A couple of weeks ago, for a miniature holiday, my partner Susie and I went to stay in a caravan at Ringstead Bay in Dorset, lent to us by my kind friend Vickey.
It poured on the way down and when we stopped, mid-afternoon, at Tolpuddle, to pay homage to the Tolpuddle Martyrs, transported to Australia in the 1830s for starting a union, it was very bleak indeed.
Now I love this beautiful land of ours. I will holiday anywhere from Cornwall to Caithness and be happy.
But that Thursday afternoon, considering the prospect of 48 hours in a tin box listening to the rain hammering on the roof and the wind scrabbling to get in through the windows, I was miserable. And, there in the slate-grey Dorset damp, I was jealous.
I was jealous of all the people on more glamorous holidays they didn’t deserve: in Spain, in Italy, in the Maldives.
Even the Tolpuddle Martyrs were shipped to Australia. It’s sunny there.
But as we drove the last miles over the downs and into sight of the sea, the wind peeled back the clouds and it turned out that summer had only been resting for a moment.
After that, for two days, the sun shone, the sea sparkled as we walked the coast path, we drank wine with fish and chips, and it was glorious.
In the Bible, there’s a poem, Psalm 73, which pretty much describes that jealousy, the discontent that comes from seeing others get what I want:
“I was envious of the arrogant; I saw the prosperity of the wicked”
But halfway through, it changes tack.
“When my soul was embittered…I was stupid and ignorant” says the poet, before arriving at the simple conclusion, “As for me, it’s good to be near God”.
Now I know that won’t work for everybody; but everybody has something or someone it’s good to be near – a friend, a faraway lover, a dog, a tree, a quiet spot in the park.
As for me, it was good to walk that day with Susie in the wind and the sunshine.
And as for all of us, I reckon it’s good, when we can, to make sure we put ourselves wherever it is that makes us feel lucky enough not to wish to be anywhere else.
The header image is from our walk, looking east from White Nothe towards Bat’s Head, Durdle Door, Lulworth and the Isle of Purbeck.
The image in the text is of the memorial to George Loveless, Methodist lay preacher and leader of the Tolpuddle Martyrs, outside the Martyrs’ Museum in Tolpuddle. Transported to Australia in 1834, the outcry at the miscarriage of justice was so great that Loveless and his fellows were returned to England in 1837. After that he emigated to Canada, where he built a Methodist chapel at Siloam, Ontario, just north of Toronto.