- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
June In Abbeydore by Liberty Nimmo
Liberty Nimmo helps us exhale with her writing. It isn't here to confound or baffle; it is here to create a weighted breath where one can see the wood from the trees and lose yourself, if only briefly, in the world of Nimmo and her everyday goings-on.
My bedroom has been taken over. The tendrils of the wisteria have burst in through the window and marched their way across to the bed, securing both the bed head and its frame in a tight grip. At night, I can hear the barn owl chicks - recently hatched and living in the oak tree opposite my bedroom window – screeching for food. One dusk during my Victorian style bathing routine, I caught a glimpse of their father as he flew silently past the bathroom window like an elemental figure.
The combination of spending my nights wrapped up like a present in my wisteria and being privy to the domestic squabbles of barn owl family life makes me wonder if I have perhaps crossed the threshold into full immersion in the natural world. It’s either that or the beginning of a sort of madness.
Like any self-respecting work-from-homer, I spent that hot week of June marching about in my underwear, hiding from and bemoaning the heat, wondering whether it would in fact be cooler to sleep outside, under the oak tree among the cacophony of hungry barn owl chicks and using the wisteria as a pillow. In the end, I did not.
Progress on the studio’s roof has been slow; after all, the combination of foil insulation and being on an exposed roof in 37-degree heat doesn’t appeal much. I try to countenance the lack of progress in knowing full well that Rome wasn’t built in a day. But the Romans didn’t have to contend with foil reflections which very quickly induce sunstroke-like symptoms, did they? The roof also seems reluctant to make progress in the heat.
The garden has been bountiful and my frustrations from May’s late frosts have been allayed. I’m nearly smug about the successes of my controversial and experimental planting: I allowed the phacelia and tares green manures to grow up alongside my broad beans, salads and soon-to-be late summer brassicas (I say ‘nearly smug’ knowing full well that Mother Nature can be a cruel mistress should she choose to be, and I dare not provoke her at this stage in the game). The eagerly-awaited metaphorical vegetable bus has, true to form, arrived all at once; broad beans, kale, chard, cucumbers, salads and beetroot are all in abundance and the carrots and courgettes are not far behind. None of them ever seem to make it as far as the table and are instead eaten on the nightly rounds in the garden. The sweet peas smell particularly wonderful. The pendulum has swung from scarcity to abundance in one swoop.
At this time of year, I wake extremely early and finish in the garden very late. I am, I suppose, fully dilated – like the sun – and my energy levels can hack it. There is a hurried sense that accompanies this feeling of ‘got to fit it all in’. I’m left wondering what ‘it’ may be and what might happen if I don’t manage to fit ‘it’ all in. Nevertheless, my industriousness is, rather like the wisteria attached to my bed, a little crazed. The feeling of being dilated is not entirely pleasant either. It is very different to the excited emergence of Spring when energy feels youthful and playful. Instead, these days feel held open and I am pulled along in their wake as they roll past.
Perhaps that’s why the long summer days often make me think of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale ‘Red Shoes.’ The story is about an orphan girl who becomes obsessed with a pair of red shoes that are cursed to dance on their own. The shoes force her to dance endlessly through forests and over thorns until she begs an executioner to sever her feet. It is of course harsh and extreme as many fairytales are, but it warns against unchecked obsession, which can of course lead to a loss of control. I worry that my summer self might be a little bit like the orphan girl but perhaps I just need to cut the wisteria back.
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