A Year of Change
Today, in mid February, I find myself in a reflective mood as this time last year we were in full swing with preparation for a family wedding here at Wood End. This was a massive deal for us, a milestone and measure of how far we had come in ten short months.
Another year on and I am incredulous at the enormity of the changes we’ve made over the last year, especially in the light of a pandemic. Actually many of the changes came about because of the pandemic. I cannot help comparing this time last year to now. I remember a portaloo and a cold tap, the travelling back and forth to Blackburn and having to remember to bring everything with us and take it all back again. I also reconnect to the feelings of the December when our beautiful barn was first built and with only its outer shell and a rough earth floor we celebrated Winter Solstice with many friends, colleagues and family. How happy we felt, how astonished we were that we had got that far. By the time the wedding happened at the end of February, we had a plywood floor. Now it has a designer roll-end patchwork vinyl flooring (not quite finished). We had just managed to install the loo, this is now decorated and comfortable. No nostalgic feelings about the portaloo at all.
In April we built a beautiful and warm counselling pod in the barn which overlooks the Oak Garden and transferred my counselling practice from Blackburn to Wood End in response to COVID-19. Nearly a year on from the start of lockdown and my counselling practice has changed beyond all recognition. As I shared in a previous blog, ‘When the universe takes over’, The Orchard was the gift which allowed me to continue seeing my clients in the open air when most talking therapies moved to phone and video call. The sunshine gave us time to build the pod and allowed the work to go on once it started raining again.
At the first lockdown, all our Animal Assisted Therapy visits into schools stopped dead in their tracks. For many weeks Bramble and Laurel would go to the car on a morning to wait to be taken to school, but it just couldn’t happen. By the end of the summer term we knew It couldn’t happen again for a long time to come. Towards the end of that term, conversations started between myself and the schools about transferring the work we did in the classroom to outside at The Orchard. We began with a couple of experimental short visits and at the start of the autumn term began weekly sessions which continued the therapeutic work, but based around hands on gardening, ecology, sustainability and looking after our planet. The sessions have felt quite magical as the children were captured by the activity of the bees, and as they sat in the woods and ran about in the meadow. The dogs were beside themselves with happiness to see familiar faces and clearly wanted to make up for lost time.
In July we sold our home in Blackburn and downsized to Simonstone to be closer to Wood End. The emptying of said home was a mammoth task as we had been there for 21 years. We had enjoyed having loads of space, a big attic and double garage space. Now we wondered why we had thought huge attics and garages were a good idea as we found stuff that we had long forgotten we had ever had in the first place. It was quite sobering to consider all that stuff just sitting there and a nightmare to shift as all the charity shops and tips were closed. However, the upheaval was a game changer as the effort of us both working and developing Wood End as well as all the travel back and forth was not sustainable for very much longer. Life is simpler and easier for us now.
In September Brian retired from the world of software development to work full time on Wood End and things became another step easier for us. Projects don’t have to wait for weekends and if it pours with rain on a Sunday we can take a break and not have to push on regardless, although we sometimes do anyway. This also gave Brian license to buy more toys. First on the list was a tractor with mower and topper attachments so we can mow our own meadow and not be at the mercy of farmers who say they’ll come and don’t. He has had many happy hours fitting out a dedicated workroom where, for the first time in 43 years together, he has all his tools together in one place. A collection which seems to grow on a weekly basis.
So as we approach John and Jen’s first wedding anniversary, I go off to do some weeding with my heart full of thankfulness for all we have, not least for our lovely supportive family who have helped us to get here.