The View from the Whitehouse no.2. Being An Outsider.

“Ah yes, but do you actually live in a white house,’ enquired the Wag. ‘You see, if it’s the view from the White house...’

There’s always one.

Frequently several.

As it happens, we do live in a white house. As it’s 1000 feet up on Dartmoor, it is white for a given value of seventeen years of howling gales, rain, hail, sleet and snow, not to mention passing sheep trailers, milk lorries and muck trucks — which means grayish, greenish and, in places, frankly, mouldy. But the view, over the gate to Cosden Hill and towards Scorhill is glorious, the common across the lane is a perfect screen between us and the main road and although the cascades of wildflowers has gone from the lanes themselves they are still awash with wild roses, honeysuckle and yarrow as I write.

This time of year, the view generally includes the horses and caravans of our regular summer visitors, the folk who build furniture from trees and beautiful, rounded, gypsy caravans or vardos—from the Iranian word vurdon for cart—to sell or rent out for weddings and parties. Their painted horses (does anyone still use that somewhat ugly word skewbald for horses?) are grazing peacefully on the common in the shade and John has come for the water that we happily let them have from our underground well.

They are not real gypsies, and neither are the young family that also camp here with their daughters and who only travel in school holidays; they are courteous people living lightly on the land, existing, for the most part, as outsiders.

We are outsiders too and we know that. And we understand that wonderful fine line between not being local but being accepted. It is quite enough. They do say that you can’t be a Devonian until you’ve buried your grandparents here. I did enquire of the family about digging mine up and moving them down but nobody seemed keen. It probably wouldn’t count anyway.

I think we knew that we were okay the day that Diana, down the road, asked us to help look for her Dartmoor ponies which had broken out of their field. Or the day that Neil, the postman, left a brace of pheasant hanging on the door knocker. Or there was the first day that we freed a young sheep that had got its horns stuck in our wire fencing. And then another, and then another. Oh, hang on, it’s the same sheep...

But the real day of acceptance was when Neil knocked on the door, handed me a brace of pheasant and asked if I minded plucking and drawing them for him as he was on voluntary fireman night duty and wouldn’t have time to do it before they were to be eaten on Friday.

By then, I was an accomplished pheasant plucker—and had even skinned, drawn and jugged the most beautiful road-kill hare I came upon, still warm, one night as I turned off the A30 on my way home from a comedy gig in Bath.

Wags, though are, unfortunately, currently out of season…

First published in The Moorlander.

The View from the Whitehouse no1: Earthing

My Editor at The Moorlander Newspaper has given me permission to reprint the columns I've been writing for them here, so this is no. 1 from 2017.

Hello, I’m a woman with a thorn in her foot who’s just scared the willies out of the postman by lying naked on the vegetable patch. Our garden is pretty sheltered if you’re not actually coming into the driveway — and I did have enough time to ensure that my important bits were decently covered with a towel — but he probably thought I was a dead body for a moment.

This lying naked on the earth thing is called “Earthing.” I think it’s simultaneously the latest and the oldest thing on the planet. According to the website www.earthing.com, “Earthing is a fast-growing movement based upon the major discovery that connecting to the Earth’s natural energy is foundational for vibrant health.”

Major discovery eh? I think our ancestors knew a bit about that. Even my mother knows — she’s survived to 90 very healthily and firmly believes it’s all down to all the gardening she does. She’s probably right; mothers usually are.

It’s all because of electrons. Research from Texas A&M University reveals that when we take our shoes off and touch the earth with our bare flesh, free electrons, powerful antioxidants that can help reduce inflammation, transfer from the ground into our body via the soles of our feet or the palms of our hands.

You’d think, given their contact with nature, that walkers would be the most grounded of people but rubber or plastic-soled shoes prevent us from contacting the earth. Nowadays we rarely walk barefoot except on a summer holiday at the beach. We don’t even lie on the sand—it’s plastic loungers on the beach or by the pool.

