Canals, and me, and you

Dear Molly,

The British canal system, built to move coal and other raw materials, from city to city at the heart of our industrial past, has become a puzzle piece in my make-up.

I think it helps that inclement British weather is where my soul feels most at ease. I have a love hate relationship with summer. It looks cheery, but makes me feel sluggish. Spring with its hope, autumn with its cozy promise and the purity of winter are where I feel most alive. Canal holidays, in my experience, usually involve a healthy serving of spring, autumn and winter, on rotation.

One day, I will write more about the canal adventures I went on with my family throughout my childhood. From London to Oxford, North Wales, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Stoke-on-Trent, Liverpool, Birmingham, Leicester, Nottingham and every inch of beautiful British countryside in between, we covered it all on our various family narrowboats. From steep flights of locks up and over the rolling green Pennines, to aqueducts in the sky, to urban voyages through steel factories, derelict timber wharfs and potteries, the canals branded a love of the UK, and all of her characteristics, onto the little girl who watched it all go by.

I put myself in the camp of people who know what they’d like to do, but who allow life and lack of time to prevent it happening. I want to do more exercise, to volunteer, to go for more walks, to climb Snowdon, to walk some more of the SW coast path, to wild camp…..I would put my desire to carry on narrow-boating in the pot with all of those things, except for the fact that we have all been going on canal holidays for the last 7 years. Maybe the universe intervenes when it is important enough.

Being able to weave my love of canals into your life, and those of our family, is a privilege and brings me so much joy. My carefully bottled past memories, bubbling out, into us.

The distinctive chugging of a diesel boat engine, my heartbeat, the smell of the grease on the cogs of a lock mechanism, the feel of a 1.5 tonne lock gate opening, the haunting, freezing air in a black, brick, drippy old tunnel, where no sunlight has been in over 200 years, the taste of a bacon sandwich in the cold morning air, waking up to see dew laden grass on the damp morning towpath through the window by your bed, and the thrill of that illusive orange or blue flash ahead of you above the water. This list could go on and on and now, you could write it too.

At 13 years old, you get very excited for our canal holidays. You revel in arranging your cosy boat bedroom, in the peaceful time that this holiday provides for you, for us all. Seeing you, wrapped up in your raincoat, holding your lock handle, walking under the brick bridges, winding up the paddles, pushing gates, writing stories, and enjoying evenings on the boat, is all like peeping back through a window at myself, 34 years ago, and nothing much has changed.

If I had never been on a narrowboat, there would be a part of me locked away. I close my eyes now, take one step along the towpath, and the magic engulfs me. I see a damselfly. Until next time. I love you x

"We could never have loved the earth so well, if we had no childhood in it" ~ George Eliot

Our pilgrimage, to Cornwall

Dear Molly,

There’s something here. I don’t know what it is but I feel it deep down inside me. We first visited in 2017. It was the holiday that shaped so much of me, and of us.

We drove here today. 6 hours of motorway driving. It felt like a pilgrimage. Our journey through life. As we grow together, the threads that weave our story grow clearer to me. What I learnt recently, is that, today, we also followed a ley line to get here. An ancient pathway from here to home. Over 300 miles. From here, to where we live.

Cornwall is steeped in myths, legends and folklore and whether you are enchanted by the stories, or nonchalant, the air, the landscape, the warmth, the feeling here is real. It is for me.

Tonight we stumbled across Polkerris Beach. The most beautiful hidden gem of a beach with a soft sandy shore and rich green forested cliffs and headlands.

Cornwall keeps surprising me in the most beautiful of ways. Polkerris is in Daphne Du Maurier country, and she is one of my absolute favourite writers. It feels appropriate that we should roll up there, unexpectedly, on our first night here. ‘Rebecca’ links me to my own mother, whose copy I read and re-read as a teenager and adult. I will forever be enchanted by the opening line, “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” Then I read ‘Jamaica Inn’ whilst visiting the north coast with you in 2017. You read ‘The Railway Rabbits.’ You were six years old and the sweetest girl.

You are happy here now. I feel that too. You have a peace about you, a smile, and you find joy in everything you see. I made the right choice bringing you back. I feel that inside. I want Cornwall to shape your story too. Your now and your future.

Let’s have adventures whilst we’re here. Let’s find all the secrets in the steep windy streets, leading to colourful stone cottages, by fishing harbours and secluded beaches. Where the steep, green rolling hills meet the sky and the sea beyond. Where mists roll in and shroud the hills before the warmth of the sun glides through once more. Let’s leave with happy hearts and with footprints of Cornwall deep down inside us.

