The sky seemed busier than usual, so I stepped out onto the damp grass, boots sinking slightly, and looked up.
A scattered formation of birds spread across the hazy morning hills, calling to each other like they’d never left. The willow warblers had returned.
I stood there, hand wrapped around my mug, watching them circle before settling on flowering willow and hawthorn.
I hadn’t realised how much I’d missed them until that exact second - how the silence they left behind each year had stretched wider than it should have.
It felt familiar.
Five years ago that week, I stood in a different field – this field – with strange soil, a strange view, and a strange new life.
Moving to Ireland was like an exciting promise, all green and breathing, but all these years there had been a quiet absence humming beneath it.
My mum’s voice wasn’t in the kitchen at weekends anymore - calls and messages tried to fill the gaps, but they always felt like echoes of something that should have been solid. Like birds heard but not seen.
Read more: Life on the Farm: Spring – doing its thing – The Irish News
Now she was here. Not just visiting, not just passing through, but down the road from the farm. I stood patiently by the door of her new place the morning she arrived off the ferry.
Now, with my mum minutes away and the sky alive with song again, everything feels sweet
— Ruby Free
Tired but happy to finally be here, her face lit up as she neared the house. Despite the exhaustion of moving, her kind humour always seems to find its way through - it always has no matter what life has asked of her and life has asked a lot of my mum.
Years shaped by family health struggles; hospitals, waiting rooms, and the kind of worry that settles into your bones. So, seeing her here in the morning light, felt like something stubbornly hopeful beginning again. She couldn’t and wouldn’t leave our home nest of Poole until all her birds had confidently fledged, you see.
While things are always uncertain as both my siblings have disabilities they struggle with - one sister now a singer in Brighton, and another is working as a fashion designer in London, so it only made sense for my mum to be exactly where she wanted to – and that happened to be here in Eire. The birds arrived exactly when they were meant to - as did she.
That first weekend, we drove out into the mountains. The roads curved and dipped, rising into wide, open views where the land seemed to stretch on forever. We laughed at the narrow bends, the sunbathing sheep and our inability to pronounce several road names. She drove like she belonged here now. The windows were down despite the chill, and the air rushed through the car, wild and bright.
The swallows were everywhere.
They skimmed low over the fields and lifted suddenly, darting so quickly, it almost made you dizzy to follow. At one point, as we climbed higher, they seemed to ride alongside us, keeping pace for a fleeting moment.
Later that day, I showed her the polytunnel. Once we got past the goats, I pulled the door open and pointed everything out - the wedding flowers, the veg starting to grow and herbs that brushed against our hands as we walked past.
This place I’d curated felt more complete with her in it.
The following morning, I spent a solid four hours in and around the polytunnel, watering plants, potting out flowers and just generally tidying the place up. It was the first time all year I’d felt too warm.
The place was bursting into life, with ladybugs on every daisy, lettuces doubling in size overnight and sweet peas climbing an inch a day. A little family of robins had taken up residence, deciding to nest under some pallets in the polytunnel, so we made sure not to get too close and felt excited at the prospect of fluffy fledglings.
Just as I was about to leave, I noticed a lifeless carder bee on my strawberry plants. It was as if the day has wrung every last drop of energy from it. For a second, I think I’m too late – the bee barely reacts when I come close. But I was determined to revive the wee critter.
So, I ran to the caravan to make up a sugary-water concoction. When I arrive back to offer it to the bee, it climbed onto my spoon in a haste. I sat in awe, watching its tiny proboscis drink.
Time stretches. The tunnel feels hushed, like it’s watching with me. Then the bee moves; its body starts vibrating again, the legs steady and wings tremble, testing themselves. There’s a pause and then it lifts into the air, a fragile little flight that feels bigger than it should.
But it doesn’t go far – after a second in the air, it buzzes towards me and lands on my finger, light as a thought. I freeze, not wanting to break whatever this is. It felt like a tiny hug, like its choosing to stop here to say thanks… even if I know, logically, she’s just resting.
Still, it doesn’t feel like “just” anything.
After 20 minutes on my finger - resting, and cleaning itself - it leaves again - this time heading straight to the strawberries where I first found her, disappearing into the soft work of pollinating its flowers. Is it ridiculous to say this experience made my year so far? There was something so humbling about helping a creature so small and deeply rewarding knowing native pollinators are increasingly dealing with environmental pressures. I made an Instagram reel where I’d documented this little encounter which ended up going very viral; so if you’d like to see it, head to @rubyfreewild.
As April drew on, my mum… and the birds found themselves tending to their new nests. Unpacking boxes and beaks, these were a busy few weeks. Water baths were left out for wildlife as the days became warmer and endless cups of tea were made for my mum.
I hadn’t noticed their absence properly when the birds first left last year. Life had been too busy – too full. But over time, the quiet they left behind had stretched into something I carried without naming. The same with her. You adjust, you adapt, you tell yourself distance is just another shape of love. But distance, I’ve learned, is also a kind of sharpening. Now, with my mum minutes away and the sky alive with song again, everything feels sweet. The world had taken its time, circling back in its own patient rhythm and returned what I was waiting for.
There was a subtle grief in saying goodbye to our family home of Poole; the place that shaped me and my sisters into who we are. But I’ve come to understand that migration, whether by wing or by will, asks for a kind of letting go.
The same instinct that pulls the swallows back each spring has, in its own way, guided us too - across the water, across years, back toward one another. April marked the month of an amazing new chapter. And for the first time in a long while, it didn’t feel like we were recovering from something. It felt like we were beginning.