Another village life

As I mentioned in my last post, it has been a very tumultuous month, with many ups and downs, and much (too much!) emotion. But at least one thing is settled; my husband has found a job and we will be exchanging a Cumbrian life for a Cotswoldian (is that even a word?) one.

It feels very odd and unsettling to contemplate moving. We came here four years ago intending to stay for decades, hopefully until my husband's retirement. It felt wonderful, like sinking into a hot bubble bath, to know you didn't have to move. To consider the next few years and be able to build into people, places, institutions and ideas, knowing you would be there to see things through.

In what felt like a moment all that comfort and security was gone, which I suppose shows me how fleeting and temporal this life really is. That notion has been brought home to me by my father's illness as well. How is it that one moment you can feel as if life stretches before you in an endless golden line of days, and in the next it feels as if it has been all snatched and scattered?

Well, back to the good news, or goodish news. We are moving to the Cotswolds, near Oxford. I'm not exactly sure what village we'll be living in, as we are still looking for a house to rent. But I suspect it will look something like this:

And yet I shall miss our village's steeply winding street, the glorious view of the fells and sea, even the bitter wind! I shall miss everything here, because I came here expecting to stay and now have discovered I can't.

But life is funny that way. Our ways are not God's ways, and I trust that He knows what He is doing in this as in all things. But it still feels hard and disappointing now, even though I am grateful that we have somewhere to go. And so my Cumbrian life will become my Cotswold life. I don't think I shall change the name of my blog, but watch this space for the further adventures of a village life!

The comfort of a village life

It's been a long time since I've written, and that's because a lot has happened. A lot of not-so-good things. In mid-March the school where my husband works and children attend announced quite suddenly that it is closing in July due to dwindling pupil numbers. This came as a big shock to everyone, because from the outside the school looked like it was doing well. It certainly came as a shock to us!

What has happened over the following few weeks demonstrates the power of a village community. Over 700 people came to a meeting immediately following the announcement to find ways to keep the school was open. A 'Rescue Team' was formed and has been campaigning tirelessly to keep it open, and many, many people have volunteered to help. You can learn more about it here.

However, two days ago the Governors of the school announced they would not rescind the closure notice, and so the school is, in fact, closing. What this means for us is that we will lose our lovely village life, and move elsewhere--watch this space!

The other very hard thing that happened was last week my dear father was diagnosed with leukaemia, with a prognosis varying from a few months to a year or possibly more. This also came out of the blue, and was (and is) very hard to bear. My father is the most wonderful person, so funny and wise and loving. My children adore him. I flew out to be with him and my mother last week:

While I was away my village community rallied around to help my family, taking care of children, making meals, and writing us cards of care and support. I am so thankful for everyone here. They have proved stalwart friends in both good times and bad.

Meanwhile spring has burst upon us at last, and the sunshine and warm(ish) weather is a balm to my wounded soul. Plus I have lots of new books out, which is always exciting. My romance set in a small town in Vermont is out now:

You can buy it on any ebook platform. I also received ARCs of my novel for Penguin/NAL, Rainy Day Sisters, which I am very excited about. Coming to a bookshop near you in August!

Meanwhile I am enjoying the sunshine and treasuring the days, because I am realising how precious and fleeting time is.

Beach Walk

The other day it was cold and brisk but also sunny, and I took advantage of the rare bout of rays to take a few photos on my usual walk with the dog to the beach and back:

The tide was out which leaves a lovely stretch of flat, damp sand, scattered with tide pools and rocks. The dog loves wading into the pool, even in subzero temperatures! I do not.

I'm not actually much of a beach person, although my limited childhood experience of the beach was the Jersey Shore, which might explain why I never took to it. An empty beach in winter, though, is something else entirely.

The dog surveys her domain and I enjoy a moment of solitude in an all too busy day, before heading home as the light starts to fade.

That is my house in the distance, by the church, looking, to my mind, very Wuthering Heights-ish alone in its little moor!

And so ends another walk. I'm looking forward to spring.

Harbingers of Spring

Today the air was cold and sharp with the promise of snow, at least another dusting, but in our garden I found this lovely promise of spring--even if it doesn't arrive here for awhile yet!

I've never seen snowdrops in the US, and I do enjoy this little reminder that spring will come eventually, even if it is cold and only early February. I'm looking forward to getting out in the garden and working on my vegetable plot. I am a mediocre gardener at best; I don't have a good instinct for plants and growing things and my weeding and pruning are rather slipshod but I do enjoy it. And last year we ate green beans, lettuce, onions, potatoes and a few knobbly carrots from my efforts outside, and I was very pleased.

And meanwhile I'll enjoy these:

Snow... or not

Last week it snowed here in the village. Not a lot of snow, mind you. Living as we do on the coast, we rarely get more than a generous dusting. People are still talking about the winter of 2010-2011, before we moved here, when it snowed an entire FOUR INCHES. Roads were closed, and food had to be shipped into the village by sea from Whitehaven. I kid you not.

As a former New Englander, I scoff a bit at this, I admit. When we lived in Connecticut we had several major snowstorms each winter, and by major I mean anywhere from 18 inches to 2 and a half feet of snow. But New England is prepared for that kind of snow. Within hours of the snow stopping, the ploughs are out and the streets are mainly clear.

