpath a gulag. The bridge is for animals.

Locked into the footpath and out of the countryside

Enter the Right to Roam , an organisation started in 2021 by Hayes and Shrubsole which campaigns for England and Wales to have the right that Scotland already does.

The Ramblers organisation is also campaigning for more access to the countryside. An Act of 2000 gave us the right to walk freely over mountain, moor, heath and downland. They want that expanded to cover woodland, watersides and more grassland. Woodland alone would more than double our freedom.

A right to roam wouldn’t mean that people can walk wherever they like without consideration, but it would mean that we might be able to enjoy more of our beautiful country – swimming in rivers, camping out under the night sky, exploring wild places, going off-piste.

A Duchy of Cornwall wood, with access barred by the sign above. So enticing.

An overgrown watermeadow, currently out of bounds. Is there anything more beautiful?

There would of course be responsibilities on both sides. We would need to respect crops and farm animals, and avoid damaging the countryside with, for example, litter and fires. There would be exclusion zones around places such as houses. Landowners on the other hand couldn’t needlessly obstruct access.

But, in the end, it could be of benefit to us all. The public would be better educated about what to do and not do when out and about. We could share guardianship of the countryside with farmers and landowners, which might help safeguard nature. Farmers could make friends with their communities and feel less isolated and misunderstood. We’d all be happier and healthier.

That is my dream.

And here are a couple of pictures of things going right, of farmers engaging with visitors – a taste, I hope, of things to come.

Devon, 2020

Kent, 2025

*I read elsewhere that in the UK as a whole 1 percent of the population owns 70 percent of the land, but I'm checking this figure.

Along the Grand Western Canal

Yesterday morning, while walking along the canal near where I live, I saw this beautiful wild plant for the first time.

Flowering Rush

My Book says it’s Flowering Rush, rather uncommon, flowering from July – and there we were, Ellie and I, on our nearby canal in June, and it was dotted all along the bank.

Well, My Book is over 60 years old and it gets a lot of things wrong because so much of both countryside and climate has changed, but I love it because it was given to me by my parents on my eleventh birthday and it’s full of my annotations and observations over the years.

Needless to say, it’s falling apart now, and if you know of a good bookbinder who could repair it for me, do tell.

My ancient and  battered Oxford Book of Wildflowers

Next I saw this tall scruffy plant which I find rather menacing as it grows in gangs and looks like a Triffid (as in the 1981 TV adaptation of John Wyndham’s book). It’s called Hemp Agrimony, but is no relation to Cannabis (sadly) or Agrimony  - which is a small yellow spike of a flower, and one I also saw yesterday along the canal.

Hemp Agrimony

Hemp Agrimony

Agrimony

The next plant to catch my attention was this Meadow-sweet, so-called I presume for its scent – a weird almondy one. I like its confidence and its scatty prettiness and am trying to grow it round the pond in my garden.

Meadow-sweet

Sunny St John’s Wort was in flower for the first time this year. As you probably know, the word ‘wort’ means any plant that was used medicinally and St John’s Wort is still used to cure depression (but take advice as it can also be harmful or interact with conventional drugs).

St John's Wort

Lovely Scabious, which actually prefers dry places, was in evidence from time to time, well attended by insects like all flowers of the Daisy family to which it belongs.

Scabious and Hoverfly

Yesterday was a good day.

 

The Grand Western Canal near Tiverton in Devon is a Local Nature Reserve and well worth a visit at any time of year. Yesterday it was full of birdsong as well as wildflowers, and when I find out how to transfer audio and video clips from my phone to my computer I’ll share some of that with you as well.

The Greenfinch

Greenfinches used to flock to our bird table, especially when we put out sunflower seeds. Then, about twenty years ago, they vanished. They had apparently fallen prey to the parasitic disease Trichomonosis which they were thought to have caught from pigeons, and their numbers had crashed by 60 per cent. I added them to my list of birds I no longer see, like swallows, barn owls, thrushes and pied wagtails.

At the end of March I was staying with my brother D at his farm in West Sussex, most of which he is now leaving to nature. The birds were in full spring throat and in among the dizzy-making tangle of sounds I caught something new - an insistent but gentle chirring noise. I didn’t know what it was and neither did D – who is an expert on birds – but Merlin, the trusty smartphone app which identifies birdsong, told us it belonged to a greenfinch.

I started to hear the noise everywhere, in the garden at home, on my long rambles every day with Ellie (who is now 15 and not showing much sign of slowing up). The greenfinch became my bird of this glorious spring, my bird of the year.

If you’ve read previous posts, you might remember how important affirmations are to me, particularly since my husband Frog died, three and a half years ago. I recite them to myself every day and hope that one day they will stick. Some I make up myself, some come from that inspiring book You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay, 

and one – the queen of them all – comes from a medieval woman mystic whose name I’ve forgotten.

A few days ago I was dozing in the garden and the greenfinch was chirring as usual, and the sound was so beautiful and loving and warm that my half-asleep brain connected it with that queen affirmation. The greenfinch was chirring ‘All is well’. He was telling me that he and his species had come back from the brink, and so could I.

Crab-apple blossom (I think) in a hedgerow a few weeks ago

Wild Norway

I made it to Norway eventually and swept into a round of parties, meeting cousins of all shapes and sizes (my maternal grandmother having been Norwegian). The weather was atrocious – even worse than in the UK – but here are some pictures of the beautiful landscape.

 

On the first day I walked with my brother and sister-in-law and two English friends of my aunt to this lake, which Frog and I had found near the hotel five years earlier. In spite of non-stop rain, I thought the lake was prettier this time. Perhaps the heatwave on my previous visit had withered the greenery.

