17 April 2010 – The speed of a camel

And suddenly Spring was here, cold bird-singing dawn, golden sun slanting up the half past six Arrow valley, the odd swallow pushing north, the ash outside my study bud-bursting, sheep and lambs peaceful in the frost waiting for the warmth. How wonderfully joyous is this “biophilia”, this affinity for the land and its seasons that are hard-wired into our souls. I dug out my battered copy of A Shropshire Lad to find again those slightly sad lines, for someone of my age, “And since to look at things in bloom Fifty springs are little room, About the woodlands I will go To see the cherry hung with snow.” This lad of only twenty springs had a round and wonderful fifty springs to contemplate, and even then he was mindful of making the most of it. What about the rest of us for whom a mere score would do most nicely, and any more a real gift? Yes, how many books to read, swallow comings to welcome, ash buddings to burst and kite nestings to watch? We must embrace them and celebrate them.

Richie decided to celebrate his birthday by spending the whole day down on the allotment. From sunrise in a cold grey dawn to fiery chilly sunset he and Celia celebrated that personal new year of adventures by digging and planting, brewing and cooking. We sat close round the little fire with a warming bottle of wine and the babbling Arrow at our side. Celia played her whistle and Richie played the guitar. The embers of a fire whispered another more ancient song that takes us back to distant origins.

No one would have guessed that an Icelandic volcano could so suddenly and in such an exemplary way teach us to imagine a world without flying. The necessity to fly “love-miles” to see relatives and lovers would die out. The consumer appetite for migrating like the birds to warmer climes would find more parochial outlets. Even the servicing of economic diasporas would become less possible. And how about all that out of season fruit, flowers and succulent salads? Many more of us would find the time to become allotmenteers and learn the wisdom of Russian “dachniki” celebrating the coming of the sun in more earthy and fruitful ways. Old timers would point up at the vapour-trail empty sky and describe astonishing tales of backpacking in the Antipodes and traveling over time-zones at the speed of a bullet, of colliding cultures and global junk. There is much to be found in the embers of the fire, in celebrating the sun. As the Arabic proverb says “the soul travels at the speed of a camel”, and that is also something to celebrate.