Granny used to say I was a ‘wholesome child’ being brought up on her stolen cabbages and scrumped apples. I had a weekly bath in an old iron tub in front of the fire and always smelt of carbolic soap! The pantry consisted of dried and fresh herbs, plenty of fruit, lentils and vegetables galore. Potions were sealed in jars and placed out of my reach and there was always the smell of lavender. And in the garden we had lots of pet rabbits and chickens. These animal friends of mine would die mysteriously on a weekly basis and always when I was out. You know where this story is going and every word is true. But granny was a crafty witch so I never suspected the meat on my plate was Polly, Snowy or Willow. I discovered the truth many years later and was traumatised for life. So if this is what granny meant by wholesome, then I guess I was a wholesome child.

      By the time I was seven, I could steal vegetables from a farmer’s field as good as any crook. Granny said the farmer had plenty and that he wouldn’t mind us taking some cabbages, potatoes, beetroot, parsnips, carrots and just about anything veggie you can think of. I stole all year round! Thankfully my stealing days ended when my father returned and granny had to go shopping. It was years later when the farmer confessed he knew about the theft and said it amused him to see granny and her friends teaching me how to eat and live well. I was mortified!

       Yesterday, the memories of the stealing fields came flooding back, when someone in passing said I was wholesome! Yes, wholesome! I looked at myself in the mirror and frowned. I am not overweight (but could do with losing a kilo or two!)and my cheeks are not ruddy. My stealing days are over and granny and her friends are long dead. So what is wholesome?

       If being wholesome means stealing from the farmer, then I do not qualify.  But, if wholesome means eating a healthy diet, taking daily exercise and being a positive thinker, then I am in with a chance.  However, I do love chocolate, swear occasionally (my kind and unassuming husband does not swear!) and I sometimes succumb to negativity.  During these times my kind and unassuming husband always fills my cup until it’s half full and reminds me that there are more good people in the world than there are bad. Perhaps my kind and unassuming husband and others like him are more worthy of being called wholesome!

Many years before Christ was born and even before the Great Flood and Britain was still attached to Europe, a young man lived and hunted the barren moors and deep valleys in the wilds of Paviland, a place that would one day be known as the Gower Coast in South Wales.

     He fished in the river that would one day become the Bristol Channel and lived in a cave, surviving on roots, berries and reindeer.  And although he died in his early twenties, this seemingly ordinary young man would hold the interest of the world in his hands forever more.  You see, someone found him, buried in a shallow grave, some 33,000 years later.

       Not far from our home for waifs and strays, is this famous cave, known as Paviland,  which is easily recognized from the sea but extremely difficult to get to by foot. However, in 1823, long before my kind and unassuming husband and I were born, the Reverend William Buckland, a paleontologist, found the remains of the young man in the cave, behind the skull of a large mammoth, during an archaeological dig.

       As daylight poured down the chimney, some 20metres above the chamber where the young man lay, the Reverend made a discovery that would become one of the World’s most important archaeological finds.  

       The Reverend also noted the red staining of the bones, made by the natural earth pigment, (red ochre) which was sprinkled on the young man at his burial. He also saw the small pile of perforated seashell necklaces and immediately assumed the skeleton to be a woman. Probably a witch, he thought, or a Roman prostitute. So the misidentification led to the young man being called, ‘The Red Lady of Paviland’ which remains today.

     There has been much debate regarding the young man’s final resting place, as at present, he is resting at a university in Oxford. I for one, think he should return to his spiritual home in Wales. Perhaps not the magical shamanic site where he was found but certainly let him rest in the area where he was well respected and respect should still remain.

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Doctor Arenicola Marina (his scientific name of course) prefers the quite life down in the burrow beneath the sand, not far from the home for waifs and strays. For entertainment he listens to the goings on above ground. This is far louder during the summer months and can get a wee bit annoying.

     Being a lugworm can be lonely at times and very occasionally, he will risk his life and peep up through the sand to see what’s going on. Despite being an old man of almost six years, he still likes to slide up the head shaft to where he can enter the small saucer-shaped depression, which is a simple design made when Doctor Arenicola Marina eats the sand then uses the basin as a toilet. However, he does risks having his bottom pecked off by bottom eating birds that watch his every move. But Doctor Arenicola Marina is very clever and has only lost is bottom once. He has since, grown another bottom which he carefully guards when needs are a must. Now opposite the tail shaft you will notice a curly sand cast made by the doctor himself. You can see why I call him Doctor Arenicola Marina, as he is like my kind and unassuming husband, very clever! At this point, I must tell you that my kind and unassuming husband has never had his bottom pecked off by any bird, he is much too smart to let happen.

      Doctor Arenicola Marina sighs to himself as he watches for birds out to get him, . Being around twenty two centimetres long, he is an easy target from the air but the doctor is quick to sense if danger is near

       Now Doctor Arenicola Marina isn’t always a lonely old lugworm. He has many children swimming in the sea and living in burrows just like his own. What Doctor Arenicola Marina must have, I have come to the conclusion, is an imagination. That, in itself, is what keeps him going.

At the tender age of sixteen, Patrick was kidnapped by Irish pirates and taken from his home in England to Ireland. For the next six years, he was forced into slavery and turned to religion in his despair. He only managed to escape when he heard God’s voice telling him what to do. Once free, he made his way back to his family. But many years later, after becoming a priest himself, he returned to Ireland. He had a dream that he would one day convert them to Christianity.

     Patrick soon became Saint Patrick, one of Ireland’s most popular Saints. He died on March 17^th 461 at the site where he built his first church.

     Like many people, Patrick followed his heart. It wasn’t an easy path he chose or followed. Life isn’t like that. But he was determined and his faith helped him achieve his goal. I believe if we have faith in oursevles, we can achieve many things. Remember in tales past, that the road less travelled is the road with stones, as yet, unturned!

Even when no boat floats upon it and no fish can be seen, and even if the water is as smooth as a millpond, it still has the power to draw one to it.

     The original name for the Pacific Ocean was ‘peaceful sea’ and although at times this isn’t the case, there is a certain aura of both peacefulness and power about it. It has the power to give and the power to take away.

      Below this surface that we often stare at with little thought, are thousands of islands, volcanoes, valleys and the longest mountain range on Earth, known as The Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Indeed, another world full of mystery. Another world full of life we have yet to discover.

      But we do know that the largest animal ever to have lived on this planet, lives beneath this water we love to stare at. The Blue whale, (Balaenoptera musculus) is around 30 metres in length and weighs 170 tonnes or more.  Her voice is louder than a jet and her heart is about the size of a Volkswagen beetle, how amazing is that?  

      So it is no wonder we stare at this magnitude of water that covers 70% of our planet. The sheer size of it is enough to make anyone feel in awe of its vastness. From its gentle ripples to its tsunamis, this part of our planet will always be something to watch, to listen to, to be mindful of.  

      For me, standing at the water’s edge, drinking in the fresh salty air, allows me to think or to meditate and not think at all. If I’m sad, its endless murmur soothes and restores my soul. 

‘We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch-we are going back from whence we came.’

John F Kennedy