Until the turn of the last century Mitcham, where I grew up, was a village near London surrounded by fields of lavender, plus chamomile and peppermint. In large part this was due to two local physic gardeners, Ephraim Potter and William Moore, who in 1749 set up a distillery there and founded a company to make and market toiletries made from locally-grown herbs and flowers. Yes, Potter and Moore soaps began just a short walk away from my home, but by my time Mitcham lavender only existed in people's gardens and the names of a few roads and an electoral ward. (Happily, recent years have seen a thriving organic lavender farm in nearby Banstead, and a resurgence in the cultivation and use of Black Mitcham Peppermint)
So I especially enjoy visiting lavender farms! Those purple-blue rows disappearing into the distance, vibrant against any background... the air sharply yet soothingly fragrant and filled with the contented buzz of bees... this is how Mitcham must once have been, before the railway and large-scale house building filled the air with other sights, sounds and smells. That's certainly how I felt today, visiting Cotswold Lavender Farm, where thanks to the recent sunny weather bright, blooming rows interspersed with wildflowers stretched as far as the horizon, butterflies and bees flitted and flirted with the flowers and a refreshing breeze was lightly aromatic (but teased most of my attempts at taking close-up photos of flowers!)
Would that humans could do so equally comfortably...
Yeah, instead people assume so much more than there is about the words and actions of neighbors and rarely are the assumptions positive. That is the saddest bit.
ReplyDeleteMy grandmother grew up in Mitcham and often spoke of the fieldsof lavender and the crystal waters of the Wandle River. Sadly the lavender fields were built over and the Wandle wickedlypolluted by the time Igrew up there.
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