The old Road to Bonsall

---

Sunday 24^th June 7am

Summer rain in the time-borrowed garden.

Everything is drenched, rain heavy, dripping - the air, the hedgerows, grass, foxgloves, roofs and pathways are all rain covered.

The rain rebounds off the old pigsty roof, dancing up and down. It sings a song around me. The rain-showers become a chorus repeating back and forth in between the verses of quiet. It is 7am and I am in garden of an old house in the Arkwright village of Cromford. It is void of human interaction, no cars, no neighbours, everyone is sleeping inside and I can clearly hear the patterns of the shifting rain.

Above the valley, the mist is rising and the clouds sink down. I can just make out the horizon. The gardens overlap, divided by old dry-stone walls, obsolete pig stys, stone steps and lichen covered gates because they have grown here since Arkwright moved in with his cotton looms and water powered mills.

This is the village where my children’s great grandmother lived and where my great grandmother had a shop and gave toys away to the poor kids – they don’t know this and until today, I forgot.

It has not stopped raining for about three months. We all snatch the brief times in between the wet weather and make the most of it, so, with the break in the clouds and a hint of blue, I run in, dress quickly and leave the sleeping house.

Walking through the village, the wet-heavy scent of honeysuckle lingers, the hem of my dress is wet and I have the wrong shoes on.

There is a freshness here that has abandoned the cities and goes unnoticed by the young. I am weaving in between the paths of the overlapping gardens, around the old walled pit with cascading water in front of the abandoned tin smith’s forge, around the celebrated in-tact pig sty and can be forgiven for falling back in time a hundred years.

The road to Bonsall is walled on either side by deep, dark, wet woods and on the left is the harnessed river water, rushing in falling cascades gathering back-up power for the redundant mills below in Cromford. There is fresh water running everywhere, harnessed and free and all of the walls are covered in deep moss.

I’ve been looking for some time, since I returned from China, for something I thought I had lost. And, without warning, as I’m walking, I find it here – on the old road to Bonsall.

In the rain, by the gushing river water, I find a meeting of self and nature and total inner peace with myself and realise that at this tiny, precise, exact meeting point, I find my lost soul. Simultaneously, I understand that it was never lost in China and comprehend that I can find my soul at ANY place because it is inside me. It was never lost, it just gets covered over – it has never been about a time or a place.

Cromford 8.50am 24^th June 2012

---

Photos

Pie tasting
Nicola and I tasting every pie in the Arkwright Pie competition at Celebrating Cromford Fete, after the winner had been decided.

Comments

[Home and Away]

I could feel everything you wrote about...
and hear the rain and smell the garden soil. Thanks for sharing your insights occasionally.

[David]

Singing in the rain
Beautifully written as ever, Tracy. There is indeed much happiness in the rain, that pitter-patter on the walls of the tent (or roof of the motorhome in our case), sweeping away the dust that binds the mind and that wonderful sense of security within it. Keep writing for us. David

[D MJ Binkley]

Your word descriptions are wonderful
It is so easy to feel what you are experiencing. Things can become clear in a good rain. Everything is fresh and new.

[Ben (aged 38 3/4)]

Royalties
Hello Tracey. I am writing this note-lett on the advice of my solicitors. They assure me that any monies earned from my hard graft in my (albeit rain-soaked) garden via the medium of photo, prose, poem, dance, mime, or song, will earn a "nice slice of the pie (arkwrights or otherwise)" for my good self. I did enjoy reading your blog and the photographs, as always, were the highlight for me. Please forward 35% of all royalties to - Ben The Hedge Cromford Hill Gutter Down-and-outs-ville and ensure the money is wrapped tightly in a plastic bag.

[TraceyDoxey]

royalties
i'll make you a pie. wish there were royalties - it's just dabbling, Ben. :)

[TinNiE]

I'm not sure what happened to my comment =P ...I was saying that I don't like the rain, but you have beautifully written about it that I wan't it just this moment! :)

[Dave Western]

WTF?
Rain??? What the hell is that??