For those of us in the northern hemisphere, summer is rolling around again with its promise of sunny skies, green fields and lazy walks along riverbanks, idling under the shade offered by the outstretched boughs of a tree, enjoying an afternoon tea or coffee in an easy-going café and more.
More particularly for me, this time of year marks the passing of almost 12 months since the last time I dropped into to Missing Melody, making it high time for a revisit.
Missing Melody is, alongside of the equally eye-catching Longing Melody, presented by Bambi (NorahBrent) as a place of comfort, retreat and relaxation; a place which is never far from thoughts and where a welcome is always waiting. Or to use Bambi’s words, as they are so apt:
What is a Missing Melody? It’s that song in your head that you can’t get out but not sure how it really goes. It’s that temptation you want to have in your life so you can fight to resist. It’s that place in your heart that is always waiting to be filled.
– Bambi (NorahBrent)
For this iteration, Bambi offers a setting which reflects all of my descriptions of summertime above: a rural location rich in the delights of summer, from a stream bubbling and tumbling from a pond high on a hill to follow the curve of the land as it steps down the slope in a series of rocky drops to finally vanish within a culvert, through to the cattle content to stroll the broad grasslands, mingling with horses who also appreciate the rich grazing, even if the local sheep are a little stand-offish!
As a regular supply of fresh water, the pond and stream have attracted much of the local flora over the years, such that the pond is now guarded by the weeping heads of willows and a curtain-like surround of shrubs and bushes which seem determined to protect the secrets of the ducks and geese happy to splash about in the water, and offer the local deer a private place to drink. However, it is a secret that has been penetrated, as the gabled boardwalk reaching out over the pond (but not reaching its opposite number on the far bank) shows.
This gabled boardwalk reaches the pond from a small gathering of garden outhouses sitting alongside a well. Looking a little careworn but still with potted plants being tended, even if the porch swing could do with a little TLC, this little garden space seems to also be a place of play for youngsters going by the tricycle and scooter waiting the return of their owners. How long they’ve been here is hard to say, but the presence of goslings playing in a tub of water, a cat happily sleeping in the sun and a deer and fawn close by, suggests the erstwhile owners of these wheeled means of transport have been gone some time.
Across a bridge spanning the tumbling stream, a path leads down form this little hideaway to reach the Oh Deer Café where refreshments and “sweet yummy moments” await, either indoors or served on the terrace overlooking the sloping growth of wild flowers washing upslope from the stream to counter the neatly-growth flowers in their planters along the edges of the terrace.
The café and the little hidden garden corner aren’t the only places of retreat / refreshment here. Cross the stream and take a walk over the shoulder of the hill and past the grazing cows and horses, and you’ll spy brick walls and a small out sitting up on the flank of the setting’s uplands. The route to it will take you back past the pond, allowing you to join with another path that links it with the red brickwork. Within the high walls and shaded by trees still wearing their springtime blossom sits a fountained pond dominated by a flower-draped statue. Here, as koi swim in the clear waters, a couple might find a place to sit and sample a glass of burdock and wildflower wine.
For those who prefer to remain close to the babbling chatter of the stream, there is a tree house waiting at the end of a pair of rope ladders. With a bench seat / swing (I’d perhaps not try swinging it too far!), it allows a peaceful watch to be kept over the horses and cows below.
Finished with a pleasing sound scape (albeit one in which the café can sound like the Lunchtime Hordes have descended upon it), it really doesn’t need to be said that Missing Melody is, as ever, highly photogenic and makes for a genuinely easy-going visit … even if I just go a say it anyway 🙂 .
SLurl Details
- Missing Melody (Runaway, rated Moderate)
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 