So this is where I slept last night. It’s a shed, not even a particularly massive shed and it’s amazing. The other photo is the view from the bed and the sunrise comes flooding through that little window. Ideal sunrise watching from under the comfort of a duvet. The shed is a log cabin, made of cedar wood and is home to an Englishman turned trapper and guide who lives at Wisakedjak Lodge (the shed) by Kingsmere Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada in April 1948. The lovely trapper man is also called He Who Walks By Night and he is guarding the 13th magic place (the tipi under the shed) and has a mighty task assigned to him. He is also known as Whiskey Jack so might have to don that mantle later on.

The shed is filled with wondrous curios which means that it actually IS a trapper’s hut in Canada in 1948 rather than just pretending to be a trapper’s hut in Canada. If you open the back doors, all exquisitely crafted, it leads onto a small path where you put the bins out and immediately looks onto other houses. I kept stepping in and out of the doors this morning, as it really is stepping through some portal in time and space. This is eco travel at its finest. On a personal note, I had to wonder why I always place myself at the furthest hidden point, away from potential ‘civilisation’ and tucked away in a little nest. To be tucked away is both my greatest wish and my greatest fear combined and sums up the past year beautifully really.

So, I had thought that I would go through the five motifs, one a day, and start with the Bumblebee but actually I just want to talk about ants. I’ve been thinking about ants for many years ever since I spent several days observing them in great detail. I was stuck in a tent on Corfu, at the time, having been bitten by some sort of scorpion and unable to walk. I was waiting for some bikers, who I’d met earlier, to notice that I was missing so that they would come by and take me to hospital as this was pre phones, there was a great deal of luck involved. Anyway, that is a whole other story for a whole other time. While I was festering away in that little brown tent, I watched ants. It was possible to tell the time by them, the weather and they were great company in the absence of all other company and they were going to be, quite possibly, the only witnesses to my demise if the bikers didn’t turn up. Chris (my son) told me that he watched a 3 day battle between two different types of ant in Thailand. Talliston reminds me of ants (without the battle). John, the birth parent of Talliston, reminds of ants.

John is particular about Talliston in a very beautiful way. If you watch ants, it doesn’t take long to witness how particular they are. Ants are never lazy! Although they do, allegedly, take about 250 power naps a day, each nap lasting just over a minute, so I don’t know if that means that they stagger their naps or whether they sleep at night but I’m guessing that, seeing as they only live for a couple of months, that they want to crack on with life. If you think of an ant, you think of hard work, perseverance, discipline and strength. They all work together and can lift crazy amounts of their own body weight and are even known to predict the future, although I’m not going down that road. Ants NEVER have traffic jams which, given the amount of ants there are in any one colony, is quite the feat. If there is an obstacle, they quickly communicate the solution. Fire ants, who are supposedly the strongest and most dominant ants, accept any ants into their colony and consider them family. Hint, hint, nudge, nudge… They have fancy houses, ventilation systems and have been around for about 100 million years. They are 25% of the entire animal biomass on earth. Mind blown and, best of all, they form living bridges. Ants have hospitals and a social security system in the form of two stomachs. They have their own stomach and a social stomach where they store food in case they come across anyone else who is hungry. Ants are brave. Ants make the most of every opportunity and everything that they do is for the benefit of the colony, they share everything that they have. Ants even had a cameo appearance in the Old Testament – ‘Go to the Ant, thou sluggard’ and Solomon had dealings with an ant and ants are forbidden to be killed in Islam. Phew, I’ve been wanting to talk about ants for a really long time… Just one more thing about ants, all ant nests have an entrance patrolled by guards. Some species take this a step further and have soldiers with disc-shaped heads that fit perfectly into their nest entrances. These soldiers serve as living doors, and they control who enters and who stays out. Even ants have to contend with their own Priti Patels.

Ants really listen to one another and the theme of listening runs strongly through every thread that has woven together the beautiful and intricate fabric of the story of Talliston and into every object in the house. Ants teach us that knowledge should be shared, to ignore the little diversions and that the next generation is everybody’s responsibility and also, to adapt to our surroundings. Talliston is exactly this. It is the very embodiment of hard work and perseverance. Talliston is patience in a story and a story well told. Talliston holds an egalitarian heart and shows how, through telling the story of our dreams, we can provide a kinder world for everyone. No man is an island, as the saying goes, and we better ourselves through our acts of service. On a surface level, you could see Talliston as one man’s dream of building an extraordinary world within an ordinary house, but the level of devotion from volunteers tells a very different story. If you listen very carefully to the walls, and maybe that little voice deep inside, it is telling us how we can add value to the world for everyone.

Now I’m off to drink whiskey.