Finally Morningstar

The last week slowed down after Wednesday, when we finished cleaning Barnsfield - oh, it was pristine, immaculate, beautiful by the time every cupboard had been cleaned, the windows sparkling and the grass freshly mowed.

The last of the furniture had gone to the charity shop, even my grandmother's super heavy lead-lined trunk. I felt a little pang, but glad it had not just gone to be recycled. It must have been, conservatively, at least seventy years old, returning with my grandparents from India when my grandfather retired from Government Service at independence. Or, perhaps, it accompanied my grandmother in 1920 when she went out by ship to meet and marry my grandfather. But that is another story, and I have kept another piece of family history, a similar cedar trunk with my grandfather's initials on, which sits, where it has done in every house since it has been in my possession, in the hallway.

The pot plants were moved. The garage swept clean. Last photos taken.

And we got up at 4am one day to go to fetch the motorhome. We had travelled only a few yards when we had to pause: the lane was blocked by the poo truck, visiting the neighbours:

Only in Guernsey.

And there, in the background, is the large field we would walk across to the garden, searching for orchids, and 'our' trees, the Leylandii which blew over in the winter storms and were generous with firewood.

No longer our home, but the sunrise at Morningstar an hour earlier had heralded promise of a new and different life...and with it, roses...

Settling in

After a couple of weeks of gardening/pruning/clearing/labouring/navvying/rockcrushing - most of which I have done, but the bulk of the heavy work has been done by my beloved husband - we have finished.

For now.

The aim was to get the rock pile off the drive so we could park the motorhome. Achieved. Rock distributed, with only a small pile remaining for the last of the parking provision.

So I turned my attention to the house. Having slowly moved all our belongings here over the last couple of weeks, everything was piled up in an (un)satisfactory mess. But now the kitchen cupboards are filled and the surfaces are clear, suitcases have been unpacked and clothes distributed in wardrobes and, finally, we have distributed seating and put rugs down in the sitting room. Our large African pictures are up and, for the first time since leaving Africa, the room has a truly African feel.

Large woven baskets from Pokot serve as occasional tables, graced with lamps made from gourds we bought at the side of the road in Machakos, as we drove down to Mombasa one time.

Heidi Lange's beautiful prints hang together near Robin Andersen's silk screen print of a Masai boy herding his goats. A David Shepherd print of elephants, one which many of our friends whose roots also lie in Africa own as well, dominates one wall.

A trio of elephants, carved from coconut wood, sit on the windowsill. A metalwork scorpion, made by Jonny, and a zebra made in Zimbabwe wait to join them, along with various other artefacts. A large grey rhino, created in Tabaka from Kisii soapstone, marches near the fireplace.The acacia root lamp, which we made before we left, lights up our dining room.

There are many other things which we will unpack later. Books wait in boxes for the shelves we need to buy and put up in one of the spare rooms, soon to be called the 'office'. Files ditto. Stationery, too. These things can wait.

Meanwhile, my canary-yellow kitchen gladdens my heart, my blue and white china finally comfortably at home in these echoes of Sweden.

And, on Moving In Day, I was blessed to receive these beautiful flowers: not as a moving-in gift, just a 'thank you'...but what wonderful timing.

And, best of all: photos start to appear...

It never ends....the stone pile chronicles continue.

OK, cleared the plant border yesterday. More houseleeks, some hostas, a large clump of unidentified but ubiquitous orange lilies which refuse to look good when cut for a vase,  a few daffodil bulbs and tough creeping geranium. The latter more than strengthened my arm muscles and did little for my back.

Came back home this afternoon to find that Richard had tilled the remaining soil and scooped it out onto a board on the lawn, sifted and ready for refilling the hole once the hardcore had been put in.

