One of my favourite moments of our recent holiday was after we got our tickets to Hill Top House and we had a four hour wait as they used timed entry to control the crowds. The ramble in the intervening time suggested by the woman at the entrance turned out THE recommendation of the trip. A 30-minute uphill walk through field and fauna led us to not just a physical location, but seemingly another realm, large expanses of quiet and peace: just landscape, sky, and an occasional farm animal.
We had packed a lunch earlier that day, stopping at a local bakery for a freshly baked loaf and a local grocer for some fresh fruit and a small hunk of cheese. When we purchased these flavourful morsels, we did not know that we would be eating them nestled by a quiet tarn. Occasional aquatic fowl landing and taking off. An occasional cloud slow dancing past the warm sun. The vibrant, many hues of green from the regular rain that this habitat normally receives, glistening in the bright rare long stretches of sunshine. That sit was serenity manifest. The vastness of the space and the intensity and freshness of the flavours in our lunch mixed to form an intoxicating multidimensional atmosphere.
And I love the word tarn. It reminds me of crosswords with my Putney workmates, which we did standing in the basement workshop. II’s one of those short English words that hints at something that I might have known had I been born and raised in an earlier time that was intimate with nature instead of the urban and virtual one with which I have become familiar.Photo Credits
Moss Eccles Tarn: My beloved
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