The Mole on the Green

It is three months now since we left the Mole toasting himself by his fire as New Year crept in and we might be forgiven for thinking he had been in hibernation since then. Not so! Even in January there were almost countless mole hills on Lower Green and the following month they appeared on Simpson's Meadow too.

Many years ago now, people would scurry out of their cottages to collect the soil from these mounds, in some parts called oomptitoomps. It is wonderfully friable and bug free and makes great planting material for cuttings and seedlings too. Nowadays people seem to neglect these free offerings and go to a garden centre, a more expensive option. Anyway these superb expressions of Moles activity have more of less disappeared for now, being raked away or flattened by rollers or the first grass cutting of the year.

January was cold and wet and yet by the end of the month those most fragile looking of all Spring flowers, the snowdrops, were painting swathes of white in the copses and hedgerows. A spectacularly fine season for these, patches seeming to grow year on year. As soon as the white began to fade the first daffodils took over, appearing where we know we are likely to find them but also popping up unexpectedly.

Some friends succeed with abundant aconites and crocus though we never seem to manage that. Instead we have to fight off the abundance of polyanthus in shades from deep red, through pale pink, and different blues till we get to the lovely primrose yellow. These last are the ones we keep, I am afraid the others make their way to Council Compost heaps. Then as the weather finally sets is direction on Spring out come the cowslips standing proudly erect and in the hedgerows the magnificent white blossoms on the different thorn bushes.

A weekend of sunshine brought many of us back into the gardens, the sound of the first cut to the lawns, the groan as the effort of filling and pushing the brown bins begins. We have to do a ritual dance on ours to compact the foliage so we can get more in. And now as we have seen the Mole's handiwork and he has doubtless seen ours as we begin to stretch out our limbs and pay visits to nurseries, oil the old secateurs and revisit the shed at the bottom of the garden, never quite sure what we will find in there!

Since the year began the village has lost five residents, each in their own way dear to us and every one of them making an important element in our close community. Each and every one of them will be sorely missed but also remembered fondly. I just came across this little reading that was used at the memorial service of Mary Soames, Winston Churchill's daughter, and it offers some comfort and hope for those of us who are left behind:

“I love that bit where the plane begins to climb, the ground smoothes away behind you, the buildings, the hills. Then the white patches. The vision gets bleary. The cloud becomes a hard shelf. The land is still there. But all you see is white and the horizon. And then you turn and head towards the sun.”

(from Racing Demon, a play by David Hare)