A delight of having moved to a beautiful remote spot in the Yorkshire Dales is that I had three sets of visitors over Christmas and New Year. The weather also welcomed them with sunshine, even if the temperature was below zero, and just the right amount of snow to brighten the ground without making walking and driving impossible.

Having visitors and good weather meant that I got out and about most days, taking them on the well-known classic walks and also exploring some new routes. Fortunately all the visitors were outdoor people and came well equipped for the sometimes rugged paths. 

It’s something of a worry when taking visitors up on to the fells that their idea of a lovely country walk is based on ambling along a woodland way in gentle southern landscape, and the reality of ice, bone chilling blasting winds and steep tracks differs from expectations, ability and clothing.

As always though, there is a ‘but’. Wonderful to have visitors, but. I like to make things ‘just so’ which means lots of shopping, preparation and cooking. I also don’t like anyone else to do the washing up, so did that all myself despite constant offers of help. Maybe that’s something I need to work on, allowing others to contribute, as I’m just making a rod for my own back.

Then there is making up the fires. It’s an old house and there are three fireplaces. Normally I just live in one room which has a wood burning stove that I can keep ticking over during the day by adjusting the airflow so it doesn’t use too much fuel. With visitors I like to also have the two other open fires lit, which means a lot of coal and log carrying, fire lighting and ash removal. And then there is the laundry, seemingly endless washing and drying sheets and towels.

This is a long way round to apologising for not replying to comments on my previous blog. Some of these were very interesting and useful, and I’d like to pick up a couple of the threads.

One is about the position of children relative to siblings and me beating around the bush. Although I used the examples of my friend from London and myself, the actual target was my father. He was the youngest of quite a big family and was mostly looked after by the eldest sister. I think this resulted in him being allowed to get away with bad emotional behaviour as an elder sister doesn’t have parental authority. My assumption is that this led to his bullying and self-centred character as an adult – with its consequent effects on my mother and myself. So really the blog was about trying to unravel the complexities of my relationship with him so that I can move on and let it go.

The second was an excellent comment from Oli about the ‘frank exchanges’ between my friend from London and myself. What I wanted to add to this was that although we do have turns of ‘plain speaking’ our underlying values and shared experiences provide the bonds of friendship. We often have what others might construe to be an argument that ends with ‘what was that bird call just now’ and we’re back on track again.

The third was a fascinating comment from Spiral Dancer about mental health and childhood trauma. Are conditions such as bipolar (I hesitate to add the qualifying ‘disorder’) due to a genetic and chemical inherited predisposition, or is our mental and chemical state determined by childhood (and adult) experiences. In my opinion it’s probably a bit of both with everyone being different, but it’s a good topic to discuss. It’s the old ‘nature nurture’ debate. What are your thoughts?

Rowan on the Moor

A Moodscope member

In case anyone is feeling academic, I did a quick internet search and found this interesting recent study:

‘The nature and nurture of mental health problems in the family’

https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1004867