Rain

I leaned against the window frame watching the rain dripple sadly down the outside of the glass for yet another day, and I imagined myself as a beautiful woman in a music video staring pensively out to a rainy day longing for her love to return, except my longing was not for a man, but for the sun.  Oh sweet sun, where fore art thou?

  

It had been raining steadily every day of 2026 in The Forest of Dean, or at least it felt like it; it had been the wettest January on record and seemed like it was going to be the wettest February as well. The persistent damp wetness and misery of it was depressing.  They say there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes, but this really was bad weather, and on some especially wet days, no amount of waterproof trousers, puddle suits, waterproof jackets, thick jumpers, hats, gloves, scarves or wellies could tempt us to walk outside.

However, there were rare days where we did decide to brave it, simply because we couldn’t face another day shut it without fresh air or sunlight on our skin (no matter how weak) and those days were, to little boys at least, an adventure.

We stopped one day on the way back from church at a spot beside a stream where we had paddled in the summer and played in the gentle flowing waters which bubbled merrily over the pebbles.  We had stood up to our shins in the slowly flowing water, sun on our backs, and skimmed stones over its smooth, glassy surface. We had plunged our arms into the fresh cold water to pick up a particularly interesting stone or to try and catch a tiny fish which flashed through our fingers and away into the weeds.  At one deep spot the boys had even jumped into the water in their swimming trunks and played in the friendly pool, leafy green bowers overhead creating a living, summery roof and forming dappled light which sparkled across the surface of the shimmery water, and kept us warm n spite of the cool freshness of the water.

This day could not have been more different.  The water rushed down that same stream in an angry torrent, at least four feet higher than in the summer.  It foamed and gushed, brown and heaving. The landscape was utterly changed.  Where the stream had previously wound and twisted, now it gushed in one straight, furious river.  Trees, which the boys had previously swung from, had been swallowed up into the ranging water and still others hung precariously over the edge, their roots just barely clinging onto the bank.  At one spot roots jutted out absurdly across the stream where the water had washed away the surrounding soil, leaving the roots exposed and vulnerable, like stranded, bony limbs reaching out for rescue.

After so much rain, the water no longer looked friendly and inviting, but menacing and hostile.  Where in the summer the cool water had been inviting, now it was frightening, and, as my children crept to the edge of the stream bank, craning their necks to get a better look over the edge,  horrible fantasies flashed uninvited into my head of them falling in, being sucked under and dragged down the stream, then getting tangled in nature’s flotsam and jetsam of logs and sticks which traversed the stream, creating a deadly barrier to trap and ensnare and drown.

I quickly pulled them away from the edge, shook the image out of my head and encouraged them that it was time to go home.

The footpath beside the stream was a muddy, slippery mess, and we skidded and slipped our way back to the car, sometimes we had to use stepstones or logs to cross massive puddles to avoid filling our wellies with cold, brown water, balancing precariously like tightrope walkers, holding hands to balance and traverse and parts that were impossible to walk through, we finally made it back to the car and headed home to our dry house. 

The windscreen wipers flashed furiously across the windscreen in a fruitless attempt to clear the water from my view. At the side of the road rainwater poured, like newly formed streams, down the road, in some spots creating huge puddles which stretched across the entire road.  As I drove through, great waves of water flew up and crashed like tidal waves into the nearby hedges and across the car, the children thought this was fantastic! A muddy carwash! I on the other hand was less enamoured, and more concerned about flooding the engine, or accumulating water in our already very rusty chassis. We made it home without calamity and ran to the house for shelter.  How grateful I was to find my husband had turned on the heating and we were able to hang our sodden jackets up to dry and warm ourselves inside.

Rain was a familiar sight in the Forest of Dean, I wonder if it is part of why Foresters are so stoic and hardy seeming, they have had to endure.  But then, I considered, the rewards that came in spring just about made the misery of the rainy winters worth it, for come April the fields and forests would be lush and green again, all those rainy days preparing the ground for new-life, growth and abundance.

 The raindrops continued to dribble sadly down the window glass as I fantasised about the coming warmth of spring.  Not long now, I thought to myself.  On the horizon I spotted a small hole in the clouds, and blue sky, hope! I can’t rain forever!

Mist

    Car headlights appeared, spectre like in the night, materializing almost out of nowhere and floating like eyes from an unconnected from head. Driving felt precarious in these conditions, bends in the road, potholes (of which there were many) and other vehicles constantly took me by surprise, all shrouded in a thick, heavy fog. 

