Country diary: In poet John Clareās garden, I contemplate my ancestor who lived here too | Nic Wilson
Helpston, Cambridgeshire I picture Henry as a young lad, hiding in flowerbeds, chasing butterflies, learning to love nature If thereās one thing better than a
Helpston, Cambridgeshire I picture Henry as a young lad, hiding in flowerbeds, chasing butterflies, learning to love nature If thereās one thing better than a gatekeeper butterfly, itās wild marjoram playing host to a flurry of gatekeepers. Almost impossible to count for all the rising, fluttering and resettling, their warm orange and brown wings with white double-dots in a black eye-spot are only a wing-flick away from mottled invisibility: now you see me, now you donāt.
Iām their lone admirer, sat on a mossy stone in the garden at John Clare cottage, but I donāt feel alone. Honeysuckle has me in a heady hug, undulating fronds of hartās-tongue fern wave from beneath a rock, the whiteness of a teneral damselfly in the grass intrigues and delights me.
I know this garden has a long history of providing companionship, not least to the poet after whom the cottage is named, who knew āthe woodbine at the garden gateā as āaffectionās friendā and asked of the butterfly āWouldst thou in my garden come, / To join the beeās delightful humā.
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