our final Letter from 'the retreat'  

Dear Friends,

"Travelling light" was a pop song some years ago (wasn't it one of Cliff Richard's?).  A modern hymn contains a similar thought - "Don't carry a load in your pack; you don't need two shirts on your back" (Hymns & Psalms 315, verse 3, based on Matthew 10:10).

Both have come to mind recently as we have been trying to work out just what to take from The Retreat to our new home and what to dispense with and dispose of in one way or another.  Doubtless there will be some things we shall keep simply because they have a sentimental value to us; but by and large we will be asking ourselves, "Is this going to be useful? Will we actually use it?""" - and when the answers are clearly "No and no", it (whatever "it" is) will have to go.  If 'it' can be disposed of in some way which means 'it' will be useful to someone else, well and good; if not 'it' will almost certainly end up at a Civic Amenity Site (I think that's what they call it - if it isn't I'm sure you know what I mean: the modern equivalent to 'the dump').

When my parents retired from a six-bedroomed Victorian farmhouse to a three-bedroomed modern bungalow, they said, "We're putting nothing in the attic".  Their reasoning for this was: putting anything up there was as good as saying it wasn't really needed, and if it wasn't needed there was no need to save it - simply for someone else to have to discard it at some later date.  We agree with the reasoning - whether we shall actually stick to the principle remains to be seen.  (I am, I admit, something of a hoarder of things which might come in handy one day!)

We got the key to our next house a week ago, and I've already cut the grass once - it was more like cutting part of a hayfield than a lawn, as the previous occupant moved out several weeks ago!  Hopefully it will never get quite so long again.

As it happens, I am writing this little piece for Contact on the day when I have been preparing much of the next Plan, so it is a bit difficult to decide what to put in this letter and what to include in the Plan letter.

I think perhaps I will leave some of the more practical matters concerning the next few months for the Plan, and simply use this letter to express our thanks to you, all the people of the Callington & Gunnislake Circuit, for your friendship and for all you have shared with us over the last nine years.

The furniture van taking us from The Retreat will be travelling a lot lighter than the one that brought us here - we will be moving from the largest house we have lived in to the smallest - but we shall be taking a load of memories with us.                     

 

With best wishes to you all, Howard Curnow