Pauline Barclay : My Happy Place - Wonderful Years at Sea and...

Today, Barbara Gaskell Denvil shares her happy place that will have you going there too!

Having a special memory of a place you have loved – or even better a place you can truly visit now, is a wonderful aid to times of boredom or feeling down, and I certainly envisage and memorise those happy places when just sitting or ready for sleep. It can really help.

For many years I lived on a large yacht on the Mediterranean Sea, and that encompassed so much, I can remember a thousand wonderful times. I adored it.

Sitting on the top deck and watching the sunset over the ocean, or the dawn peeping its violet pastel haze up over the mountains where we were anchored, are some of the most beautiful memories.

We visited the countries around the Mediterranean, and spent endless years in Greece, France, Spain and Italy. However it was the sailing itself which felt magic. The stars would seem enormous in the rich black above, and the sea was a turquoise wash of gentle ripples and the splash of white spray like tiny bubbles flying all around. Every horizon was glorious.

A happy place can bring joy in so many ways, and now I am back living on dry land, I still think back over those wonderful years at sea. However, I also love to visit the places where I live and have lived in the past. I adore the wildlife and my holidays have invariably involved exploring the places where the native animals live safely and can be seen.

Recently beavers have been reintroduced in England, eagles can be flown in special sanctuaries, and most zoos have been improved over the years, now being both more beautiful for us, and more comfortable for the animals.

However, as an author, perhaps my most commonly used ‘happy place’ is from my own imagination. A water fall plunges from high cliffs into a bright blue lake of warm water. And here I float and dream, watching as the sunset turns the sky vivid, and the stars blink out one by one. But I also look up to the birds flying above, and hear their glorious songs as they nest in the surrounding trees. There are golden fish in the lake, and their tails flick against my arms as they swim past. I am warm and lie in perfect peace. My eyes are closed, but I see everything clearly. That is probably my best happy place of all.