Easter Sunday

Coming awake in the early part of this morning, we heard the pattering of very small feet in the roof space above our bedroom. The little creature scampered around for a while and was gone.
We think its a mouse but can't be sure, even though its been with us for a year or two now. 
Our house was brand new when we moved into it in January 2005; a brand new stamping ground for all sorts of creatures. With bare walls, bare floors and not much but builders dust, the space was exciting and new.
Now, in just over seven weeks time we'll be handing over the keys. 
Its amazing to me how we can create a sense of home from such a blank canvas and its not just where the heart is; its where dreams and intentions can be made manifest and where, for a while, we are privileged to share such a place, even with the tiniest of beings.
We discovered a trick some years ago about keeping spiders away by placing a few conkers in the corners of each room. Amazingly, it works and our conkers have done their job this year and are now shrunken down to tiny sculpted remnants. But at least the spiders have kept away.






Outside in the garden our menagerie of birds and squirrels are flitting around, looking for food, with one small blue tit pecking away at the soft buds of the rowan tree. Every now and then, one of the birds brushes against one of the Tibetan wind chimes, setting up a resonant clang that seems to come from another space altogether.


Nicholas
























This is the view from our land. The wash of gentle green with distant hills anchoring the horizon, the trees, the dappled light of sun through cloud. This is the gift of the vision of Paul and Cindi Simonet and the precious friends that supported them in moving the dream of Maple Ridge from possibility to reality...

I am amazed that it was 1 year ago that we met Paul, 1 year ago that we stood on this land and drank in its majestic beauty. Mom and Daddy were with us and they witnessed the moment Nicholas and I knew we had found out next home, our place to nest in the United States.


As if to echo that realisation, shortly after returning to the UK from that trip, Paul and Cindi sent a photograph of bluebirds nesting in these bushes at the edge of the garden. 


Bluebirds! I am so excited that bluebirds will be nesting at the boundary of our home. 


Between the two swathes of green grass is a small stream, mostly it is for run-off, but it reminds me of an aspect of English farming. Here this stream would be called a Ha Ha. Yes...a Ha Ha.


This Easter morning I am smiling, we have bluebirds, and this view, new friendships to grow and old friendships to renew. And, as if that were not enough, I have a Ha Ha to help me remember that joy is all around me...that laughter is wonderful medicine...that beyond the rainbow may be closer than I ever imagined....


Judy