Notes from the swamp
The newsletter is late this week because I went out. Out Out. The kind of out that requires two outfit changes, a hair brush and clean shoes, the latter being the hardest to come by in a season of constant rain. When we leave the island of Gartur, we try to look somewhat respectable - without an inch of mud clinging to the cuffs of our trousers. Despite my best efforts, I still find myself trailing little bits of Gartur’s finest topsoil wherever I go.
Everything is soggy. The green of the grass has a brown undertone as the mud seeps up to the surface, pockmarked with footprints from when someone lost a boot to the mud and had to be rescued. The goats are happy to stay in the barn, reminding us when we try to get them out that they are originally desert animals and will not be having wet feet, thank you very much.
Every year, I hit a point where I wonder if the house itself is sinking into the bog. Layers of grit cover the floors as fast as we can sweep, as if the mud is seeping through the walls. The culprit though is usually Marlowe, our walking shag carpet/bearded collie. He operates the opposite of a mop, depositing patches of dirt rather than sopping them up.
With the rain, comes the dark. As the days are short anyway this time of year, the added cloud cover barely allows us anything beyond all-day twilight. It sounds miserable, but there is a sort of welcome relief to the days of endless rain. There is a limited amount of outdoor work we can do in this season, as even a few steps in the garden will poach the ground. But the best benefit is that the dark hides the dirt and you only notice it if you make the bold move to walk around downstairs without socks.
The sun decided to make a rare Autumnal showing this weekend. Those long, low rays skirted along the floor and illuminated each and every speck of dust and fluff we missed on our daily sweep of the house. The list of things we’d put off “for a dry day” were suddenly urgent. We scurried around trying to get everything done - garlic got planted, laundry hung out, a book’s worth of photos taken, barns mucked out, house scrubbed, bulbs in, wood hauled, goat feet trimmed - all on this Sunday’s dry spell. We even managed to gather the last of the chanterelles and hedgehog mushrooms before the rain cleared them for good.
The list of things we didn’t get done was just as long, but when the rain settled back in on Monday, I wasn’t mad about it. You can’t see the dust bunnies we forgot in the dark any way.
Speaking of mushrooms…
Mushroom based gothic horror. Need I say more? This is a novella, but just a brilliant wee read. I loved Nettle & Bone by the same author, which has textile themes in it, so basically I now have to read T. Kingfisher’s entire back catalogue.
The sun is out today, but I am ignoring it as I have Issue 05 of Life in the Making to finish editing. We are past the recipe testing stage, which is always my favourite and on to editing, which isn’t my favourite…who knows cleaning may be appealing after an hour of editing.