A cloud had descended on the Forest of Dean.  It was not an unfamiliar experience, sitting as we were so high in the landscape, we often woke up in a misty veil which might stay for a few hours or a couple of days.  From our bedroom window, the distant hills of Malvern and the Black Mountains usually such familiar humps on the horizon, were blocked completely from sight by this white, impenetrable cloud. It made us feel cocooned, isolated, like an island in the sky, the whole world miles and miles away, just us, dreamlike, floating in the heavens.

Occasionally we would wake up on a cool Spring or Autumn morning and find ourselves perched atop the clouds. The mist sitting like pools of soft foamy milk in breakfast bowls in the valleys and dips of the landscape and we would look out like fairy kings and queens over our fantasy cloud kingdom. The mist took on a magical quality on days like this; it seemed to hide treasures and secrets in its lacy folds, I could imagine it sprinkling magic into the ground as it floated dreamily across, planting spring seeds or sending the ground to sleep.

 

The mist seemed to take on a physical form on days like this.  Driving through the Forest would take you in and out of the resting mist as if diving in and out of a milky ocean.  One minute above the mist, the air crystal clear and fresh, the next diving down into a cotton wool sea, and just as quickly rising out of it again.  At other times the mist would seem alive, crawling menacingly over hedges and tumbling into the road like a deadly virus out to consume all it encountered.

But we were in the midst of winter now, a cold, frosty and icy January, neither the hope of new life which spring brings, nor the cosy cuddle of Autumn, but the bleak, endless, hopelessness of winter. 17^th century German Romanticist painter Casper David Friedrich perfectly captures the feeling in his painting “Wanderer above a sea of fog”, we stand surveying a bleak horizon, brooding and Darcy-like taking in the moody landscape as if it were doing this on purpose just to spite us. And yet even in the face of death and hopelessness, the Forest continued to take me by surprise in forming beauty with the most unlikely of materials; Dark, bare forests transformed into beautiful enigmatic paintings, bare tree limbs and branches, less spider like and more delicate, seemed to reach through the mist and reveal themselves in layers like a series of net curtains gradually revealing the players on a stage, the performer; nature itself.

 

Wandered Above a Sea of Fog by Casper David Friedrich

On a forest walk at this time of year I imagine myself as Cathy in Wuthering Heights, or Jane Eyre walking through a Gothic, enigmatic, Northern landscape, holding up imaginary skirts and encountering mysterious men who are taciturn, ancient hansom and loyal, but who aren’t men at all but trees only disguised as mysterious men, hiding their beauty and soul behind a rough, craggy bark, bare branches, and emerging hero-like through layers and layers of vapours chiffon. One could easily fall in love with a man like that, and just as easily I have fallen in love with the Forest.

But alas, I wasn’t Cathy and the Forest of Dean is no Heathcliff, especially not on nights like this, nights where  I am just a mother driving her son to Cub Scouts, knuckles whitely gripping the steering wheel hoping that the next bend in the road would reveal no more surprises and I could get him to the Scout hut without encountering another car along a narrow winding lane forcing me to reverse uphill, blind.  I had done that before on a clear day and I didn’t fancy it when I could see less than three meters ahead, let alone behind and without the benefit of headlights to guide me. No, driving in the Forest on a misty night did not transport me to a romantic scene from an Edwardian novel, it left me shaken and longing for a cosy sofa and roaring fire to envelop and hold me, the only defences against the cold and damp Forest of Dean winters. That was winter here, cold and damp, a damp that penetrated to the bone, with no blustery, moorland wind to drive it away.  A damp which sits and waits for the forces of its enemy spring to drive it back into the wet ground and rotting wood. 

But I wasn’t about to let the cold and damp crush my spirits, because I knew that that was what was needed in order to experience the rich, greenness of a Forest of Dean Spring. The mists would eventually melt away like a winter snow, and like a bride lifting her veil at the alter the Forest’s beauty would be revealed.  And so, I left the car on the muddy drive, headed into my house to warm up and closed the door against the penetrating mist, it could fill fields and spill into roads and drift quietly through forests, but it couldn’t enter my own safe dwelling.  And through the bedroom window in the morning I admired the beauty of the mist which shrouded our house still, and I pulled my dressing gown tighter around my shoulders girding myself for another chill day, I lit a candle and imagined myself as a heroine in a Bronte novel, waiting for her hero to return.

