Roots

I'm a regular inhabitant of a local shop that sells discounted magazines and books nearby. Every Friday I check in to see if there's something new and cheap - to add to an ever-growing collection of home and garden magazines, otherwise known a "wish books".

One of the ones I always look for is the UK Country Living magazine. I'd love to subscribe, but it costs nearly a thousand bucks with our meagre currency! So I stick to the leftover outdated ones, at 10 bucks each - by the time summer rolls around here, we get the summer issues from there. I've found that I tend to gravitate toward the UK versions of magazines, instead of the ones from the USA or elsewhere.

Perhaps it has something to do with my roots.

My ancestors came from England. My gran is of Irish descent - Ireland is still one of the countries I'd LOVE to visit! They were all either sea-faring men or tillers of the soil. One ancestor (going by the surname Burgoyne) managed to somehow lose the battle of Saratoga...! My grandparents on mom's side still farm. My uncle on dad's side does too. Most of the relatives are more comfortable in the country than cities, and their careers reflect this, from mining dynamite expert to top botanist.

Further back, my ancestors were Vikings, and even further back, we're descended from a tribe in the Himalayas (another place I'd love to see!).

All of these have filtered down through the centuries to create who I am today - a lover of soil and nature, a seeker of adventure and high mountains, a soul who feels drawn to ancient forests and the English countryside (though I can do without the weather there).

When I'm paging through the latest Country Living treasure, all too often I find my soul longing for some of the places that are portrayed. I love the mix of old and new furnishings, the sense of history in flagstoned kitchen and ancient Aga, the jumble of meadow mixed plants in gardens, the tactile wools and silks and cottons, the worn wooden floors. I suspect that it has something to do with my roots.

This weekend I picked up the British "Songs of Praise" programme while randomly browsing the box during breakfast. There was something there that appealed to me too, that spoke to my very fibre. It was broadcast from Scarborough, and I felt as if I knew that place in my bones.

The Viking in me loves the lochs and mountains of Norway and Sweden - they feel like home. The Himalayan in me finds a soul-home in mountains that kiss the skies and valleys that plunge into dark shadow.

The farming stock in me yearns for earth under my nails and delights in the daily growth of my veggie garden. Late yesterday afternoon my son and I sat quietly on our verandah, watching bullbulls in the bird bath throwing up delights of spray, starlings arguing over telephone-line space, and examining new spiderwebs on his cactus collection. Roots - they show themselves regularly.

The only roots that don't pop up in me are the seafaring ones. Perhaps my ancestors had more than enough of the waves and the "woman in each port" (can you imagine what my family tree looks like?!), prefering after generations to settle in Cornwall and get on with working the land. Great-Great-Grandfather Green had a castle there, and there is a Bain-Bridge spanning a small stream in one village. Or maybe the seafaring stuff skipped me and went to my brothers, who love to surf.

I've always enjoyed delving into the past to see what produced me, what patterns emerge and how family resemblance cuts across continents and generations. I love the stories the old folk tell - ones I want to capture before they're forever lost.

Roots. Deeply rooted. Even if I'm not always aware of them.