RIP Ms Virginia Creeper

I've been away for a while. I've been having a re-think on the way my life has been panning out and I know that I am going to have to make a few changes in order to feel good about living.

I've just had a lovely week in the north Yorkshire moors, very peaceful and tranquil, not even the mobile phone works. Being up there was like visiting another country, it was so different to what I usually experience. I awoke to sheep bleeting, cockerills crowing and birds twittering. When I was outside I could rotate on my axis through 360 degrees and not see a single manmade item - anywhere, just hills and fields and sky, loads and loads of sky. It made me feel good; it took several days to unwind but when I did I felt very peaceful. I didn't need sunshine either, anything was ok by me, rain and wind even in the Summer; just to feel the elements on my skin was pleasant. I really know that it did me a power of good and I know that this is not an illusion

It also comes as no surprise to hear that doctors are now recommending, or prescribing as they would put it, time out in parks and areas where there is greeenery, trees and shrubs. All that I already know from my holidays in the countryside has now apparently become a scientific fact - how bizarre.

Now a work colleague has informed me that he has a secret dream, to live away from it all and to build himself a house of hay bales in a plot of land where he will be able to live by growing his own fruit and veg. Once upon a time I would have thought that he was mad but now I am not so sure. Now when I think of his dream I feel a certain envy and admire his daring. It would be hard manual work to pull it off, but even so I would prefer to do heavy work in my garden any day of the year to a day in the office, no question about it.

And so, I've been having a re-think on the way my life has been panning out and I know that I am going to have to make a few changes in order to feel good about living.

When I returned home from the week's holiday, my husband went out into our garden and pulled a much loved Virginia Creeper off from the wall on the back of our house because it was proving to be too difficult to manage. Pruning on a high step ladder is not without its dangers. Left with the bare pink house bricks, we both knew that he had removed something that had been very magical for both of us in the garden. A certain greeness that had soothed the eye, a place where birds had nested many times over many years, it had given the house a certain grandeur which it is now denied. This shrub had taken a long time to grow but was stripped away within a few hours and I shall miss it badly; its removal has upset my equilibrium and I feel its loss as though a loved one has passed away.