I think it’s a bit too much of a challenge to spend half an hour a day lying naked on the vegetable patch so, instead, I’ve started to walk barefoot on the Moor. So much former city-dweller ‘it’ll hurt’ wimpy stuff came up ... and it was jolly cold too until this last month ... but it feels amazing and it certainly makes you focus on where you put your feet. There are tiny, tiny fledgling gorse bushes on the Moor and they hurt.

But I love the feeling of my bare feet splaying out as they were designed to do, adapting to the grass and peat beneath them. That’s not to mention the comfort of socks and shoes when I put them back on my feet afterwards. 

In the meantime, I’m leaving some intriguing footprints in the squelchier places. When just the ball of my foot and toes show up it looks like a very weird mark. Maybe some curious hikers on the way back down to Shilstone Tor are starting to wonder if they have seen the elusive prints of the mythical Beast of Dartmoor?

Mind you, she’s the one racing down the hill behind me, tongue out and leaping for joy. Dogs have all the right ideas and walking in shoes is not one of them.

Doing Wet.

Today, for the first time in the six years that we have had her, Biggle refused to go for a walk. She got as far as the front gate and, eyes, half-closed against the slashing rain, looked down the river that was our lane and then ran back to the house.

I couldn't blame her; I'd not even considered taking Thunderfeet MegaBeagle (Mrs) out for any kind of walk at all but Biggle is a hunt beagle and she will usually go out in all weathers. I did mutter a bit about having to get out of all my waterproofs and boots especially as just the few yards to the gate meant they all had to be dried over the Rayburn.

But an hour later, as the gloaming settled over the hills and crept its mystery between the hedges, the rain stopped. Perhaps only for a short while but it was a window of opportunity and Biggle and I, kitted up in our reflector coats, set forth into the night.

There are very few walks that can be taken without wellington boots right now, as Britain sloshes its way through January and the Golden Triangle as it's known - two miles of lanes beginning at our house - is a Godsend. The gales lash their way up from Dartmoor along the road from East Week but the seven-foot hedges temper them to manageable speeds.

Tonight, the wind wuthered in the hedges, wuthered through the wires of the telegraph pole that keeps our home connected to the world and wuthered around the brim of my hat. Three separate sounds, distinct and eerie but indescribable. I love listening to the lanes; to the rain in the hedges and on my hat and on the tarmac; to the birdsong (in the daytime) and the owls and creatures at night.

Biggle and I are used to walking in the dark; I take her out most nights, either after supper or at 10pm before bed. For only a couple of months of the year, do we go out and return in daylight but the rest of the year, we get to know the stars, the night-creatures and the phases of the moon. We see the International Space Station and comets and hide in the hedges, torch put out, like children playing spies when we hear the army helicopters come over.

Tonight, as we walked down to East Week the sky bathed us in pastel blue and grey. Amazingly there was some pale blue sky (briefly) and white tufts of cumulus amid the darkening layers of threatening cloud. Every day as I walk I can watch the sky change in minutes, from laughter to tears, from rage to triumph; every single incarnation is beautiful and tonight it was a magical blend of blues and greys.

And then the rain fell. I had seen it coming; the black sky ahead over the moor, flowing swiftly towards us and hoped it would not be the slashing rain of most of the day. It began with great droplets of rain that splashed on the already flooded road and then fell faster — slashes of water that hit my anorak noisily and tinkled through the winter twigs of the hedges on each side.

I sighed and decided to 'do wet.' When you 'do wet' you don't resist the water but become a part of it. You are the wet; it doesn't matter where it gets or how soggy your feet become. And tonight there was no chance of unsoggy feet despite my wonderful walking boots. The lane was flooded in five places, two of them up to my ankles. Biggle paddled her way through happily; once she is out, she is out; there was no desire to turn back.

