Pearl’s Sacred Space

Hi, Pearl here! And so is summer, it seems, with people and noise everywhere.

Call me a grouch, but it’s not my favourite season. My ears are super-sensitive and certain sounds drive me crazy, like the excited shrieks of kids on holiday and the thud of footballs being kicked around the beach. However, there’s one place the tourists (or grockles, as we call them) haven’t discovered yet, and that’s our local bluebell wood.

It doesn’t matter what’s going on elsewhere – bank holiday crowds, Scout jamborees or high winds in the treetops – this place is always peaceful. You can almost touch the stillness, and the only sound is the rich, echoing music of a blackbird. Annabelle says it’s like being in church, only better, and I think I know what she means – it’s a magical place where the presence of nature spirits is strong. As soon as you enter this little wood, it feels like a different order of reality.

You’d think a place like this would have hordes of admiring visitors in May, but we nearly always have it to ourselves. Annabelle says it’s because not many people know about it, but I think it really does exist in another dimension, which the fairies only show to special dogs – and their humans – at certain times.

Tasting the magic

I like to think that Millie’s spirit lives here – or somewhere like it – and that I’ll live here too, when it’s my turn to cross the Bridge. A place without noise is my idea of heaven!