My husband and I were reminiscing about the snowstorms in New England. There is something very serene and beautiful about a world blanketed in snow. I think the thing I miss most of all is the sense of peaceful silence. Everything is muted by snow; no one is out. The world is covered in softness. Of course, in a few days or weeks, that softness is grimy, grey, and making life generally difficult with puddles of icy slush--when we lived in New York City, there were absolutely treacherous puddles on the curbs of certain intersections, and the worst part was, they didn't look that deep. So you'd step into one only to find yourself sinking into icy, dirty water halfway up to your knee. Yuck.

So I don't miss that.

But snow can be magical, and when it snowed here last week (maybe a quarter of an inch, gone within an hour) my six-year-old daughter was absolutely entranced. She doesn't remember the snows in New York, and she gazed around in rapture at the snow still coming down and said, 'This is the best day EVER. There is so much to SEE!'

I'd like a little of her youthful wonder and exuberance, myself.

It was supposed to snow last night but there is nary a flake on the ground this morning. However, the distant fells look like this:

So really, I can't complain.

Fire at the Vicarage

Please forgive my absence from this blog; Christmas and all its attending brouhaha (a word I love to use) overwhelmed me. And then of course there was the fire.

On December 27th my husband put on a fire in the guest room to air the room out in preparation for our au pair coming back. Unfortunately, while he was out of the room, a spark leapt out (we think) and possibly lit the kindling stacked near the fireplace, or some other highly flammable substance, because a few minutes later the smoke alarm (thankfully!) went off and when he went upstairs the whole room was ablaze.

I am very grateful for my husband's clear, cool thinking, because I have to admit I am a panicker. Worse, I am a wring-my-hands-and-do-nothing kind of panicker. I've managed to improve slightly since having children--when my son, who was two at the time, choked on a plum pit, I possessed enough sangfroid to first give him the Heimlich and then when that didn't work, to fish the pit out with my finger while he sank his teeth deep into my knuckle. But back to the fire.

My husband told our two oldest daughters, who were oblivious to the fire in the room adjacent to them, to go downstairs and he put the contents of not one but two fire extinguishers on the blaze while we waited outside, shivering. At that point I thought maybe the mat in front of the fireplace would be a bit damaged, the room a bit smoky.

Ha.

The fire reignited and my husband called the fire brigade--all volunteers, who were superb. They put out the fire and pried up the floorboards, using cameras to make sure there was no fire underneath. They also threw all the smoke and fire damaged furniture out the window.

So the room was a little more damaged than I thought. In fact, it was a burned out shell, and my daughter's room next door was covered in soot and grime.

But the good news is we have insurance. And the reason this relates to my village life? Within five minutes of the whole thing happening, people were calling, leaving messages on Facebook, offering to have us sleep at their house or borrow anything we needed. We hadn't even told anyone, but people could see the fire brigade (not to mention the smoke) at our house and so they called. They came to help fill a skip (or Dumpster, in American) with all the rubbish (trash). They offered to help clean and paint, and the girls slept in the living room for a week on a pile of a friend's duvets. I know things like this would happen even if I didn't live in a village. Friends would call round, offering help once they'd heard. I suppose the difference is how quickly the help came. How many people reached out, because they could actually *see* the smoke billowing up in the middle of the village! And despite the fire's damage, I'm grateful for how it made me count my blessings. The children had been bickering all week but the fire sobered them up a bit, drew us all together. Made us see how many friends we had, people who were willing and eager to help us. And of course we are very thankful that it wasn't any worse--if the smoke alarm hadn't gone off, if the fire had moved into the hallway and blocked the stairs... the whole house could have burned down. Children could have been hurt or worse. So yes, I am thankful.

A Cumbrian Christmas

It's that time of year again. Christmas! Or rather, Advent. I love the build-up to Christmas; I love the decorating, the baking, the buying of presents, and all the events that we have for school and church. Christmas concerts and nativity plays (this year at the primary school it is 'Christmas with the Aliens') and mince pies and mulled wine.

Here at the Vicarage we have a few of our own special events. The Thursday before Christmas we host the village's weekly 'pop-in' at our house; basically, it is a morning with coffee, cake, and chatting, finished off with some Christmas carols. I enjoy having people over and it also helps me get the house clean for Christmas, the kind of kick in the pants this reluctant housekeeper needs. We also have the Youth Group Christmas party next week, which involves a Yankee Swap (also known, I think, as a white elephant??) and lots of iced sugar cookies.

Next week there is a carol service at the Lifeboat Station down at the beach, and on Saturday my daughter is playing Christmas carols with the school band at the local castle (can castles be considered local? Well, we have one and it's twenty minutes away.)

So much busy-ness and fun, but amidst all that I try to find a moment or at least a second or two to be quiet. This December I am reading The Greatest Gift  by Anna Voskamp, who is the author of the bestselling book 1,000 Gifts. I'm enjoying a chance to reflect on the meaning of Advent and Christmas amidst the chaos of our household--the latest concerns/arguments being who gets to put the star on top of the tree (every year we put a note in the box of decorations saying whose turn it is, and every year the note mysteriously disappears) and who gets to eat the first chocolate in the Advent calendar. It's December 3rd and no chocolates have been eaten because this issue has not yet been resolved.

Do you look forward to the Christmas season? What do you like in particular? To celebrate I will give away one copy of my novella A Yorkshire Christmas (Kindle only, I'm afraid!) to someone who comments or sends me an email telling me something they like (or don't like!) about Christmas.