Snow had fallen, snow on stone

I know the sound so well but it had been nearly four years since I’d last heard it: the crunch of snow under my shoes. It has to be one of my favourite sounds in the world; it is the sound of home. I therefore suspect that the thin but fresh, white blanket that covered the Borders when I visited the weekend before last is one reason why I have a new monastic site to add to my list of favourite ruins.

Unlike many other abbeys and priories that are now in town centres, Dryburgh Abbey is reachable by B-roads, surrounded by parkland and next door to nothing but a quiet hotel. I wandered in in bright midday sunshine under blue skies, and save for a handful of other visitors who disappeared around a corner, I had the place for myself. I walked through doorways and up and down stairs, and just stood looking at the stone walls and arches thinking how I used to be such a Gothic girl through and through but how the Romanesque was now definitely growing on me.

It was so peaceful. All hurry and haste left me, and if I turned my ear away from the distant hum of modern life I could imagine what Dryburgh must have been like, once upon a time. Great tits sang in the trees outside the Abbey walls, and perhaps it was because I could hear the snow under my shoes but I had a quick thought like a flight of a bird that comes from hiding and is gone before you know it: I would live here.

Non-banned books

I had this idea. It came to me late at night, as ideas are prone to do: I thought I should index all my books and organise them by language into fiction and non-fiction. And that’s what I did on the first day of the year. I rummaged for books in drawers, boxes and on window sills, and piled them all on the living room rug. I found roughly 150 books, which didn’t seem too bad at all. I rather thought I should be congratulated for adhering to my ‘do not buy books’ policy so faithfully. Three major groups of books had obviously managed to get past my checkpoints which are a) ‘use the library instead’ and b) ‘you’ll regret buying them when you move house’.

The first group was a motley collection of second-hand paperbacks that I’ve picked from here and there to read on trains and planes and park benches. They are allowed because they will eventually find their way out of the house either through bookcrossing or the charity table at the regular book sales in the village. They are also affordable and protect library books from sandwich smudges and travel wear and tear (or so I tell myself).

The second group was fiction – mostly crime – in Norwegian, which gets a free pass because our public libraries understandably do not offer a massive selection. Crime novels come with straightforward everyday language that serves the purpose of brushing up my Norwegian that is getting more and more rusty every year.

And then there were the ranks of non-fiction that have swelled more recently, in particular with local and medieval history. Well, everyone is allowed a nerdy weakness. And the thing is, I used to have a 45-minute wait in town returning home from my violin lessons, and the only nice place open that late in the evening was a bookshop with a well-stocked history section. So that’s the way that went. But local history references as well as guides to flora and fauna are good to have at hand for those passing moments of ‘who was that king again who..?’ and ‘what’s that bird called with the…?’

So, there I sat on the rug typing spreadsheets and re-organising all the drawers and window sills, and so far that is among the best things I have done this year. No two ways about it: books make me happy.