We sloshed down to East Week and turned left, wincing occasionally at the arc of light from a car on another road. Strangely, while nature feels safe, the sight of a car's lights on the night walks always slightly un-nerves me; we are both visible and I carry a torch but they seem alien and slightly threatening. Of course when one comes up the lane before us or down the lane behind us, we move to the side and let them pass; Biggle is totally car-safe. Once, at Christmas time, I felt the desire, suddenly, to burst into song and both this and the light of the torch as we turned a corner, nearly gave a courting couple in a steamed-up car a panic attack.

Tonight, walking towards Gooseford, the rain turned colder and fell harder. The left side of my face, un-sheltered by my hat or collar, felt icy and it was time to turn on the torch as the night fell in earnest and I needed to watch my feet as the stream gurgled up over the road.

At night, my bishop once told me, the dryads and naiads come out of their trees and once you walk with them nightly and start to sense the magic of the night, you can know for sure that it's true; you can feel their presence, their cold curiosity; their desire to be acknowledged and even named. Each tree, each plant, each creature, each spirit desires to experience something of individuality if only through the identification of a passing human. I can't explain it better than that.

I bless as many of them as I can, each and every night when they ask me to; some nights I begin to bless but they inform me in their detached way 'we remain blessed' and I pass on. That will be after I've done some other ritual at home which carries a deeper form of blessing. There is no doubt that the land experiences what we exude. Tonight they were silent; huddled in with their creatures but I blessed them all the same.

As we sloshed past Gooseford farm and turned left to walk back up the hill to home the road became a river of grey-brown and Biggle stopped even attempting to get under gates or through fences to follow a particular sniff. This was the long haul home with wet feet and legs where my waterproof trousers had given in but ahead, the sky was brightening slightly and to the left I could just discern the light of a new moon through some slightly whisping cloud cover. I knew that my left bootlace had come undone but laughed at the very thought of taking off my soggy gloves and re-tying them as the water flowed over my toes.

Past Three Fields Corner, the lane became a lane again; the rain receded and ahead the sky began to clear. Two stars from Lyra were visible and my face began to warm up just a little again.

And then we were home to warmth and hot towels. Biggle squeaking with delight as she was dried by her Dad and me slowly peeling off layer after layer and dripping in the kitchen.

I love this land; it is a privilege to 'do wet' here.

Loving The Little Life

Walking on the Moor in 2013, taken by Nixie James-Scott.

I've struggled a little with this entry because it's about a time when I really was down, both emotionally and physically. I could tell you loads of stuff about the negative effects of chemo on my body; I could relate more stories of nurses and the hospital which might not be entirely positive … but I simply didn't want to so I avoided writing.

And it's a relief to realise that's okay. I thought I had a kind of duty to plough through the whole sorry story but I don't. If I have any duty at all it is to enjoy today.

Biggle on the Moor today.

Today, Lion the beagles and I went to Scorhill Stone Circle on Dartmoor. It was the first time I'd been there since September and it was one of my dreams once I got better and could walk again. The picture at the top shows Biggle and me walking in the autumn of 2013 near the stone circle and the second picture was taken today, in virtually the same place, looking in a different direction, on my return to this wonderful part of Dartmoor.

I managed to get pretty happy during the painful and difficult times but it did take work. A friend recently wrote to me that I could have asked to take the easy route when I asked God to clear me out and I guess that's true. But what would I have learnt? If I'd just had the miracle that I wanted I would have learnt about miracles, for sure, but how would that have made me of any use, any help to anyone else who didn't get the miracle they wanted? How much more powerful is it to say, 'I have been there. It was a long journey for me and a lot of it was very painful. Is there any way that my experience can help you?'

There were certainly many days where I was horribly upset — and in distressing amounts of pain. I'd been told that the first round of chemo would make a fairly dramatic difference — that is, a dramatic improvement. In my case it was dramatically worse which was very frightening and scared the consultant too. But that was probably a combination of my long-term lack of belief in the process and the fact that I was taking supplements which, according to some research it took me a long time to find, could and maybe did antidote the medicine in a rather painful way.

