To Everything There Is A Season

Six whole months ago I joined the Pilsdon community. The Earth has spun halfway round the Sun in the meantime. Spring has sprung, Summer has been summoned and Autumn is beginning to Fall.  An entirely new person has since been ushered into life in the form of baby River. Thirteen entirely new piglets have also been welcomed to planet Earth although sadly their mother had to be taken to the abattoir yesterday as she had developed a malignant tumour on her udder. Twelve lambs have been born, lived their lives, been dispatched and are now in the freezers. One bullock was slaughtered in May and has since been consumed, four remain out in the fields looking over their shoulders nervously.  The vegetable garden has blossomed, bloomed, fruited and in large part been harvested and filled our collective stomach.

I have become highly attuned to the rhythms of daily life here. Like a true Pavlovian, bells dictate my comings and goings, ten a day. I can tell to a high degree of accuracy who it is ringing the church bell by the frequency and timbre of its peal. Inside the church, without looking I know who is entering by the sound of their footsteps.

 

The community has grown slightly in numbers but is always evolving through the interplay of relationships. Friendships are struck up, and are either deepened or soured. Enmities also are forged as harsh words are spoken at the wrong moment. One gruff old bloke only ever smiles when he is playing with the baby. Tempers occasionally flare but shortly everything is calm again. Everyone on the whole cares for one another. If someone is not at the meal table, they will be looked for. People help with the washing up after supper despite not being on the rota for it. Some agree to have their portraits painted by our resident artist-thespian although not many could sit still for long enough (blame the medication). I very kindly looked after baby River while his mother took my job of shifting a ton of compost from one compartment to another. (She offered!) It’s been said that the key to sustaining a community such as this is simply people being able to say “Thank You” and “Sorry”.

 

I still consider myself very much a novitiate in the dark arts of gardening but I have perhaps progressed a rung or two. It seems to require the ability to keep a lot of plates spinning very slowly. Weeds don’t grow especially quickly - if you stare at one it just stays still and stares back insolently - but if you get on with the hundred other tasks of sowing, potting on, watering, erecting cane frames, mulching, forking the soil, turning compost, harvesting, etc, they just silently take over. However the sheer delight in being able to pick a few sweetcorn for the kitchen from the six foot high plants knowing that a few months ago they were just tiny seeds has not yet worn off.

 

There’s talk of putting together a pantomime for Christmas. I should still be here for it as Pilsdon have agreed to extend my six months by at least another three, and possibly till next March. Time to dust off my back-half-of-a-donkey suit I guess.