The trouble was, the hole wasn't big enough. The edge of the flowerbed curved into the lawn, leaving soft spots which had to be squared up to take the plastic mesh. More digging required: not a problem, but the pile of earth next to the hole had to be moved before we could widen said hole. Because the earth was piled up on the edge. Clear? As mud, actually, but the short story is that I moved a pile of earth so that we could dig out more earth to pile next to the hole and then hope that the hole is now wide/square/big enough....

It was. After more tilling, more digging, more spade work, we had a good rectangular shaped hole to fill with hardcore:

Then I had to start moving the stone into it: the aim was to get the stone pile Off The Drive:

The stone pile, a third of its size after half an hour of frequent trips with the wheelbarrow. Wish I'd taken the photo earlier when the pile was HUGE!

Not much left to do now.

Arrived! #settlingin

We woke this morning to the early dawn light pouring in through our bedroom window. This is a new experience - for the last few years we have faced the sunset. Magpies chatter, blackbirds fly low between the shrubs, a wood pigeon coos. Wonderful. This is the first day here at Morningstar.

The last few days at Barnsfield have been packing and cleaning, and we are nearly there. Inbetween, I go to school. Little time for reflection, but one happening on Moving Day will stay in our memories.

Late in the evening the night before, just at dusk, we were in the garden when we found a seagull wandering around. The dog, of course, objected furiously - she hates birds of any size or description, and watches vigilantly through the glass of the front door for avian intruders: after all, if cat burglars are well known, who knows what criminal mischief birds or rabbits might get up to? Robins are tolerated, but blackbirds are seen off with a growl and a bark.  Ducks need to be chased with insouciance. Seagulls and pigeons are annoying. Aeroplanes are scowled at thoughtfully, with a tinge of regret that they are too far distant to take real action.

So there was much Shouting At The Dog, locking her in the house, and the seagull fluttered into the air briefly, then landed again. It staggered, bumping into my bicycle as if it was having difficulty seeing, hopping awkwardly up the rockery, through fuchsia and heather, then disappeared. There was no sign of it the next morning.

Strange.

Then on Moving Day itself, a pigeon landed and proceeded to take a brief bath in the pond among the duckweed and water lilies. Quite unusual, but then it didn't leave. It strutted around the edge of the pond, wandering into the corner of the wall which hosts the compost heap. And stayed. And stayed. It stood there, its eye staring almost unblinkingly at us, showing no signs of wanting to leave.

Oddly enough, after the initial objections, the dog ignored it. A clear sign that something was wrong. After all, pigeons don't usually visit us and this one - a smart blue-grey with bars on its tail (unsurprisingly, it's called a Blue Bar) - showed no signs of leaving. I noticed it was ringed, one blue, one yellow: a racing pigeon, perhaps? So I rang our friend Mick, racing pigeon expert, for advice.

Anxiously watching it to see what it should do, I said, "It's still here."
"Oh, he won't be flying off in a hurry," said Mick.
"Really? How long is it likely to stay?"
"Oh, about ten days."
"TEN DAYS?"
"Yes, and he'll need feeding during that time.  He's too exhausted to fly off anywhere. Tell you what, I'll come round and get him if you like."

I accepted gratefully. Under normal circumstances, I would have rushed out and bought Racing Pigeon Bird Seed, but we were moving house. All the way from the Vale to Torteval - a distance of approximately seven miles, as the pigeon flies. I couldn't leave the pigeon as a weak security guard and it was Too Far to visit frequently enough. (Yes, really. Announcing that I was moving to Torteval was equivalent to saying that I was moving to the other side of the world - New Zealand, even. I'll have to bribe my friends with cake for them to even consider making The Journey.)

Mick came with his little Guernsey Racing Pigeon Club lorry, loaded with wicker pigeon carrier, a ball of string and some bird seed. (I never did work out what the string was for.) Mick crept up to the pigeon, hands spread out at the ready, pouncing on it at the last minute. Held carefully in his hands, the pigeon gazed trustingly up at The Expert, knowing it was now safe.