Now, as you probably know, I'm a fan of eating very healthily (but with treats) and of supplements and it's absolutely rubbish to say you can get all you need from your food if you are unwell (a VEGA test just last week showed me exactly how deficient I am in some minerals and vitamin despite taking extra - that's because of the damage to my body). But oh, please, one day, will doctors take this stuff seriously and do some research? Some vitamins are excellent for helping you through chemo. Selenium isn't. Or at least it wasn't in my case. I did ask my consultant to check for me but he didn't/couldn't/didn't see the point/whatever.

However, that's water under the bridge. Session two worked a little better and session three did show improvement. I could walk a little again, the lungs were clearing (my goodness, I was weak though!) and it all progressed steadily although I nearly always tried to do too much, go too fast and walk too far, which threw me back until I learnt the lesson.

I began to write again; started a novel about travel. Being sick and tied to the timings of district nurses, even if I had the strength to go out, I was becoming very isolated. I thought that writing about travel would lift me and inspire me but it did the opposite. It was only when I realised that I wasn't making peace with now and stopped writing about desires that I couldn't believe in that the darkness started to lift.

I had to learn to be content with the 'little life.' Sitting watching a movie on TV all afternoon because I didn't have the energy for a 'good' book. For a while that offended my arrogant 'I'm better than this' sensibilities until I realised that it had to be done — and I saw some excellent movies as well as some pretty daft ones.

I had to learn to be content with a round of the garden as my walk and watching the early evening sunsets in the winter and looking up at the stars in the evening. I'd always done both as part of my daily routine but now it was the total of my daily routine. I had to learn to rest and rest and rest again.

I was so happy when the phone went and it was a friend with details of their life; their world, because I could share in their larger life and absorb myself in it. I was so very happy that Facebook existed because it took me into the lives of my friends on there and gave me many conversations about life, the universe and everything other than illness. I will always defend Facebook to the hilt because on the worst days it was my lifeline.

I had to learn to let go of envy of others who could go to the shops even and to appreciate every morning of waking up simply because I had woken up again. Glad because of our lovely (but increasingly dirty) home because Lion was there and the beagles were there. I learnt to celebrate every single night that we managed to sleep together all night because I hadn't had to stay up half the night (steroids are bastards for keeping you agitated and awake) or hadn't been in too much pain to settle with him.

I had to learn to accept that the house was filthy because Lion was doing so much he didn't have time to clean too and I didn't have the strength.

I had to learn to love liquid morphine for the relief it brought me and the blessed sleep. And then I had to learn to love coming off it!

I had to learn that I couldn't do any weeding or I'd be in bed for two days. I learnt that I'd actually be grateful for doing weeding (which I've never liked).

I had to learn to fight only the battles I could win … which meant just the one … getting slowly better.

I can't tell you what a joy it was in February when I was able (with sit-downs every five minutes to rest) to make just one batch of orange marmalade. I felt like I'd scaled Mount Everest!

But mostly, as I began getting better, it was just peaceful to get to the next stage. No jumping for joy because it was just the next stage and there were so many 'two steps forward and one step back' times.

One of the most wonderful moments was seeing a different doctor at the hospital who said, as soon as he greeted me, 'I want you to know that I've been through this; I've had chemotherapy. I have an idea how you may be feeling. Please tell me of any and all concerns you might have. I will understand them.' And when I told him I was scared because I'd become more breathless as soon as I'd had the drain taken out of my lung, he said, with a smile, 'Of course you are more breathless. The psyche's a bastard like that, isn't it?'

How could he have made me feel so very much better if he had had the miracle that he also must have desired? I'd give him a medal if I could. His name is Dr. Veale from Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital in Exeter.

But enough of all that. Today I went walking on the moor. And I only puffed like an out-of-condition person, which I still am. And that can be remedied.

63. The Woman Who Walks Barefoot On The Moor.

That's a nice wanky bollox title isn't it? Implies that I'm a tree-hugging spiritual being in floaty purple clothes with too many buttons.

