We were unable to leave. My friend had walked away from his flight to Scotland but could not walk away from the airport. Every time we tried to drive out, at a certain point he yelled “stop!” so we stopped and went back. It was getting exhausting. In the end there seemed no other option; we booked into a travel lodge. The next day idling across the nearby golf course I found two yellow golf balls. I handed them to him. As he later told me he was quite nervous about going to the “weird and wacky” Findhorn despite his curiosity being piqued by the Eileen Caddy books on our shelves. He said when he saw the golf balls he suddenly realised – “now I have the balls to go there.”

So he enquired about re-booking the flight and later that day flew up to Inverness. When I got home I rang the Foundation booking office and told them one conference participant would be a bit late. That would be no problem they said.

But those golf balls changed both our lives. The first evening my friend took a towel and went to the Hot Tub, in those days in the courtyard of Minton House. There he met the woman who would later become his wife. The story goes that she fainted into his arms …

Well the day soon came when I had to move out. That October I spent time at Lickey Hills Country Park. I explored the heathland, picked litter from some small ponds, observed in detail each separate golden strand of beech, and like Tolkien imagined vast armies camped at night below the ridge.

The next few months were difficult.

My allotment site, the local park and the garden I had spent ten years nurturing were scheduled for development by the City Council. My partner’s house compulsorily purchased, the small charity where I worked clearly wanting me to leave. My partner found a flat while I slept on the floor of the empty house for a while. I had several minor accidents, ended up in A & E on more than one occasion. Later in a rented house I spent days lying on the sofa in tears. I had visions.

I booked a series of activities to keep going – a weekend camping in Wales, an art class, a visit to a therapist. The therapist suggested I join a workshop he was running at NewBold House in Forres. While there we visited the Park but got no further than the Phoenix shop. However I now booked Experience Week and a week with Trees for Life for the following May. Was it then that my ex-partner (for we have always remained friends though I must have sorely tried his patience) bought me a ticket to Inverness?

I returned to the city but eventually there was no money for the next month’s rent, so I packed what I could into a hired car and headed north to stay with family, then continued northwards. Spiritual Practice in the Park, another time planting trees, and when the group got on the train to return to Findhorn I went the other way catching a bus the length of Skye and the ferry to Harris and Lewis. October again and everything closed. Luckily someone had left the hostel at Tarbert unlocked and a packet of rice on the shelf. At Callanish a kind woman gave me a bed for the night and a meal, accepting no payment. Then it began to snow.

I arrived back at the Foundation just before the 40th Birthday celebrations. This time I stayed.

P.S. My friend still has those golf balls!