"Where did it come from?" I asked, expecting the answer to be France, at  least, or perhaps somewhere in the Midlands.
"Let's take a look." Carefully spreading its wing, Mick showed me the red ink label stamped on the feathers. "Oooh, it's came a long way. Maybe even as far as Torteval."  TORTEVAL? The pigeon belonged to The GRPC.   Mick carefully deposited the bird in the carrier and bade me a cheerful farewell.

So, two birds in 24 hours.

Significant: birds have played symbolic roles in our story. Eagles and other birds of prey were constant companions when Richard was gliding in Africa, soaring next to the large 'bird' with curiosity. And there have been significant individual encounters, too. Many years ago - twenty, perhaps - Richard was swimming in a pool at a game lodge in Amboseli National Reserve, Mount Kilimanjaro forming the backdrop, when a pigeon fluttered down and landed on his head. He swam to the side, where it hopped off and walked away, but not before we noticed it had a wound on its breast.

A wounded bird reflected our hearts. At the time, we were going through a period of difficulty and loss.
A bird that didn't seem to see properly reflected our own confusion when we were not sure which direction our lives should take.
An exhausted bird mirrors our tiredness.

"Yet those who hope, wait for and trust in the LORD will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles..." Isaiah 40:31

And 

"Amazing grace! How sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see..."

How often have we found this to be true. 

Now, a new chapter. Last week before we moved, as I locked up at Morningstar after a day of gardening, I saw a wood pigeon standing, disgruntled, on the empty bird bath. He glared at me as if to say: "Where's the water? Come on, you're supposed to be looking after me."  There are already many birds flying through the shrubbery in this garden here and I sense that they will be morning visitors and will become another part of our story. Already, a robin has come to say hello.

Cat and Andy arrive in a few weeks' time. I wonder if birds will be part of their story too, somehow? Or perhaps something else significant?

Packing and unpacking

I am no stranger to packing, though not as much as many of my friends. Dear Lisa has moved continents several times and travels back and forth to the States from Tanzania quite regularly. Still, I pride myself on my ability (inherited from my father) to pack a case so tightly that I can barely lift it. Not such a useful skill as it was in the days of train and boat travel, where now the challenge is to remain within the airline weight limit without having items rattling around the suitcase.

We left Kenya with the contents of half a small van: toys, personal possessions and one wooden dining table inherited from Richard's parents. The top is cut from a whole tree trunk, wide and beautiful and the whole table dismantles easily into three portable pieces. It came with us again, of course.

This time, Darren and Cliff ('Out of Hours' removals, gardening and odd job firm) took two white van loads: the second, mainly garden furniture and other bits and pieces which I am not going to mention here. And, of course, we had already moved smaller items of furniture and countless possessions.

And too many books. Too many? Can one have too many? #notinmybook  Buying bookcases is one of the main 'must haves' on my list. Our old, boughtasatemporarymeasuresixteenyearsago, bookshelves now do proud duty as a home for tools in the garage.

But already, having our furniture there, most of my blue and white kitchen crockery unpacked and my blue jugs gracing the bright kitchen (blue and yellow, my favourite combination: redolent of my life in Sweden), Morningstar is beginning to feel like home.

We won't be properly settled in before Cat and Andy visit in July. But their room is ready waiting for them, Cat's suitcases of memories standing by the window.

And mess does not matter when you're having fun. A life saying.

There you go, Andy. First single mention.  #Andy  #CatandAndy #CatandAndy'svisit2016

(My labels function on the blog tells that I have blogged about everything from angels to Australia and yet not about my son-in-law.... no longer!)

Last moments at Barnsfield

So, after packing boxes and boxes and spending innumerable hours sorting and resorting, decluttering and giving away, the day for moving the furniture - and thus most of our life here - has arrived.

It is a good morning for moving.