At the moment I'm a woman with a thorn in her foot who's just scared silly the man delivering poll cards by lying naked on the vegetable patch. Our garden runs around the house and the veggie patch is pretty sheltered if you're not actually coming into the driveway and I was decently covered with dressing gown but he probably thought I was a dead body for a moment.

It's called 'Earthing.' I think it's simultaneously the latest thing and the oldest thing on the planet. According to Earthing.com: "Earthing is a fast-growing movement based upon the major discovery that connecting to the Earth's natural energy is foundational for vibrant health."


Major discovery eh? 


Well there is a lot of truth in the fact that we humans are more and more disconnected from the Earth. I used to walk barefoot around the house and garden all summer but stopped probably about a decade ago. And even on the Moor, it's trainers or walking boots. We're also insulated from the vitamin D from the sun in our anoraks and trousers. Apparently at the UK's latitude, we can barely get optimum vitamin D from walking for a couple of hours in shorts and tee-shirt at Midsummer.


Anyway, my friend John (who owns about 30 acres of land) has bought himself an 'earthing sheet' to lie on in bed for his aches and pains. You can buy an earthing pad to put under your office desk to put your feet on. After all, who has time to sit outside or walk barefoot in the garden any more? We're too busy on the internet.


I don't know yet if it's worked for him but I was given two strong hints (I might say instructions) from friends that I 'should' get into some earthing. This was a couple of weeks ago when the temperature was still very chilly and the earth was wet and deeply cold. Oh, and grass wouldn't do. It had to be earth.

I tried it for ten minutes and nearly froze my back off. Yikes!

But it made sense. So I starte to walk barefoot on the moor. Yes I know that's grass (and poo) but you have to start somewhere. Oh so much city-dweller 'it'll hurt' stuff came out ... and it was frickin' cold too ... but actually it felt amazing and it certainly focuses you down on where you put your feet. There are tiny, tiny fledgling gorse bushes on the Moor and they hurt.


But there is also a feeling that comes in that is palpable. Not to mention the a re-recognition of the extreme comfort of socks and shoes when they go back on.


Now it's a bit warmer, on sunny days, I will go and lie on the vegetable patch for half an hour covered either with dressing gown or single duvet. I'd just started doing it when the healing crisis arrived so who knows if it was contributing to that or not. But today I managed it again, having walked barefoot on the Moor yesterday (and picked up an unremovable tiny thorn which will have to dissolve its way out).


I'll vouch for it for one thing already. I'd been getting achey backs nowadays because my neck vertebrae have been strained. But earthing dissolves that for the rest of the day, just like that. And the problem is lessening every day.


Now I've researched it a bit more, it appears that grass is just fine, and so is water and so is sand—there are lots of interesting websites out there so I won't point you to just one. Just google 'Earthing.'


In a nutshell: when our bodies lose contact with the earth we start to carry a positive electric voltage relative to the Earth's own voltage. Research indicates that this is not good for health and wellbeing. 

Earthing the body returns the voltage to zero. The whole thing is about free-radicals which are there to help us heal as long as there aren't too many of them. When we touch the earth, the free radicals that we don't need appear to go 'yippee!' and dive down into the earth, leaving us clear.


Thank God summer is coming (and we're off to sunny Cyprus at the end of the month) so I shall be able to test out the theory very thoroughly over the next few months. And yes, I shall continue to walk barefoot on the Moor because it's a wonderful thing to do. I shall just examine my feet with tweezers afterwards.


I am leaving interesting footprints in places as I'm very happy to walk barefoot in the muddy parts too. When just the ball of my foot and toes show up it looks like a very weird mark. I'm looking forward to passing some curious hikers on my way back down to Aslan's How who are wondering if they have seen the elusive prints of the mythical Beast of Dartmoor.


Mind you, she'll be flying down the hill behind me, tongue out and leaping for beagline joy.

P.S. The thorn vanished after this afternoon's walk on the Moor.

