Escape to the Country

A couple of weeks ago, something happened that I've been dreaming of since we decided we'd move back to England: we spotted snowdrops on the way to school.

These tiny little white flowers, "February Fair-Maids," are such a traditional herald of spring, that I missed them every single year in the States. I tried, unsuccessfully, to find bulbs to grow my own. Seeing them on a damp, January morning hit me hard with nostalgia. I may have never lived in this part of Cornwall before, but I've still come home in all the ways I wanted.

Fair maids of February... in January

Thirteen years in Hampton Roads' suburban sprawl had many conveniences and opportunities, but the geography and towns are repetitive, and a good view was hard to find (though much treasured.) There wasn't much in the way of flowers marking the changing of the seasons.

Now we live in the country: our little flat in a barn conversion. The ceilings are low and the walls are two feet thick. It's a small space, but we're small people. We don't need much room between the furniture to get by! That said, I haven't quite managed to adjust to the lack of storage space. I haven't given up on it either, but let's be honest... I sleep in something closer to a boxroom than a bedroom.

We live on a hill. Floods are no longer a problem, but the winds are. Thanks to our thick walls, I rarely hear the wind—only when it's coming in the right direction to blow through the extractor fan in my bathroom—but it's definitely a consideration for everything outside. There are no thieves around here, but I'm religious about bolting and padlocking my shed doors because the wind's shaking can and will work the catch loose. The bikes don't fit in the shed, so I bought a cover to protect them from rain, yet in a windstorm, I bring it inside because it does more harm than good. (Luckily, our front is more sheltered than our back, so the bikes fall over but don't actually blow away.)

Despite its problems, I love our hill. For the sun we get on the mornings when the valley below us is still blanketed in mist. (Though if we're being honest, most mornings we've had since moving in have been wet and rainy no matter our altitude!) For the sheep in the field behind it.... they appeared late in the autumn, and all three of us now have shepherding experience from a handful of escapes.

Sunset with the sheep

But mostly for the view! Bodmin Moor to the southwest, the sea to the north, Dartmoor to the east and So. Much. Sky. I think I underestimated how important a view is to my state of mind, until we were dealing with the despair of boxes everywhere last summer. I found myself often standing at the french doors, just gazing out at the sky in order to relax.

Our sky is impressive. We look out towards Bodmin Moor, including Cornwall's highest point, Brown Willy. (You're not living in the country if you don't have an amusingly-named local landmark.) A weather phenomenon called the Brown Willy effect means showers are regularly generated across our valley; our sky is ever-changing and often dramatic.

Rainspotting

We live in the grounds of a school long since closed. Another school has opened in the most modern of the buildings, but the rest is being redeveloped. Our barn conversion was the first and some new houses are springing up by the entrance, but there's still a large school building and a couple of walled gardens that are completely empty. Technically, we don't have access to them (and the building itself is locked up), but in actuality, it's great fun to explore. We take the cats for walks around the grounds and the children sometimes play in them with our upstairs neighbours. (It's been too wet this winter for many outside encounters, but they got together for a nerf war last weekend.)

Secret gardens are meant for trespassing.

The walk to and from school was one of the things I envisioned for our life in England and it's been everything I wanted. The kids moan about it often, and I tell them we're saving the planet. There are other benefits: We don't notice it on a daily basis, but on the first day of school after Christmas, we all felt the pleasure of setting out on our walk again. That ten minutes of natural light, fresh air and exercise is a huge mood-booster. Seeing the sunrise over Dartmoor just as we start down the hill doesn't hurt either. For me, there's also that bit of human contact with other villagers and parents as I pass. Some days that nodding "Good morning!" is the only conversation with another adult I'll have.

If it's not too muddy, we take the footpath through the field.

Despite my reclusive nature, I'm building up a social network: one or two Mums from the playground; a walking group near the coast. When I need a service, I don't look on the internet (which is next to useless round here), I text my upstairs neighbour. So far, she's found me a handyman, carpet cleaner, babysitter and childminder. I should probably give her my CV and see if she performs better than the recruitment agency I'm currently with.

I used to rely on chain stores for convenience, and god knows, I do miss Target, but now the nearest towns are dominated by local businesses rather than familiar names. I confess that a good deal of my shopping is still done on Amazon for convenience' sake, but I'm starting to depend on local businesses too, such as a little bike shop with a cheerful owner who sold me a bike carrier and fitted it to my car. (Last weekend, we had to replace all three bike helmets at once, for different reasons, so he must love us now.)

The other local business getting a lot of our money is the local cinema, a tiny two-screen affair that's sat randomly among the houses of another village. I hadn't realised there was one within an hour's drive when we moved in, so it was a delight to find this fifteen minutes away. Often, films are only there for one week, so we're going to the cinema more than ever before, as we never assume we can see something "later".

That's our biggest leisure expense by a long way, since for most excursions, we only pay for parking. Cornwall, like Virginia, is built for summer tourists, rather than its year-round residents. Unlike Virginia, its beaches are for more than swimming and sandcastles. Every beach has rocks to climb and nooks and crannies to explore. Most weekends, we join up with my parents to take their dog for a walk. Beyond the coast, there are moors and ruins (from the bronze age right up to the 20th century). All I need is to do a little internet research first.

Treyarnon

Tintagel Castle

Dartmoor

Black Rock

Crooklets

Bodmin Moor

Our new life: in between the tears and arguments and stress are these pictures. Beauty, joy and adventure are all around us, and we have so much to look forward to.

For starters, the daffodils are about to bloom...