Sea mist rolls across the fields, gentle as a whisper

The garden is shrouded in distant fog

After a spectacular sunset the night before, where the sun poured a liquid gold path onto the beach, the sea fog has rolled in. In the night, we heard a new foghorn, its high-pitched peep-peep-peep at odds with the usual deeper sound of the harbour horn.

One of us does not like fog. Fog is redolent of anxious days spent waiting with passengers for a flight; or the knowledge that a take-off does not necessarily guarantee a safe landing when fog is in the air. Fog is dangerous.

I think of the fishermen who died a couple of years ago when the ferry ran into their little boat outside the port of St Malo. I think of their terror as the sound of the engines bore down inexorably until the boat was on them.  I think of those who sit in airports, waiting, waiting to be called for a flight.

Yet still I like fog. I like the magical mysterious air it causes. The hanging silence over the field, dampening even the greatest sound of motorbike or scooter. I like the calm.

So, in the morning of Moving Day as I wake up to fog, I rejoice, just a little, in the calm and the quiet and the knowledge that the work will not be made more arduous by a fierce sun. I have done much of my moving under Africa's fierce sun and I am glad for gentler, milder air.

It is a good day for moving. And it was a good day for moving, as the sun came out later and lit up our new home. A calm day, a productive day.

So now, as I sit in the twilight, birds singing out their souls in the cool evening air, I am thankful for a good day. We will stay on for one or two last nights in this place that has been our home for nearly 12 years. This home, with its magical garden, has been a wonderful gift which we have loved and appreciated. Loving and appreciating sharing it with countless others - and there is always room for more. But this is now the end of this season, and the start of another.

We are camping now, as we did when we moved in and our furniture was still on its way. The house is nearly empty, bare rooms reminding me that soon they will live quite happily without us.

"What we call the beginning is often the end

And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from."

TS Eliot, from Little Gidding, The Four Quartets

We start from here, from this end. A new beginning.

UPdate and ONTHEMOVE

Interesting.  Was writing to a friend when I realised I hadn't posted here for a while.... whoops. Not since January.

It's not as if nothing was happening. Oh no, sirree. But some notes about my/our lives were for travels and a little for cooking and baking. Much of my writing was musings about and learning from scripture. And some of the thoughts whirling around in my head were so time-consuming to process and sort and make sense of that they haven't yet ended up on  my thoughts blog.

Slightly complicated, at times, to keep up separate blogs but it helps my mental filing system. And it does, usually, work, although I was a little bemused the other day to find a recipe snuggled in amongst the Bible studies...

Anyway.

Part of the busyness of the last few months has been house-hunting. Spent many hours on the Internet searching the small property market here, trying to make sense of estateagentspeak.  We soon learnt that parking = 1 car, ample parking = 2 cars, multiple parking = 3 cars and plenty of parking could mean anything at all.

I learnt to look at floor plans and measurements and pace out our own sitting room and kitchen, trying to translate my imaginings into practicalities.

We spent time driving or cycling around Guernsey looking at possibilities. I vividly remember my disappointment on realising that a garden which had looked quite a reasonable size in the photos could almost have been measured in square centimetres, rather than metres.

We became acquainted with parts of the island we didn't know existed.

We viewed three houses. The first could have worked, but was expensive for what it was.  The second was beautiful and newly renovated, though not to our taste, with a lovely garden and a bit of a view. And much too expensive. The third was a no-go even before we saw it. Thought it would be OK at first, then when we got there realised it wasn't what we wanted/needed at all. And ridiculously expensive for what it was.
.
Most of the houses we looked at or considered as compromises - for compromise is a key word in the Guernsey property market - are still for sale.

Praying and waiting and never giving up were always at the back our our minds.

Then another came up, at a reduced price. In an area we didn't particularly want to live in, not that you can be fussy in Guernsey. The type of house ( a small bungalow ) which we - I, but #can'tbefussy - didn't particularly want.  And on a (relatively, compared to the quiet lane we live on at the moment) 'main' road.

