Enforced inactivity!

My stall at Shepton Mallet Friday Market

Yet again, time has slipped by without any blogging output! To be honest, not a huge amount of travelling has been done to justify the continuing name of my blog, but I live in hope.

I was back from Wales for less than a week, at the end of September, before heading over the Mendips to Dundry for another farm sit for Geoff and Sally. As well as looking after their menagerie of dogs, cats, chickens, ducks, geese, tortoises and sheep, I had agreed to look after their neighbours' three pigs and four chickens while they were away, too. The weather was dry and settled for a few days and the ground, which had been sodden and slippery, began to dry up nicely. On my way down the field to feed the pigs each morning I had to walk through a young orchard where there were usually some windfall apples, so the little pigs got those, too! I love watching pigs eat, as they pick up fruit and vegetables quite delicately and obviously love crunching them up!

I had plans to clean out and creosote a couple of the empty hen houses and also do some gardening, but Fate took a hand quite early on in my stay. One day I was busily scraping dried chicken poo off the floor of a hen house and the next I could barely move my wrist! I managed to do all the general daily tasks of feeding, watering, letting out and shutting in, but anything else was out of the question. The weather turned wet again, so that was in my favour, but I found I couldn't even knit without causing myself quite a lot of pain. I began to wonder whether I'd managed to break something in my wrist as there was an ominous clunking noise when I rotated my hand so, on the way home from Dundry, I called at the Shepton Mallet Minor Injuries Unit where they reassured me that I hadn't broken any bones but that I had tendonitis, and issued me with a splint and a stern warning to rest it (I wasn't even allowed to do any knitting!).

To add to my general frustration we had the most glorious spell of warm, dry autumnal weather and all I could do was skulk indoors watching period dramas on Netflix and trying not to look out of the window. I did accompany Mary a couple of times, when she walked her boarding dogs, and managed to pick quite a lot of blackberries along the hedgerows. We had been looking for sloes, too, but it must have been a bad year for them, at least in our part of the world, as I found very few, but just enough to make some Sloe Gin for presents at Christmas. I've also used some of the blackberries for Blackberry Vodka and made a non-alcoholic cordial. After a few days of being in a bit of a decline, I gave myself a stern talking to and decided to put my inactivity to good use – I would 'allow' myself to catch up with some people that I hadn't seen for a while.

First up was someone that I definitely hadn't seen for a while – 50 years to be precise! As I think I mentioned in a previous blog, Nigel and I had been best mates when we were at Junior School but, once we went our separate ways, he to the Boys' Grammar and me to the Girls' Grammar, we never really saw each other again, even though we lived less than half a mile apart. Childhood is a strange country with different rules to the adult world. Why did going to single sex schools suddenly make our friendship null and void after so many years of being so close? And why do you rarely get to know, or become friends with, people who are one school year older or younger than you? Nigel and I had been messaging each other sporadically on Facebook since December 2015 with a view to meeting up, but it just hadn't happened, but now was my opportunity, so we agreed to meet up at Clark's Village at Street for a coffee. I felt quite nervous as I drove there – would I recognise him, even though I'd seen recent photos of him? I needn't have worried as I actually recognised his wife first from her photos! We went straight for a coffee, and two cups of coffee and cake and four hours later we were still there! What a wonderful catch-up, and hopefully the first of many such meetings – it's very difficult to catch up on 50 years of living in such a short space of time, but we did our best!

About a week later I went off to see my friends, John and Sharon, in Bridgwater. I hadn't seen them for a couple of years even though it is not very far to Bridgwater from Shepton Mallet. John had said that he might be 'working on his little van' when I arrived. Knowing John I felt certain that whatever he was doing, it wouldn't be a little van, and I was right – he is just starting to convert an old police riot van into a camper van! I've asked him to take lots of photos so that I can see the progress, so I hope he does. Since I was last there, he has constructed a pond and decking area in the garden. The pond is partially sunk in the ground and is about four feet deep and absolutely teeming with beautiful fish – carp, shubunkins and orf, and the water was crystal clear due to a self-constructed, and highly efficient (I wouldn't expect anything less – he's not known as Over The Top Trett, for nothing!) filtration system. All this is even more remarkable as it is not many years ago that he had a major stroke and had to learn all sorts of basic skills again – I admire this man's grit and determination so much. Just as worthy of admiration is his wife, Sharon, who has been with him every step of the way and has just celebrated one year of driving – without revealing her age, she passed her test in her late fifties! What an amazing achievement! I spent a lovely afternoon with them and came away feeling very positive.

Montacute House

The following week, my friend, Mary, and I took advantage of our National Trust membership one more time and headed off to Montacute House. Mary had been several times before (mainly to play in Christmas Concerts in the main hall) but I had never been, despite having lived in Somerset for 30+ years! It was such a lovely afternoon that we spent quite a lot of time wandering around the gardens and grounds and then didn't really leave ourselves enough time to view the house – the staff were following behind us locking rooms as we galloped down the Long Gallery glancing left and right at the marvellous art exhibited there! I shall have to go back again next year and have a proper look around. I'd wanted to get to Stourhead to see the autumn colours, which have been stunning this year, but I just couldn't fit it in.

Festive Fairy Mouse!

Eventually the wrist settled down enough for me to start knitting and needle-felting again, which was just as well as I suddenly realised that the Season was almost upon us and I needed to get some seasonal goodies made to tempt the good people of Shepton Mallet to part with their money at the Friday market but also at our inaugural monthly Sunday Market to be held on 20^th November. The following week I am also doing a Christmas Fair at Evercreech, so I hope I have enough stock in reserve by then.

Unfortunately, the wrist is taking much longer to heal completely than I would like and I have done hardly any gardening jobs for a couple of months, and certainly no heavy digging. I did try to convince one client, who has heavy clay soil, that he really needs to adopt the 'no-dig method', but he is adamant that it needs to be deep dug every year to incorporate the compost and manure that we put on it. Well, it won't be me digging it in this year, that's for sure! I am just very thankful that I had the decorating job earlier in the year as what I earned from that should keep me afloat until the spring when, hopefully, normal service can be resumed!

More flying mice