New Book by Charles Moseley, To the Eel Island - Published TODAY (10 April)

Charles Moseley's new book, To the Eel Island, an evening journey is published today, with a book launch tonight at St Peter's Church, Ely at 6:40 for 7pm. 

How do you transplant a tree that has grown in an old, much loved soil for many decades, and make it thrive in a new place? I feel a bit like that tree: for many, many years I've been in a remote house in the fen, have virtually rebuilt it myself, have got to know the area very well, and I'm now getting to the time of life when - with joy and anticipation, and pleasure - I am gradually and happily moving towards another house in a nearby town: another place to put down roots and, one hopes, to thrive in a new life. It comes to all of us. Sometimes cutting the lawn becomes a tedious chore, not the sort of thing you want to do; you find yourself paying people to come in and do some work you could still do, and which once you would never have dreamed of letting anyone else do. But with time, there come other things in life that you've decided you want to do more: like writing books, like training another gundog, like spending time on music and reading and theatre, enjoying the sheer beauty of the architecture of this new town and watching the changing light on its cathedral. And not being too busy to talk to people – anyone who will listen. If that new leisure includes watching the peregrines who nest on the cathedral there, all the better. The transplanted tree can grow and can thrive if you do it at the right time, in the right soil. And if you have an allotment in your new community, you can still get soil under your fingernails as I've loved doing all my life with the vegetables in my garden at the old house, and come back to the new home joyful with the fruits of the earth. But heavy clay can be trying…