


Its May and the Valley is bursting into life. The paths draw you around the valley of the Villa, up and down steps of varying heights. Pennywort is escaping through spaces in the dry stone walls. Paths that have been trodden in family histories of the Heaven and Harman families.
Visiting birds take rest within the trees and brambles, sometimes getting caught in the bird ringers nets. Birds I do not recognise but who are long distance travellers.
The buildings around the main villa have interesting names; The Kasbah, The Ugly and The Gas Shed. A flag flies today, its a Union Jack, but has been known to be Star Wars.
The Kitchen garden protected from the wind, the only place one might grow food on this granite rock. Out of the garden flows a stream in which yellow Iris grow.
Milcombe Valley is a retreat, a haven from the Heaven’s. It’s a quiet place to sketch and write. A place where, wherever you sit, you are connected to a memory of someone else who loved sitting in the valley.