New Year's Day

 

 I drew breath sharply through clenched teeth as I stepped gingerly down the slippery stone steps of the ancient well, it’s water’s a constant 11 degrees rising painfully up my bare thighs, making my heart race and mind swim.

Above me the bare branches of oak, beech and ash forming a crooked and bleak web-like roof beneath a stony grey sky, and surrounding bare earth, all muddy, wet roots and rotting damp leaves reminded me that we were in the midst of winter.  Why then would I be choosing to plunge my body into the icy waters of St Anthony’s Well on this rather unpromising and uninviting day?

I wasn’t the only brave, or perhaps mad soul who had chosen to be metaphorically baptised by the Forest on this gloomy day, because this was a spot where many people came to feel the refreshing exhilaration of the well, in addition to experiencing it’s supposed healing powers and ancient mystery.

 It was the first of January 2026 and people came, both Forester and Outsider alike to be re-born, refreshed and renewed by the ancient waters of the well.  We weren’t the first of course, people had been coming to this spot for centuries.  Thought to be build by the monks of what was once the nearby Flaxley Abbey, in the 18^th Century, though having been used for ritual purposes for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years before.  I wasn’t there for the history though; I was there to wash off the old year and begin the new cleansed and refreshed. 

Refreshing was one word to use for the cool crisp waters which lapped deceptively  peacefully inside the square stone pool, I girded myself with several deep breaths and hands clenched together, prayer-like under my chin, as if calling on God for succour, I summoned my courage and dunked myself up to the neck, holding myself in the water and counting a minute before raising myself up, reborn into the cool, damp air of the Forest.  I beat a hasty exit up the algae covered steps and quickly wrapped up in a fluffy dressing gown, legs red raw, teeth chattering and shivering all over.

What a way to start the year, surrounded by the wonder of nature however bleak it appeared at this time of year. The pain and discomfort were worth it for the cleansing feeling experienced after a dip, and after hastily and awkwardly drying and dressing myself under a dressing gown, I sat with two friends and slowly began to thaw with the help of a hot tea and warming chatter, watching whilst other brave pilgrims took their turn in the sacred pool.

January 2026 was my fifth winter in the Forest of Dean, and I was gradually becoming accustomed to the features of its seasons, landscape, flora and fauna as the year rolled on. A wet and cool part of the country, especially on the higher ground where I had made my home with my husband and four sons, but enchanting and magical, mysterious and captivating as well.  We were well compensated for its dampness and cold by its beauty and abundance, and I looked forward to another year to explore and learning about this unique place which was The Forest of Dean. 

Turning 40 - Why I'm not giving up on my dreams and neither should you

 In episode 1 of The Good Life, a 1970's sit-com based in Surbiton, England, following the story of the Goods, a couple who decide to quit the rat-race and try their hand at self-sufficiency, we see Tom Good turn 40.  

As a young 20 year old in her second year at University watching the series on VHS on my little TV in my bedroom, the Goods seemed ancient, but they inspired in me the seed of a dream that I had to one day become self sufficient myself.  If they could pick up at 40, living in a suburban house and become self-sufficient then I, with a whole twenty years extra time ahead of me, could easily achieve this dream.

Well now I'm 40 and I'm not self-sufficient.

What happened?  Well life happened, I had no house, no land to be self-sufficient on, so I had to get a job, I trained to become a teacher, got a mortgage (but not for a big house with land because who can afford that on a teachers income in Berkshire!?), I got married, then I had a child, then another, then two more, and now... here I am. In a house full of kids, no chickens, no goat, a few sad veg that grow as a testament to the little spark that still resides in my chest, waiting to be kindled into a flame. 

I'm pretty happy with my life though.  I think I have achieved some great things in my 40 years, things that I'm really proud of.  I've grown so much as a person through the trials and the joys that I have experienced over the years, they have embroidered many layers into my personality and identity, layers of wisdom, contentment, self-sacrifice, resilience and strength, and I've really enjoyed getting to know myself in deeper and more profound ways.  I'm proud of this person that I am, that I've become, that I am becoming. And not achieving my dream of self-sufficiency doesn't mean that I've lost anything or failed, it's just...well...life. It turned out differently than I imagined.  

I've had many adventures in my 40 years, which at the time I thought were side quests, distractions from my main goal of becoming self-sufficient, but in the end became THE quest.  Submitting to this quest has been one of the hardest and most joyful journeys of my life.  I never would have guessed all those years ago that self-sufficiency would become a side quest.  

