Just hold on...

Enjoy the milestones

Newtown National Nature Reserve

This week is my 102nd post here. I am quite surprised at myself that the first three-digit milestone flew past without noticing. In fact, it was only when I was looking back for an earlier essay and realised they were numbered that I saw how many had been published. I suppose if I thought about it, since I have acknowledged that I have been here over a couple of years, then it not a big stretch to do the math. I just hadn’t really done the math, thought about it been paying attention. 🤷‍♀️

For all of you, and particularly those of you who have been here for much of the journey, my most heartfelt thanks for showing up to read. ❤️ I write these thoughts with you always in my mind. Really! The topic is usually something that has been rumbling around in my scattered brain, but I try to include at least some small thing that will interest you, or maybe help you look a little sideways at something you see everyday.

And on that topic, if there is ever anything you would like to read more about (or less!), let me know. Really! I am always looking for ideas beyond my Island view-shed.

In other random news, the writing group that I go on and on about, The London Writers Salon, has recently published a compendium of essays and poems submitted by writers who participate in their Writers hour, called Writing in Community. Lo and behold, they kindly selected one of my essays to include. I now have an actual physical book with two pages that are filled with my words. Yes, I am a wee bit excited. I’ll share that essay with you soon. Meantime, here’s a picture of the cover; I love the squiggly line drawings that capture the many ways we writers write:

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As part of my periodic island fever, also known as: I-need-something-different-to-look-at-stat! we travelled to a less-frequently visited corner of the Island centred around Newtown. In the usual way of British naming, Newtown is actually QUITE old. In the 14th Century, New Town was the most important port on the Island. It eventually lost it’s importance due to the shallow harbour filling in with silt and two more accessible harbours that were built nearby. But Newtown’s loss has become our treat.

Now the site is a National Trust property with acres of gorgeous wetland marsh and a nature reserve. Small cottage inholdings dot the interior, and boardwalks traverse the watery parts. There is a bird hide where if you are clever and come at the right time of day, there is apparently fabulous bird watching. Of course we were there at the ‘wrong’ time of day and saw about three birds, none of which were ‘exciting’ or worth noting on the chalk board outside. We know this since the proper birders in the blind told us we wouldn’t see any interesting birds. Ah, well. Lucky for us novices, everything we saw was interesting.

View from the bird blind

More importantly for us, there was lovely soft autumn colour, a slight warmth to the air, and an overall quiet that is hard to find on our end of the Island. We strolled slowly and stood for long periods quietly, holding that stillness close. We turned our faces to the feeble sun, and identified small fish in the marsh just before the birds dove in. We saw wild samphire growing at the waterline which we’d never seen in the wild before; we usually see samphire sold in the fish shop to be sautéed lightly with local seafood. We wandered around the perimeter pathways, hopping over puddles, wondering when the large bags of rubble would be emptied, and just generally nosed around. We could feel our heart rates slowing down to the beat of the marsh.

Peaceful scenes at Newtown Marsh

The various cottages and old church we found on the inland rim of the property caught our attention as we ambled along in our now very relaxed state of mind. We wondered what the view was like from an upstairs balcony that had been added sympathetically to a stone cottage. We considered what kind of repairs were ongoing to the church that required putting a porta-loo right in front of the entrance.

Newtown Church, with Porta-loo just out of sight..

And near where our car was parked, we wondered if there was a requirement, (or maybe a competition?) to have the most colourful flowers planted in the front of one’s stone cottage…

Technicolour flowers, with no filter needed.

As it was Sunday afternoon, and we were near Yarmouth, a nearby bustling seafront village, it really was necessary for us to get a cuppa at one of the eating places and enjoy a bustling view towards the Big Island. So we did.

Afterwards, refreshed, we wandered around the last remaining English Heritage property on the the Island that we hadn’t visited yet: Yarmouth Castle. Suffice it to say it is NOT the most interesting castle we have visited over the years. The most important thing you need to know is that they kept a cannon in the kitchen, and absolutely amazingly, nothing ever caught fire and blew up.

Cannon in the kitchen; explainer also concerned.

And so the Autumn days tick along pleasantly. Writing, walking, a quick trip to London, finishing small projects best done before the cold and persistent wet keep us more housebound. It is one of the reasons I enjoy this transition season: no big drama, nothing feels too urgent. It is the time for settling in and just being here awhile. I’ll leave you with the words of wisdom shared in our Writers Hour Monday:

“Just remember one day things will happen to you that you couldn't even think were possible, that you couldn't even have dreamed of, and know that that's out there…

All you need to do is just hold on. And those three words, just hold on, I think are so valuable because so often we're in such a hurry to get to the next thing and tick the next thing off our list and hit the next milestone and this isn't just about work this is in all areas of life and we're so often not present and we're not willing to wait and actually just hold on.”

– Olivia Petter

Isle of Wight

Thanks friends for reading today! Wishing you moments when you can just hold on a little bit longer, breathe in, and out, and enjoy.

xoxo Sabrina

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