 Lake, jetty and granite

The jetty is for swimming. The Norwegians are very hearty and, even though the temperature was about 14, as we walked back two boys were leaping in and out of the water.

The rock in the foreground is not broken concrete but granite, which comes to the surface everywhere.

 

Here is the hotel garden on my last day, when of course the sun came out, and here is another lump of granite. How the trees manage to grow on it, I have no idea.

 

Hotel garden

As children, we spent our summer holidays by the sea in Norway and clambered over the rocks in bare feet, as this was the best way we found to grip them.

Also on my last day, I found this enticing path signed ‘Kyststien’ which I guessed meant coast path. I wished I’d found it earlier.

 Coast path

Most of the interior of the country (below the treeline) is forested with pines but here, by the coast, were some broadleaved trees – oak, silver birch, rowan. Also scrumptious wild raspberries, another feature of my childhood.

  

This is the beach in front of the hotel, but I didn’t brave the sea.

 

Hotel beach

On my penultimate day, I went for lunch with one of my aunt’s daughters. She lives on the outskirts of Kristiansand.

Here is her view.

The view from my cousin's house

 

And here is the path from her garden to forest and mountain.

The path from my cousin's garden

On my last morning, I walked round Kristiansand with my brother and sister-in-law. 

Here is the harbour, not what you’d expect next to a city.

 Kristiansand harbour

People were picnicking and swimming.

As you can see, nowhere in Norway is far from nature, although according to a cousin that is changing as the population expands.

That breaks my heart, as (in my experience) Norway is one of the last wild places left in this part of the world.

All will be well

I’ve mentioned before my guru Louise Hay and her book You Can Heal Your Life.

 

I’ve also mentioned my disinclination at the moment to get out of bed in the morning and face the world, and the bad back and leg that have crippled me since November.

Last night when I couldn’t sleep yet again because of the pain in my right calf, which paracetamol hadn’t touched, I decided to explore with the help of my beloved Notebook what was going on.

According to Louise, pain in the lower leg is caused by fear of the future and not wanting to move on. The affirmation (to counteract that) is:

I move forward with confidence and joy, knowing that all will be well in my future.

I said this to myself over and over and found myself sobbing so I knew she was right.

I’ve been through this process again and again recently and I keep forgetting, and falling into old ways, and believing what everyone else says instead of what I say deep inside me. For instance, out of fear I’ve been to see a physiotherapist, which is what my doctor recommended for my back and leg, even though I don't normally do conventional medicine, and all it’s done is make me feel worse. 

One day, I might manage to hold on to me.

And, of course, as I might also have said before, that is what this time since Frog’s death is all about. I have the idea that moving on will take me away from him, but actually it will take me towards him. 

Even though Frog and I had the deepest of connections, I couldn’t be myself when he was here because I was too preoccupied with being a good wife, with being what I thought he wanted. He removed himself in order to help me and now, in order to rejoin him, I have to face the world without him and learn to be me. It’s bloody terrifying.

Wish me luck.

And in case none of that makes sense, which is more than likely, here are some pictures from the last week or two. Isn’t the world beautiful? Why on earth should I fear it?

Floods

Shining Cranesbill, a tiny flower named for its shiny leaves (the small roundish ones)

The nearby Weeping Willow, waving its hair-like tresses

My Secret Wood, a fluff of greeny-brown about to burst into life

The buds of Holly flowers, another secret

Dandelions like suns and Dandelions with Speedwell, the colour of the sky. (Spot the dog.)

A benevolent tonal Buddha*

From 1977 to 2019 Frog (my late husband) was connected with Exeter University’s student radio station. He looked after the equipment and gave continuity and advice to the ever-changing student members. He also presented his own programme, The Frog Prog, on which he played his unique choice of music, both popular and classical, from all eras, and passed on his encyclopaedic knowledge of all things musical.

Last June, past members of the radio station put together a tribute programme for Frog

https://www.mixcloud.com/XpressionShowcase/john-frog-whitworth-memorial-show/

and I’ve been crying my way through it. Sometimes they really catch his character and talents and it’s given me a whole new appreciation of him.

I’ve been doing a lot of crying lately. Since November in fact when I acquired a bad back. The pain then went to my legs where it has stuck ever since. It’s terrified me because, now I’m on my own, I have to manage. I can’t be ill or incapacitated. I have a dog to mind.

Ellie at one year old. She's now twelve and a half.

But what I realised this morning is that the pain has made me get in touch with my feelings. It’s lowered my defences and let the grief come to the surface. It’s given me time. I haven’t been able to rush around clearing Frog’s stuff, forging a ‘new life’ and being brave. I’ve spent a lot of time alone, in my dressing-gown, writing in my Notebooks (a sort of diary), using up tissues.

In a funny sort of way, I think that realisation may help me to throw off the pain. It may be a sort of turning point. I hope so, anyway.

And at the risk of sounding crass, I thought I might link all that to the slow emergence of spring, another turning point, as evidenced by the following pictures.

Rooks' nests by the canal

The weeping willow over the lane below the house, always the first tree to burst into leaf

Ivy berries, like bunches of grapes, important food for birds at this time of year

Beech flowers

I've never noticed beech flowers before (in all my 70 years), which shocks me. How much else is there that I just don't see? Putting that in a more positive way (and I do try to be positive in everything), it shows that nature is always there to surprise and delight us - if we keep open to the possibility.

*This is how one ex-student described Frog in the tribute programme (at least, I think that's what he said)