We celebrated the first day of the new year walking at dusk to return a stone to its home on the hill. Carefully picked on a May Day walk, we had planned to take it with us to Pembrokeshire later that month, however our plans were scuppered by fate and the stone had to sit quietly, objecting to the dust it gathered, gently reminding me that it would rather be out in the elements of Exmoor not knowing its gilded future.
While illustrating The Lost Words, Jackie Morris relaxed by continuing to be creative, gilding labyrinths onto stones and carefully placing them in the wild on her daily walk for other walkers to discover. Those that are lucky enough to chance upon them glistening from a mossy wall or rock pool, find they have a difficult decision to make, do they take their treasure home, 'finders keepers', or do they leave it for the next person to share in the unexpected magic?
Touring to promote The Lost Words enabled Jackie to hide these stones throughout the country and while with us in Dulverton she embellished our May Day stone. We wanted to return it to its moorland home on another significant date, the first day of the new year was our first opportunity and seemed apt - we had no idea the moon would be so fitting. January 2018 is a month of 'Blue Moons', and is also the month for the 'Wolf Moon' or 'Old Moon.'
We set off slightly later than planned with Christmas cake, a bottle of Quantock Nightjar and torches just in case we returned in the dark. It was blustery on the hill top but we nestled down for our picnic under the tree where the gilded stone now awaits to reward the next person who climbs its branches.
Our walk home was lit by the moon, we had no need for our torches and took great delight in having moon shadows on the first day of the year.
Wishing you all a wonderful new year!
x
We revisited the tree in May to discover that the stone had been found, would be lovely to know by who...