Nostalgic end to February

Cornish daffodils

The end of February has been a time of strangely mixed feelings and emotions, as I had two funerals to attend within a week of each other, plus the longer days and lighter mornings brought on feelings of restlessness.

The first funeral was of my childhood friend's father. Our parents had been great friends and we had shared many holidays together as families, staying in Gorran Haven in Cornwall one year, on a farm near Gwinnear in Cornwall the next and then on a farm near Harlech in North Wales, plus lots of visits to each others houses. Our parents remained good friends over the years and shared other holidays after we children had all grown up and flown the nest, so Mum wanted to go and so did I. My brother also came down from London as he and George had always got on well. The service and cremation were held at Gloucester Crematorium and it was a non-religious service with a lovely eulogy given by his eldest son that had us all smiling at familiar stories. Afterwards we went to a local pub for the wake and a catch-up with the family – although I have seen Carol a bit in recent years, I had not seen her older brother, Kevin, for 45 years! He lives in Denmark now so I probably won't see him again for another 45 years!!! Although funerals are sad occasions the inevitable bringing together of people to reminisce brings a lighter note – I always feel slightly guilty for laughing and chatting at the wake but, after all, we are sharing and reinforcing memories of when the departed person was still with us and enriching our lives. George definitely enriched our family holidays with his cine filming mania which lasted for a couple of years and had us up and out early in the morning to shoot the epic smuggling adventure 'The Feet', before the rest of Gorran Haven had got up and trodden all over the set (the beach). This cine film has not seen the light of day for many a year, despite pleadings from all sides to get George to edit it and transfer it onto video (and then CD!), but it has passed into family folklore as my children and my nieces have all heard about it, and a few years ago I even took Jeni to Gorran to show her where the film was shot on location! George was also the person who had the patience to teach me, aged eleven, to finally ride a bicycle in an almost competent manner! Long may he remain alive in our memories.

The following week saw Jeni and I heading to Hampshire for the funeral of her paternal grandfather, where we met up with my son, Dave, who'd driven from Stevenage, and my first husband and his partner, before going to the local church. We met at John's bungalow so that the grandchildren could all choose something of Grampy's to keep, and for me it was a strange experience as I hadn't set foot inside the bungalow for many years. The oddest thing was that nothing appeared to have changed in all those years.

The service was held at the local church which surprised me as, as far as I was aware, John had been an atheist (or at least an agnostic), but it had been largely organised by his daughter and their family and reflected their religious beliefs with hymns, readings and a sermon. The only part of the service that really seemed to be personal to John was the eulogy that his son had written and read out. This time it was a burial, rather than a cremation, and there is nothing quite as sobering as standing next to an open grave on a cold, blustery day, as the coffin is lowered into the ground by four black clad men, the chief of whom was attired in a top hat and tails. He looked a very Dickensian character in his official mourning garb but looked more like Bill Sikes to my way of thinking as he was a large man with a scar on his face. This irreverent thought managed to lift my spirits a little, as I had been very fond of John and felt sad that I had seen so little of him in recent years.

From there we went to the local golf club for the wake and this time I was seeing people that I hadn't seen for 25 years or more, including my nephew and niece who were 12 and 9 respectively the last time that I'd seen them. Needless to say they had changed a bit! At this point I did get a little introspective, wondering where all the years had gone, and what the point of it all was, especially as I felt rather detached from the proceedings having not 'belonged' to this family for so many years and witnessing the age and infirmity of several who had been hale and hearty then.

Luckily I did not have much time to dwell on the passing of the years, as I was only back at home for a couple of days before my WWOOFing/farm sitting year began in earnest with a farm sit at my friends at Dundry. I am having to re-learn all my timings for journeys from my new home and it was quite a surprise to realise that it takes about 50 minutes to get from my house to Dundry – I was thinking that it was 'just down the road'! The farm sit was only for a long weekend but was a good introduction to the year. After two days of slipping and sliding in the muddy paddocks my calf muscles were really aching but, after a warm bath they eased off and didn't give me any more trouble. By the time I've been to Dundry, Cornwall and Powys over the next few weeks I should be back to peak fitness, as they are all on hills! Having managed to hand back most of the animals in a good state of health (I had two chicken fatalities!), I had an overnight stop at home before re-packing my car and heading off to Cornwall.

I realised that the most obvious route to take to Launceston hardly involved any motorway driving, except for a couple of miles around Exeter, so I set off on a bright, sunny morning down the A37, onto the A303 at Podimore and then, eventually, onto the A30 all the rest of the way. This was a route that I have never driven before and it is so stunningly beautiful that I can't believe I've missed it for so long! The A303 runs through fairly flat countryside to start off with and then suddenly starts to climb into the Blackdown Hills, where vista after vista opens up on either side and, in my opinion, vies very favourably with the glorious scenery of northern Powys. One of the things that made it such a pleasant drive was the lack of traffic on the road – I understand that this stretch of the A303 is absolute hell in heavy traffic as there are so few places to overtake slow-moving vehicles. It seemed no time at all until I was turning in to the now-familiar driveway of the farm near Launceston and greeting my friends Jo and James. After a catch-up lunch, it was out round the farm with James to find out where all the sheep were and what the feeding regime was for them all. There are still over 100 sheep on the farm, even though some of them were due to go shortly after my last visit in November, as they lost condition quite rapidly and were not fit to go. Upon further investigation it turned out that they had some mineral deficiencies, mainly iodine, probably caused by leaching out of nutrients from the soil due to the heavy rainfall. The problem has now been rectified and as soon as the new spring grass starts to grow, I am sure that they will start to look better. Luckily, the pregnant ewes were already being given important minerals on their food so didn't suffer the same problem.

Back at the end of October, when I was here before, we were picking out which ewes should go to the ram. James likes to lamb about 30 but we put in some extras as they don't all hold in lamb and, in fact, at least two of the barren ewes we included had not had lambs for two years and were on their 'final warning'. James always has his ewes scanned in January to see how many lambs each ewe is carrying so that feed, etc can be tailored to suit so, imagine his surprise, when all 34 ewes scanned 'in lamb' – it's going to be a busy few weeks at the beginning of April! Of course, my immediate question was 'How many lambs is No 74 expecting?' and I was pleased to hear that she is expecting twins. I will be back here again in the second week of April to help with the lambing so I just hope that she can hang on until I get back!

Early purple crocii in the churchyard at Lezant