This past week the boys have continued cutting the yew hedges which were planted by Reginald Cooper in the 1920s, long before Mistress and I were born!
Mistress, Charlie and Sally the student have been taking cuttings; the propagation unit is nearly full, we are all thrilled as the cuttings took so well.
Today Dearest Mistress and Charlie spent the whole morning feeding all the boxes in the garden with a seaweed product which is made in Scotland; it gets up my nose and makes me sneeze. Although I am only 2 years old and am Chinese, I feel part of life here at Cothay.
Mistress says the plant of the week is a blue herbaceous clematis which smells like expensive bath oil. It is called Clematis recta and is a native of Europe, where it grows in scrub and on sunny hillsides.
It seems to me that this corner of Somerset, amidst the narrow lanes, is shrouded in the past and changed hardly at all since Cothay was built in the 15th century. The walls of the old house are saturated with the souls of those who lived here long ago.
Where is the future? I asked Dearest Mistress and she replied “it lies in the past, which is tangible and fragile, do not let it blow away.” We who live here now are tied by a silver thread which is invisible and eternal.
Greenham, Nr. Wellington,
Somerset, TA21 OJR
01823 672283
