The defining feature of my life for the last 30 years has been the amount of caring involved: for disabled children who, although now adults, still need daily input, a daughter and ex-husband with Type I diabetes, and these days for very elderly parents too.
Going on forays into the country for a few hours lifts me above the frustrations involved in having to set aside my own interests, and replenishes my not-always-very-deep reserves of patience.
When I go out on a jaunt, more often than not I find myself in either an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty or a National Park. We are spoilt for them here in the south-west.
Which is as well, because as far as my mental health is concerned, these places are life-savers.
So I am always thrilled and delighted when one of my poems pops up in connection with the bodies overseeing these special places on our behalf.
My poem Coleridge Changes his Library Books, which is from my first collection, Communion, is currently gracing the AONB's Landscapes for Life blog. This is particularly apt as many of the places it mentions are under their guardianship. It can be read it here.
Meanwhile, today's caring duties will take me to one such area, the Mendip Hills. I think I'll take the dog along and make an afternoon of it.
After popping into the Curious Otter bookshop in Ottery St Mary to leave a couple of postcards and some information about my poetry collection, 'Communion', on the possibly slender grounds that this lovely little town is the birthplace of Samuel Coleridge, and as such, is alluded to in my poem, 'Coleridge Changes his Library Books', Ted and I headed for Tipton St John, also on the Otter, for a nice walk in the sunshine, along leafy lanes, past fields of ripe wheat, to Venn Ottery Common with its golden gorse, heather just coming into bloom and views across the valley. Ah, and it was idyllic ...
... except ... do you think it might rain?
Waiting for the rain to go off ...
Normal (English summer) service resumed.
View over the Otter valley from Venn Ottery Common.
Down the deep lanes, to quote Ted Hughes.
Here, built into the slope of the hill, the rarity that is an unrestored Devon longhouse. It would originally have had a thatched roof and much smaller windows. Would love to get my mitts on it ...
The pyrotechnics of Rosebay Willowherb. So showy it needs four names. Who needs riots?
Oak trees, sheep in pastures, what more do you need?
A Dark, Satanic Mill on the Otter, perhaps?
History rusting in fields ...
A long abandoned railway bridge.
Big heifer is watching you!
What would an English idyll be without a parish church? - Here, St John's in ... er ... Tipton St John.
The defining feature of my life for the last 30 years has been the amount of caring involved: for disabled children who, although now adults, still need daily input, a daughter and ex-husband with Type I diabetes, and these days for very elderly parents too. 
So I am always thrilled and delighted when one of my poems pops up in connection with the bodies overseeing these special places on our behalf. 