In my defence though there are reasons my life did not exactly emulate the Goods, for one thing, unlike the Goods, my husband and I decided to have children.  Also, and I don't know if this is due to the economy now verses the 1970's or simply because of the children, but in episode 1 Tom reveals that they have paid off the mortgage. Imagine that!!  Being mortgage free at the age of 40.  Was that the norm back then?  (Please let me know in the comments if you know).  We still have a pretty substantial amount to pay off our mortgage which requires work, which means one less person for all the milking and growing, bartering, digging and egg collecting (and that one person has been pretty occupied by the child rearing!).  I also have a husband who does not share the self-sufficiency dream. Tom was quite easily able to persuade his wife Barbara that becoming self sufficient was a great idea, my husband isn't so keen.  

So what's to do?  Give up on the dream?  That's what most people do isn't it.  They decide, or perhaps realise that their dream isn't really their dream any more, or that in fact it isn't achievable, but I'm not ready to give up yet.  

The Goods became self-sufficient when they were in their 40s and so can I! (there is that slight issues of the mortgage needing paying for but let's put that to one side for now.)

At the moment my main quest, my mission is my children, home educating them and helping them become ready to be independent people in the world. 

But oh the side quests!!

Some days I wish I wasn't a person who had side quests, if only I could put aside all that and just be a mum, focus all my attention on that.  For some reason God didn't make me that way, He made me to have multiple interests all at once.  There's the Art side quest (that was once my main quest too), I love art, it is something that brings me so much joy and peace, expressing myself though paint is a rare but nourishing treat.  Then there is the writing side quest, I absolutely love writing, putting a message out there, encouraging others with my words, maybe even improving our income a little bit with various projects (stay tuned for the book I'm writing!), then there is the self-sufficiency side quest that I've already mentioned.  These days I prefer to call this "homesteading" which sounds terribly American, but like the American "Homemaker" over "Housewife" describes better what I am aiming for I think.  Self-sufficiency feels a bit like I want to cut myself off from community and I don't want that, I also feel it alludes to spiritual self-sufficiency which I also don't want. Homesteading is more about growing what we need, preserving that and using our skills to provide for ourselves or create a small income.   Of course my homesteading side quest is very meagre, my little garden of veggies, my efforts to make bread and other food from scratch, to forage what I can, to break away from the system that ties us into working "for the man"! But it gives me an extra sense of purpose, and fuels my rebellious side! 

I'm certain God is using me in all these ways to glorify him, (which is of course the quest that supersedes all other quests, along with loving God and loving others) I can't say I am certain how yet, maybe it's like one of those films or TV series which have multiple story lines all playing along at once that all converge at the end of the story in one extraordinary climax!!  

In episode 1 of The Good Life Barbara plays a record for Tom on his birthday, a song by Sophie Tucker, I played it for my husband's 40th birthday, you'll recognise the name it's called "Life begins at 40", you can listen to it here some of the lyrics are quite poignant, she says:

"Yes, life begins at forty

And I've just begun to live all over again

You see the sweetest things in life grow sweeter as the years roll on"

When I think about this, it does seem true that I have lived half my life and am beginning a second half now. I am done with having babies (very sadly as I'd love more) and the truth is that I am now facing the beginning of "middle age" I'll be thankful if I have another 40 years on earth, maybe I'll get more than that, like my grandpa who is approaching 100, or maybe I'll have fewer years like my dear mother-in-law who died aged just 70.  I don't know what the next decades will hold for me, I hope that Sophie Tucker is right and the sweetest things will get sweeter as the years roll on, but one thing is certain, I am not giving up on my dreams.  I am not giving up on my dream of homesteading, and I have no intention on giving up on any of my other side quests either, and I want to tell you that you also shouldn't give up on your dreams, it is never too late.

It's not too late to learn a new skill, to start writing a book, to learn a new language, to learn a new sport, to achieve a physical goal like running, losing weight or starting a new sport, it's not too late to learn to paint, to start a business, or fly a plane!  There is so much that can still be done, so many dreams that can still be fulfilled, it is never too late to set a new goal no matter how big or small.  

Vera Wang didn't design her first dress till she was 40, Stan Lee created his fort hit comic at age 39, and Laura Ingalls Wilder didn't publish her first Little House book till she was 65!  There are hundreds of people who have gone before us, paving the way, starting new dreams after middle age, if they can do it, so can I, and so can you!