I love you sweetheart xxx

“Because I want to; because I must; because now and forever more this is where I belong to be.” ~ Daphne Du Maurier, Jamaica Inn.

Another bend in the road

Your last day of primary school. It is unfathomable that we are here. And yet, here we are.

I always knew it would be hard, that it would be a wrench. I just never knew how hard.

We came to the school community when you were 3 years old. Your bubbly blonde curls, framing your chubby baby face with your big blue eyes and your happy, articulate, caring and eager to please personality shining over everyone you encountered. I brimmed with pride at every interaction. You made wonderful friends of girls and boys alike, and I made friends with their parents. Those people, in that building, were more than classmates and teachers, they were family.

A small rural school meant that you had a small class. You were all thick as thieves from the moment you were jumbled in together in those welcoming little classrooms, with their tiny chairs and huge hearts.

And now, you are 11. Your primary school journey has come to an end. That last day was one of the most painful days. The amount of emotion hurt my heart and head. The joy of the memories, the friendships, the achievements, the love, mixed with the fact that it was all over, was a heady concoction. It hollowed out a space in my stomach which felt like the air was being sucked from me. I was always going to cry, but watching you and your friends sobbing into each other’s arms was so beautifully painful that it broke me.

The cherry on the top was you being awarded ‘Pupil of the Year’. You have worked tirelessly since you got to that school. You’ve read, and written, and researched and soaked up every last bit of knowledge that they have given you. You deserved that trophy with everything you are. Now take all of those experiences onto your next adventure. You are going to fly my love, I just know it.

All my love, Mummy xxx

"my future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. I thought I could see along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend in it. I don't know what lies around the bend, but I'm going to believe that the best does." ~ Anne, Anne of Green Gables, L.M.Montgomery

The Hidden Paths

Dear Molly,

I write to you less these days. I tend to wait until I feel it all brimming over, which it is right now.

We are two weeks away from Mummy and Kevin getting married. We have lived through a global pandemic. You are growing up before my eyes and I want to write, to keep this snapshot of our lives, here in 2021, on record forever.

With the wedding only two weeks away, I feel like our lives and past are playing out, constantly, in my head. I was driving home from the school run today and an old song came on. It triggered a slow-motion, home video style, memory of me playing in the street with my friends as a child. My memories with you are playing on repeat and my dreams are vivid.

New beginnings have always been happy and sad for me. I have always felt emotionally attached to our lives as they are. I even find it difficult to even throw away something that has been on the side in the kitchen for a few months. Even losing a negative element from my life, and gaining a positive one, is difficult for me. You have a lot of that in you, but you are leaning back from it as you grow up, and I will encourage that. Not to lose it, just to cut a few of the threads to make it a little more comfortable. It has always felt like a heavy emotion for me.

The future is really exciting, and through these days leading up to the big day, my instinct is to hold you so very close to me. It is so strong that I imagine binding your body to mine. You are my insides, living alongside me, and I need you like I need to breathe. I will never lean heavily on you, but you will always know how much I love you.

Overwhelmingly I want to be at home, to play outside with you, to talk to you, to hug you, to share with you and to listen to you. Your chatter is so mature at the moment. You want to achive high standards in all that you do. Yesterday, I said that “practice makes perfect” and you replied, “no one is perfect Mummy. Practice makes progress.” I mean, seriously, when did my child get so wise? Although, you were crying at not being able to do the monkey bars at the park at the time. You went from not being able to even hang from the bars to doing two of them that day. That was the “progress” you referred to and I was as proud of you then as I was when you aced your maths tests. Please don't be too hard on yourself. It is a blessing and a curse. Be as kind to yourself as you are to everyone else, that is all I ask.

My wish for the next two weeks is to enjoy your company and to soak up as much of my little girl as I can. It is just something I want to do. And then, on our wedding day, I will have you by my side, where we can make our memories, as a family, to last forever.

I am so excited for our future. I can not wait to support you to become who you will become, to enjoy our family life and to love you forever. Life has had a way of laying out our path for us. Sometimes it is overgrown and sometimes it is clear. We just have to hold each other’s hand, and walk together. We will be ok my love. I know we will.

I love you eternally.

“Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate
And though I oft have passed them by
A day will come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun.”

― J.R.R. Tolkien