160 miles south and we drive from pork scratchings to a Spring Prom.

That’s very unfair to the plantlife of Bath – after all I’ve recorded 32 flowering plants so far – but at home you sometimes have to search hard at this time of the year; the needles are all in their haystacks. I’m not quite sure where it happened, but one minute Madame was noticing that the trees on the side of the motorway were barely in leaf and then, somewhere beyond Dartmoor and Bodmin moor the roadside was white with Blackthorn flowers. A kind of bliss settled over us as we left the boredom of the A30 and drilled down through the alphabet past Truro until we reached Helston, took the Lizard road and the narrow lanes where even passing a lone bicycle takes an age. The final stretch of the journey was what we come here for every year. Botanising and driving even a small car at the same time is a dangerous occupation – as Madame pointed out whilst I did an alarming bit of careening at ten miles an hour past the bridal lace of flowers on the verge.

Where else but here would you see Alexanders, Cow Parsley, Hogweed and Three-cornered garlic jostling with each under a snowfall of Blackthorn like brushed up sixth formers in a school prom? I slowed down to a crawl, opened the window and breathed in the air. Back again like a bad penny with sixty years of memories to share with Madame after we first came here to see the Art School and our first glimpse of the real sea after the brown waters of the Bristol Channel; and the first Dracaenas which we thought were palm trees; and we were on fire – apart from the fact that the landlady at the B&B refused to believe we were married (we were absurdly young) and put us into separate rooms. Bloody Methodists!

And so we’re here again with my pile of books and these days a laptop and mobile router and more unnecessary kit than you could shake a stick at. Slept like a log (do logs actually sleep, I wonder?) and we’re booked in at the pub for a Mothering Sunday lunch. Walking is going to be a bit limited this time but Madame is having a knee replacement in a couple of weeks and she’ll soon be skipping like a young Gazelle. The sun is shining and looks set to carry on doing its spring thing – so what’s not to like?

Author: Dave Pole

I've spent my life doing a lot of things, all of them interesting and many of them great fun. When most people see my CV they probably think I'm making things up because it includes being a rather bad welder and engineering dogsbody, a potter, a groundsman and bus driver. I taught in a prison and in one of those ghastly old mental institutions as an art therapist and I spent ten years as a community artist. I was one of the founding members of Spike Island, which began life as Artspace Bristol. ! wrote a column for Bristol Evening Post (I got sacked three times, in which I take some pride) and I worked in local and network radio and then finally became an Anglican parish priest for 25 years, retiring at 68 when I realised that the institutional church and me were on different paths. What interests me? It would be easier to list what doesn't, but I love cooking and baking with our home grown ingredients. I'm fascinated by botany and wildlife in general, and botanical illustration. We have a camper van that takes us to the wild places, we love walking, especially in the hills, and we take too many photographs. But what really animates me is the question "what does it mean to be human?". I've spent my life exploring it in every possible way and the answer is ..... well, today it's sitting in the van in the rain and looking across Ramsey Sound towards Ramsey Island. But it might as easily be digging potatoes or making pickle, singing or finding an orchid or just sitting. But it sure as hell doesn't mean getting a promotion, beasting your co-workers or being obsequious to power, which ensured that my rise to greatness in the Church of England flatlined 30 years ago after about 2 days. But I'm still here and still searching for that elusive sweet spot, and I don't have to please anyone any more. Over the last 50 or so years we've had a succession of gardens, some more like wildernesses when we were both working full-time, but now we're back in the game with our two allotments in Bath. View all posts by Dave Pole