This morning is about post-camping messiness. My house smells like wood smoke, there are raincoats hanging in the shower and a mountain of laundry stared at me from the kitchen floor. Plum has claimed the abandoned mattress rolls and sleeping bags for fort-building material and sometime after I finish this cup of coffee, I’ll be starting on the dishes. There is a lot to do, but for a little longer, it can wait.
We’ve been waiting for summer to begin around here and this camping weekend was jumping the gun. My kids are still in school (madness, I know) but friends who live further north have already been released, and we met up for an open-air weekend.
Our campsite was near Ironbridge Gorge, an Industrial Revolution hotspot where two hundred years ago, there were factories and railway lines galore. Now the Gorge is a peaceful green place with plenty of trails for family rambles. Our campsite sat in a bucolic field that looked out to the hills where cows grazed. There was a toilet block with hot showers and a place for washing dishes. Even a rain shelter – which came in handy as it happens on Saturday morning. You can’t fry pancakes in a downpour.
You can, however, have water fights. The kids showed us that. And you can sit back and witness their mad, beautiful joy while nursing small cups of coffee and catching up with friends, talking through all the collisions and collusions of politics and plans. This, too, is important. Throughout the morning, rain and rainbows came and went, and our sodden children seemed to grow in front of our eyes.
When the skies cleared around noon, we went for a hike. The older kids navigated, and we all debated each fork in the road, looking for the perfect place for a picnic. Along the way, we looked for wild orchids and toothwort, wood anemone and foxgloves. The last of the wild garlic made us feel a little hungry, and the blackberries were still tiny and green. We found animal footprints in the mud and debated whether they were dog or badger. Behind us, the huge brick chimneys loomed, remains of an old coal power station, and somewhere below us in the valley, there was a church with bells ringing out, echoing among the trees.
It wasn’t the back of beyond or the true north strong and free. It was an old, worked landscape and still a living one. You could see how the land had been used – misused, too – and had healed itself. The hills were green and leafy – greener and leafier than you would expect. Lush with growth and growing.
It proved a good place to be outside and, of course, it was so good to connect again with friends. But today, I’m home and still hungry for wilderness. Maybe it’s the left-over mess I need to tackle. Maybe it’s the inevitable post-adventuring droop. Either way, I want wilderness. I want open spaces.
Earlier this morning, Plum and I walked to the grocery store and I couldn’t take my eyes off the sky. The blue itself was huge, expanding and bright. Clouds scuttled off on a chasing wind, following the buses all the way downtown and leaving only openness behind. Jackdaws left the treetops to dive up into the dizzying sky and the wind itself felt bright and blank in our faces. Plum pulled on my hand, saying please as he squeezed my fingers. So I smiled and let go, letting him run on ahead of me through the gates of the park and into the bright open wind.
