Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me Liz Scott and you join me on the 44th day of my pilgrimage.
I'm tracking the Mary and Michael lines across England and today I've been walking with a cousin and it's been an extraordinary day for many reasons.
Firstly because I don't know this side of the family very well.
Here in Suffolk my dad came from Suffolk and he died last year and I've been very much touched by the landscape,
Reflecting on my dad and him as a youngster,
Probably knowing some of the places that I was walking through.
And today with my cousin,
My dad's siblings lived here,
My cousin was brought up here.
I've learned more about the family that I didn't really know much about up here.
It's been a real joy to enrich my sense of belonging in this landscape.
I'm standing just beside a stream,
You can probably hear it gushing in the background,
Just pausing before I get in my car and head back to the campsite.
And one of the things that I was really struck with today,
We ended up in a church which is on the Michael line,
So it's a place called Cotton,
And we went in the church.
It's a lovely church,
A big church,
But I was slightly mystified because some of the lecterns and some of the different bits in the church were covered over and I thought,
Oh probably they've got some sort of building work going on to protect it from the dust.
And the church had a bit of a feel that,
It wasn't unloved,
But it just felt like it needed a bit of attention.
Plaster was coming off the wall and it just felt a little bit like maybe they had damp coming in.
It needed a bit of money spending on it.
And we were just about to leave the church and the lady came in and said,
Oh I'm just about to lock up but I'll give you a little bit longer.
And I just asked her about the building work as I saw it.
I said,
What kind of building work have you got?
She said,
We haven't got any building work going on.
I said,
Why are those things covered over then?
And she said,
Well that's because of the bats.
I said,
What bats?
And she said,
Well we've got bats living in our church.
And the bats,
No but bats have lots of protection here in England.
If you've got bats living in your roof or rafters you're very restricted in the work that you can carry out in your house.
And she said,
Yes we have to cover over bits in the church because they're dropping,
She said.
It's a real pain.
But the plus side,
She said,
Is we don't get many flies or moths in this church because the bats just eat them all up.
And then she went on to explain how once a year they have a bat evening.
So you can come into the church,
Children come in,
They have bat sensors and monitors so you can hear the bats.
And obviously you're indoors rather than outdoors and you're pretty much guaranteed to see a bat because they live in the church and they fly around the church.
And I just loved this.
I loved,
First of all,
Her enthusiasm for her church.
Like her enthusiasm and love for the church that she helped keep open and allow visitors to come into just warmed my heart.
She is,
You know,
Someone who's passionate about that church.
But also her passion for the bats,
Which many people might see as a bit of a pain to have in your church.
But she saw it as a gift.
And not only was it a gift,
It brought people in.
These bats now had people coming to see the church because of the bats.
And I just really realised that we never really know.
You know,
Something might happen and we think it's a bad thing.
I've got bats in my church.
But we don't know that.
And I love the way that in this instance,
The bats have become part of the fabric of the church,
Part of the story of the church.
And I love it that these bats are allowed to live in that church.
For me,
This is such a heartwarming story to finish the day.
