New life springing up in serene grounds where the dead rest in peace

IT is early, morning has broken and sunlight floods my bedroom.

I get out of bed and look outside through a south-facing window.

Leaves are surging from buds on the closest hazel bush as well as the silver birches, elders and hornbeams.

A promising start to the day. It is time to get out and explore.

It does not stop here as I have plans not just for this day but beyond. I have just received my new passport (it took only six days to be delivered) so I’ll soon be off to the village of Crossmolina in Co Mayo in Eire, my ancestral home on my father’s side.

Later in the year I plan to visit Vancouver Island in British Columbia, where one of my oldest friends, a renowned photographer, lives. My spirit of adventure is back with a bang.

I’m also going to resume horse riding as there’s always a different aspect from the saddle.

Today, I had plans to be off into the wild but my mother, with whom I’m staying on a protracted basis, is ill with a virus so I must stay to look after her.

I had thought to get a bus to Henley and walk along the classic, wooden footbridge that traverses Marsh Lock and onwards to Shiplake but, as the front page of this newspaper revealed last week, it is still closed and cordoned off.

This pains me as the bridge holds so many important memories and who knows for how long I can’t visit?

Mum picks up a wee bit and encourages me to get out for a few hours so I agree as we can still keep in touch. She needs a doze, me exercise.

I call my ever-supportive friend Matthew Coome and we agree to visit Rotherfield Peppard and the churchyard of All Saints.

The church was originally Norman but largely rebuilt in the 1800s and is now Grade II* listed.

One of the reasons that I love to visit old graveyards is for their ability to shelter plants and animals, sometimes endangered ones.

It is a superb drive as spring appears to have come early.

As we pass Bird Wood along the B481, blackthorn is in full flower, petals as white as snow (and fragrant too).

We take a steep rise and then turn right past the primary school and along a recently flooded road before leaving Matthew’s car outside the perimeter of the churchyard next to two old trees, one a yew the other a common lime.

An old lichen-encrusted brick-and-flint wall encompasses the building that would not look out of place in Kent.

Although there are many cars parked outside there is no one about and all is quiet. There is no sound from within the church either.

The reason we have come is a shared reverence for such places of serenity and because everything here is so well maintained. There are two adjacent graveyards. The first and newer one that we visit has some poignant tales, including one of a Second World War airman who gave his life for Albion, aged only 22.

There are some bouquets that were placed recently.

All around these graves the ground is mossy, soft, spongy and springy and the air a good deal purer than back home in Caversham.

We close the gate and move on to examine the older, original part of the land around the church, which is situated on a hill and was once visible from quite a distance before the surrounding trees grew.

A tight patch of ground is host to a line of ancient gravestones facing west, overshadowed by an old yew that straddles the remains of an old wall.

These are encrusted with amber lichen, so the names are hardly decipherable and cherubic faces blow on now yellowing trumpets.

Beyond the aged gravestones and further east is a brick and flint wall that seems to be in a strange position.

It makes little sense to me nor, I suspect, the inquisitive horses in an adjacent field with tasty-looking pasture. Despite the many mature deciduous trees not yet being in bud, spring is decidedly in the air.

The blooms of a Japanese winter-flowering cherry adorn certain corners and polka-dot the grass.

Matthew and I sit down for a while on a bench by an ornate wooden door with a keyhole the size of a church mouse and make plans to visit more of these important wildlife refuges.

We pause to listen as a chaffinch sings and then continue with our reconnaissance of this unique church and its surrounds.

Come night-time we’d probably see wood mice, voles, owls, foxes and bats.

Before we leave, I notice an official looking etching on a cornerstone of the church. It looks familiar but I can’t reference it, which annoys me.

On our way home we discuss, as usual, the history of the landscape that we pass.

Matt alerts me to a herd of animals that he has somehow spotted to our left in Stony Bottom at the base of Young Wood.

Some 40 or so fallow deer are munching away on a farmer’s crop.

In all probability the deer spend time overnight under the cover of the woods. This herd seems to roam many miles.

I know that in Britain there are far too many deer. As they have no natural predator, we will have to find a way of controlling their numbers as they have a terrible impact on the woodland understorey and fragile but beautiful flowering plants.

Matthew drops me off and we agree to meet up again very soon.

I have to get some important drugs for mum. Later, after seeing her to bed, I turn in myself.

The next morning, and after checking on my mother’s health and making her a mug of tea, I step outside and sit on a wooden bench in her car-port and feed a demanding robin.

I tune in to the song of our local, male blackcap. Listening to the little bird’s erratic warble, I contemplate the ascending sun and there is an intermittent twinkle of rays between twisting ivy leaves.

I notice a pattern which seems odd but then when I was in the army cadets I was taught the phonetic alphabet and Morse code.

I get the message — I have no doubt what I’m “reading” and feel warmth in my heart.

vincent.ruane@hotmail.com