Lining the nest

 Hello lovelies!  I have a few minutes before the tiredness of 9pm properly kicks in (am I sounding old!?) so I thought I'd stop by and show you a few pics of the walk I did with my lovely Husband last week for his birthday.
I am married to my childhood sweetheart (aaah!) and we've been together since we were 13 and 14, so a good long while and we got together on a church youth walking holiday in the Lakes.  J has grown up playing in the woods and his top favourite pass time is walking on the South Downs.  It's more than that though.  I'd say, for him, it goes as far as a spiritual encounter when he walks up those ancient chalk paths.  It wouldn't be understating it to say that at this time of year, it feels like he comes out of hibernation after a long winter and has an irresistible craving for the hills!  So, a birthday walk seemed like the best present I could give him.

Having deposited the older ones to school and the younger ones to his mum, I whisked him away to the hills of South Harting.  Actually, he planned the walk, because I would be useless at this bit, but never mind.
After 10 years of struggling to be able to share these simple pleasures again, it felt like walking out into a new Universe.  Usually, J has gone on his own, which he does love, but left me at home nursing a baby, or a huge tummy.  It was so wonderful to go TOGETHER this time!

 There's something so enriching about stepping beyond the four walls you spend most of your time in - or even the town you are familiar with, and smelling different air, filling your vision with new scenery and challenging your feet to walk on uneven ground.  It was breathtakingly beautiful up there, and even though it was a fairly grey day, we could see for miles, the rolling hills of the Downs stretching fold upon fold in one direction, and the plane of South Harting village and its shining copper spire in the other.

It wasn't a long walk, just 6 miles, with a lunch stop at the sweetest little tucked into the valley pub called the Royal Oak.  I can highly recommend this place - a wonderful place to seek out, and I am told the garden in the summer is a real sun trap.  What a stunning place to revive yourself!

 It seems quite personal to say what I am about to say, but I'm going to anyway!  Sometimes when you are bringing children into the world, it seems that your borders close in. It's a cosy feeling most of the time - a lovely, protective, safe and homely place. You create a nest for your family- not just physically, but in the things you are prepared to give up to make their lives comfortable and rich.  Often, the things you lay down, are valuable and precious to you and for a while, they line the nest, like feathers. When we were young, we'd dream of taking our children on our wild adventures, packing them up and whisking them away to the places we'd dreamt of.  I think we still will.  What I am trying clumsily to say is that, as soon as you hold that tiny life, you realise it's not about your adventures anymore - it's all about theirs.  They are your adventure now.

The walk we completed last Friday was so much more than a walk for me.  It was the beginning of a new season.  The adventure is taking a new path and the shattering hard work of small babies is done now.  We can get out and breath the fresh air...ask ourselves where the adventure will lead us all next.  What's over the brow of that hill?

 Some of you are still in that shattering hard work bit, or you're about to embark on it.  The things you are laying down now, the spontaneity, the dreams you don't think you're going to be able to pick up again...they'll still be there and gradually, bit by bit, you'll be able to pick them up again.  They will be richer and more beautiful.  They don't disappear.  They don't fade.  They will have lined the nest for a while. 

The littlest birds have the prettiest song.