But the garden was nice and the price now much more reasonable. So we went to view.

We were early. The estate agent was a few minutes' late. As we waited for her, wandering round a shrub-filled front garden, we began to get a feel for its charm. There wasn't a great deal of parking - probably 7 cars in estateagentspeak, 3 - 4 cars squished in carefully in reality - but we could make more. (We do have a motorhome to house, after all...)

Inside, the interior was immaculate. Quite recently refurbished, with a kitchen my friends are in ecstasies over and a large living room. A private guest area, away from the main part of the house. A sunny, welcoming glassed-in hall. The garden at the back of the house is filled with mature shrubs and bushes, little nooks and corners for sitting in, a garden shed and a private, walled-in patio which catches the evening sun.

So we put in an offer, it was accepted, and six weeks later we went to court to sign the conveyance and receive the keys.

We're not moving in straight away: first, we have to put up a little secure fencing for the dog and take out some shrubs to create more parking. We couldn’t get the phone moved over straight away so are waiting for that to happen as we have to lease our present house until the end of June anyway.

So we're doing things in bits and pieces at the moment, on the hunt for some furniture (bookcases, office cupboards, a sofa), trying to declutter (not very successfully) as we go…I've been packing things away, now, for a year and finding that we've lived very successfully without some of our 'precious' belongings...

Thinking again about decluttering, and about what is important in life, and realising this truth as we went through a long, involved process to arrive at this point in our time:

I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. 
Psalm 34:4 (NIV)

But that is another story...

View from the other side

Having been born in - actually, in a village just outside where the maternity home was situated, but that's splitting hairs: apart from those first few days, I lived in Rugby until I was 18. And a bit. And lots more bits of inbetween life: inbetween college terms; inbetween jobs; inbetween singleness and marriage; inbetween a Kenyan life and a Guernsey life....

I thought it was 'quite a nice place' but generally wasn't that enthralled.

Still, I returned on a brief visit last month. Caught up with a couple of friends, revisited my parents' old house, now a lovely bed and breakfast. My parents kept the best of the Victorian features and the new owners have upgraded it all beautifully.

Seeing the town on a sunny, warm May morning was probably seeing Rugby at its best.

So it was quite fun to read this from a moved-in-from-the-south Rugbyite.

Interesting. Because I could have written exactly the same about Guernsey, where we now live, though the list of attractions here is CONSIDERABLY longer. After all, what's not to like about clear air, sunny skies, golden beaches, rugged cliffs and an abundance of winding lanes...not to mention one of the prettiest, quaintest towns in Britain?

Small, super friendly, relaxed.

A view from the other side.

Moving less sucessfully

I've been reading a blog post called Called to the Crazy. The author, Tsh Oxenreider, talks about moving countless times and relates how her kids are fine with uprooting because as a family, they’re grounded. 

I wish that had been true for my family. I thought, like Tsh, that the glue that held us together was our trust in God. And it was. But there was a huge 'but'...

I too have moved, but not so successfully. We made a difficult move BACK to our own culture – displaced, disenfranchised inwardly while outwardly we looked – and were expected to be – ‘normal’. The children were teenagers, enduring grief, separation, loneliness, bullying…our lives were crazy but, save that ‘God works all things together for good’, not ‘crazy good’. It was an awful time which we struggled to be positive in.

I know that a ‘good attitude’ makes a huge difference, but I do wonder how we can exult in our calling, rejoicing in God’s goodness and plans when reality so often bites us.

I wish we could have had a better, more trusting attitude. It was just really, really hard and I suspect is so for many.

She claims that every one of us is 'called to the crazy'. God calls us often into the unknown, the uncomfortable and that it's not really so unusual. After all, there are various Biblical examples which suggest that God does indeed call us out of our comfort zones.

Tsh Oxenreider says "So when He calls us to the crazy, we can follow knowing His plans are for His best."

I wish.