To read more of the story, please click on 'newer post' or 'older post' in black below.

If you are new to this blog and would like to start at the beginning, please go to the side bar and click on 'January' to find post no. 1. Thank you.

62. I Chose the Road of Faith

Today I walked on the Moor again. This has been my delight and my spiritual discipline most days since we moved here to Devon. Nowadays I walk barefoot and consequently with much more care. Prickles still catch me and there is much hopping while I clear the foot but I have dodged all the moor-poo successfully so far. The sun shone and I sat down against a tree and said my prayers of blessing for this land and for me while the beagles did their own beagly stuff.

I promised to rest entirely for a week even before the latest healing crisis—which has certainly made me keep my word. On Sunday it was so hard to swallow that I finally (finally) did the three-day juice fast that most of the world recommends. When they don't recommend a seven-day or even longer one.

Hideous, just hideous. Sorry healthy folk but it made me weak as a kitten; there is nothing you can do with juiced spinach which is going to make it taste good and dear Lion's frustration at stuffing bags of kale into the juicer and getting half an inch of liquid was heart-breaking to a Taurean.

Today I am up again and into the second day of eating again and for the first time I have strength again, but I will still spend at least every morning in bed again until Sunday, as a discipline. I don't rest enough. My homeopath tried to tell me weeks ago and I still didn't listen. This morning, I was pottering in the kitchen before I went back to bed and listening to instructions from above and I said, 'yes I'll do that and that but I'll have to stop when I'm tired and rest.'

Suddenly I was doubled up with laughter that wouldn't stop for minutes. That was God laughing at the idea that I would be the one who decided when I was tired instead of having to be beaten into bed.

I'm not afraid. I know this internal journey has more than turned the corner; these last days I've been deep into my soul in the company of Caroline Myss, working with the Tree of Life and chakras and clearing the levels of endurance and intuition and giving my will up to God. I've also worked with the most beautiful healer, Deb Rowley, whom I met on Facebook and who has been of unfailing support and a total delight. As she lies in her bed at night in New Zealand with her husband sleeping beside her, I lie in bed in the morning covered in beagles and we talk and talk in messages.

The ho'oponopono chant that I have been using off and on for years has become my confessional; any time I feel a negative or judgemental thought coming in, I move into ho'oponopono (I'm sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you) and it is dissolved.

But probably the biggest gift Caroline Myss has given me this time round is the acknowledgment that this is a road of faith. I always promised myself that if I ever got a life-enhancing dis-ease I would not go down the route of chemotherapy. So many, many times I have broken my word to myself over the years—I would meditate more; I would eat better; I would do this, I would not do that.

And I broke my word. Again and again. For decades. I thought it didn't really matter but it does. So my will (neck) has been compromised.

But when it came to it, when the chips were well and truly down, I kept my word. I chose the long and sometimes arduous road of faith.

I did have some treatment with an interleukin which was not a lot of help but that was not a breaking of faith because I have always believed in interleukins since Henry's sickness. At a time when I was seriously scared, it may well have given me a couple of months of faith to continue on my journey. But I have been adamant that I will take the route of inner healing and I have kept my word.

So the days of breaking my word to myself are over. Hopefully so are the days of breaking my word to others. And if my will is committed to that, then it is now a will that is worthy of handing over to God.

And in that knowledge, and the deep inner knowing that I now have that God loves and supports me and that my mission as a spiritual comedian is my new ordination, I place it, and myself in God's hands and I commit to following my guidance as much as I possibly can. I don't promise to do it all the time and all my life because I might not make it, so I simply say that I will commit to doing my best.

(My guidance incidentally hasn't shut up since then and seems to be very insistent that it wants to hear me sing and laughs its non-existent head off whenever I do).

To read more of the story, please click on 'newer post' or 'older post' in black below.

If you are new to this blog and would like to start at the beginning, please go to the side bar and click on 'January' to find post no. 1. Thank you.