“Time flies when you’re having fun,” Chris said when I asked him what I should write for this post, along with it’s been “five happy years.” That’s the time that’s passed since we moved here to the day, on 20 February 2021. A quarter of our relationship, 11.3% of my life lived in Yorkshire. Though of course I’ve been visiting Calder Valley for the fifteen years prior to see Chris’ family and North Yorkshire to visit my family. And Chris grew up here, an ofcumden rather than an offcumden like me.
Some obvious changes are that I’m greyer and balder, and we’re both wearing fleeces, something I’d sworn I would never do. There are certainly more snowdrops, we noted as we took the above photo in the garden.
I suppose I knew we would change too as we grew and immersed ourselves again in rural life in our forties. I hadn’t fully appreciated how the magic of Calderdale would wrap itself around us however. From nature to community, this place punches above its weight.
We’ve been welcomed in by the many lovely people who live here, from local farmers who help with our meadow to artists, business owners and others who inspire us and bake the most amazing cakes! I can say hand on heart, we are both so grateful for everything.
Hebden Bridge and the surrounding villages of the valley have taught us that you get out what you put in with communities. And we’ve tried our best to chip in by volunteering for or shouting about a number of different local non-profits and community organisations. Including Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, Yorkshire Peat Partnership, Slow The Flow, Grow + Graze, IOU Creation Centre, Wainsgate and Greening Wadsworth. Compared to the contributions of the inspirational people who run those, ours is miniscule, but we turn up with a smile on our faces when we can happy to be part of it and we promise to keep going, trying to do more as we get older.
I made a promise to myself when we moved here to try to push forward with my interests in ecology, writing, painting and photography. I’ve stuck to that – supported endlessly by Chris – and I’m pleased with my progress, inspired by the rugged hills and ever cute wildlife.
As for the garden, well, it’s going OK. Despite being a landscape designer I want our garden to be a almost not a design at all. People ask me if the location has influenced my gardening and it has, but not in the way one might expect. Having studied plants all over the world my whole life, including much of that in Yorkshire, I already knew what would and wouldn’t grow here, but being so close to the edge of something as wild as it comes, I know more than ever that’s what I love. That’s what I am, as a being and artist.
My art studio is the garden and wild beyond. Here I can observe nature deeply as part of it. Play, research, create. Deepest emotions of joy, grief, freedom. If our garden ever became perfectly designed or static, it would lose its laboratory and life. Which is why I’ve shied away from letting magazines and newspapers photograph it beyond the practical guides for Gardeners’ World Magazine. It’s hard to translate the chaos into perfect shots today’s world demands.
Beyond the fairly standard size rural garden is the allotment for food and wider small farm of 6.5 acres, a challenge due to its size. This forces a focus on land management from hedge cutting and coppicing to our current important task, fencing out our beloved roe deer from the allotment. It is a lot of work, in reality the land itself is a full time job we try to squeeze in around our existing full time jobs. But I know the wildlife is doing well, and that is the whole point.
There is a bigger important story to the last five years I’d one day love to share but hopefully that is a nice overview to mark what feels like a momentous occasion to us. Nature, art, community, good people, friendship, love. That’s what it’s been.
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
