Clearing out boxes this morning I found some old notebooks and in one of them was this short piece I must have written about 6 years ago. Middle Tongue Bank was a place that I lived with my then husband and 5 young children. That was 19 years ago but for the last 10 years I have been living in London - a far cry from the world that I write about here. I don't think I shall be writing anything in this vein again but like Janus I am casting my eye back on the past whilst standing on the threshold of the new and exciting times ahead.
The arrival of the curlews in early March heralded the start of Spring and the promise that the long Winter was over in the hills. The haunting crescendo echoed from the moor tops down to the ghyll, breaking the eerie silence that blanketed the valley at that time of year. (I met a man a few years later who told me that when he heard that first call the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. That is the effect of the curlews call)
Despite the curlews cry, Spring liked to take it's time and although the trees had buds they did not come into leaf until early or even mid-May. February 14th I found the first goose laying, a careless nest made in the compost heap at the bottom of the garden.
April and the light changed dramatically, from short days and bursts of sunlight through the clouds skidding across the moors to an intense glow that that seemed to pick up all things verdant and give beauty to the browns and purples of the moorland. The sun higher meant that the windows at the back of the house at last let in the light that had been denied them for nearly half a year and the effect as it flooded in and beamed across the kitchen table was almost celestial.
The cottage was built into the side of the hill, an old stone long house, part house part barn. Massively thick stone walls and small simple rooms with low wooden beamed ceilings, stone floors worn by generations of inhabitants and small deep set windows designed to keep out the chill - they were perfect for growing geraniums all year round. As the house was built into the back of the hill the height of the windows meant that they were low enough that I could eyeball the sheep or watch the cows legs as I did the washing up at the kitchen sink.
Directly in front of the house was the yard flanked by stables and old stone barn used as a tractor shed. The yard then dropped steeply down into a small wild garden of sorts where gooseberries and currants grew in the summer. Beyond that a wooded valley through which the beck ran then a steep path up the other side and onto the moor. Hundreds of years before the monks from Fountains Abbey (some 10 miles away to the east) would walk their sheep through this valley at the end of each spring for the summer grazing on the high pastureland and I often had a feeling of something extra-ordinary as I walked the winding path that led up to the road. Behind the house the fields rose steadily upwards towards Greenhow Hill, poor grazing by lowland standards but perfect for the Swaledales and Dalesbred sheep that I kept at the time. Stonewalls divided the land from my neighbours and ancient hedgerows beaten by the wind grew knarled and twisted offering poor protection from the rain that drove hard from the west or the snow from the north-east. In this place, high up and isolated was a richness and a beauty such as a city dweller would never comprehend and now many years on I still dream of it and wonder at our good fortune for having spent time as tenants there.
When early May came round and the fields where rested, fertilised and rolled after the hard winter frosts, the new sweet grass and herbs were ready to welcome the cattle from their shed. Set free from their winter housing and driven across the yard to the other side of the farm, the open barn doors set them loose - kicking, bucking, stampeding and mooing madly, tails in the air they galloped across the yard and up to the meadow, scaring the geese as they passed the pond, nostrils flared with anticipation and excitement. It always took at least half an hour to settle down into their new environment but it was one of my great joys to watch their pleasure as they felt the sun on their backs again and watch their long tongues pull hungrily at the sweet new grass.
There were always jobs to be done on the farm and as the livestock grew so my days took on a different form. With the cows outside again there were still the pigs to attend to and 8 goats to be milked morning and night, eggs to be collected, the feral bantams laying them in corners of the barn or under clumps of nettles whilst the domestic chickens laid their brown speckled eggs on tidy golden straw nests in the coop and followed by the most perfecting chanting to signal that their hard mornings work had been done. Despite lambing being long over I still walked the fields morning and evening to check all was well and as I walked back down towards the house, I could hear the distant laughter of the children playing on the hay bales in the barn, and the goats bleeting in their pens waiting to be milked and I felt happy.
