So we drove for hours up the M1 to Cumbria, cursing at signs for Barnard Castle, notorious now as the place where a government advisor tested his eyesight during lockdown.
We had managed to book a week at Dufton youth hostel. I've been a member of the YHA for years and got an email about exclusive hire. It worked out cheaper for all of us than a cottage in the south of England. Well, a cottage anywhere. I won't go on about lockdown profiteering...
We walked every day, bar one. We chatted. I prepared myself, I thought, for an empty house again. This is the third time. Every morning I wake up I think, oh yes, it's just me. It's the habit of 28 years of motherhood. Listening for the other breath in the house.
We brought home, I think, an appreciation of silence. We saw red deer, buzzards, a red squirrel (well, Giya did), two hedgehogs and many beautiful sheep and cattle. Oh, and horses outside the pub. No surprise there, we were so close to Appleby.
When the children were little, we often went to empty, wild places. In the kitchen I have two horseshoes that a farrier gave the children in Wales, at the end of a long walk in the hills. We have porcupine quills from Risenga's land in South Africa. The silence was good. The company was good. We ate well.
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