Three Meals and a Wedding

 

Small White butterfly on water mint

The week after Cropredy it was my birthday, and it turned into a week-long celebration! First of all, my lodgers invited me out for supper with two of their friends, both of whom I had met before when we all worked side-by-side on the organic market garden that Lou and Liam ran. We went to The Crown in Glastonbury which had, until quite recently, been a boarded up eyesore in the centre of the town. The décor was modern but very pleasant and the food absolutely delicious. I opted for three of the starters, served as a main course, as I love a range of different flavours – it must be why I like buffet food so much!

The second treat was actually on my birthday, when I went for a birthday massage at my friend, Karen’s, and then she, her husband and I went off into Wells for supper at a bar/restaurant where they were serving tapas – another meal of beautifully put together flavours, with great company.

To round off my birthday week Jeni, Hutch and Dave took me for a meal at the restaurant in Shepton Mallet where we celebrated my birthday last year. Again the food was delicious and of a very high standard and my dessert was presented to me with ‘Happy Birthday’ piped around the edge of the plate and a single candle gracing the centre!

It was back to work with a bang the following week, with three mornings of gardening, followed by a week-long farm sit at the alpaca farm. There were three new alpacas – Ava and Ivor, born 14 weeks before and Chester, who was just 4 weeks old. Sarah had had a bad time with one of her favourite girls, Angelina, the mother of Ava. She always produces large cria (baby alpacas) and has had difficulties in the past but, this time, it was even worse as the uterus had twisted. The vet had to do an emergency Caesarean to save the mum but prepared Sarah for the inevitability of a dead cria. Amazingly, a very large, very much alive, cria slipped into the world and it wasn’t long before Angelina was up and tending to her new baby, almost as if nothing had happened! Not surprisingly, Sarah has reluctantly decided not to breed from Angelina again. Ava is gorgeous and looks like a big, furry teddy bear.

Angelina followed by Ava

Ivor 

Most of Sarah’s alpacas are of the huacaya variety with short, fluffy coats and a semi-erect topknot, but two of them are of the suri type, which has a much longer, flatter coat, which sometimes looks like dreadlocks, and a flattened fringe. Sarah crossed one of her huacaya males with a suri female and out popped Chester! His coat looks as if it may be typical suri but he has a fluffy topknot and is very cute – this maybe because he is small at the moment, being only 4 weeks old.

Chester and his mum (note her flatter topknot)

The three Labradors were ridiculously pleased to see me, which was gratifying, especially as I don’t really take them for walks while I’m there. However, we did go out to the unoccupied hay field twice a day where I spent a lot of time throwing two frisbees about. The two ‘pups’ would chase after the frisbee and then attempt to bring it back to me together, before trying to decide who would drop it first, so that I could repeat the performance. However, their mum, Bonnie, had totally different ideas and would grab a frisbee and then hang on to it, so there was only one frisbee available for the other two. At some point during the walk down the field, she would lose interest in carrying it and then I would have to search the field for it – it’s surprising how difficult it is to see a bright red frisbee in fairly short grass!

Hazelnut Patrol

At the end of the hayfield I gathered up the frisbees and left them on top of the gatepost while we went into the narrow triangular field that runs alongside the River Chew – my throwing skills lack a certain amount of accuracy and I didn’t want to lose one in the river! The dogs soon got used to this routine and would wait eagerly for me to open the gate so that they could go nutting and blackberrying! I know Labradors will eat most things, but these three adore hazel nuts and blackberries! I’d leave them to it and wander along the river bank hoping to see a kingfisher or even the glimpse of an otter, as Chris got a very grainy video of two otters playing in the water earlier this year. Unfortunately, I was disappointed, but I often saw and heard the buzzard overhead and was lucky enough on one solitary walk to see a large heron.

Morning rollcall of the boys

The male alpacas are kept in a field away from the females and furthest from the farm buildings. Their water comes from a large container that catches rain water from the roof of their shelter and, in a normal English summer, would be more than adequate. However, I became increasingly concerned that I would run out of water for them before the end of the week. Jeni came to visit for a day and with her riding shotgun (and opening the gates for me) we loaded four 5-gallon water containers into the back of my car and drove across two fields to get supplies to the boys. If the weather had been wet, we would never have made it but, once the dew had dried, it was all plain sailing - we still felt quite intrepid, though!

Honda Jazz water carrier!

Despite the long hot, dry summer we have had, the water mint was still thriving and flowering in a dried-up stream bed and was alive with bees and butterflies and the alder trees seemed to have a metallic blue beetle on nearly every leaf. When I looked up online what they might be I was amused to find that they are called Alder Leaf Beetles and were thought to be extinct in this country until 2004! They have obviously made a strong comeback since then, at least in this area, as many of the leaves had been reduced to lace! They do no permanent damage to the trees so that is a plus, after the ravages of pests and diseases on our trees in recent years.

The aptly named Alder Leaf Beetle

The following week was spent gardening for clients with the beginning of the autumn tidy-up and then back to the alpaca farm for a quick weekend sit.

In the middle of September, my niece and her long-term partner were getting married in Sheffield, so Jeni and I drove to Cheltenham, stayed overnight and then continued our journey with Mum, arriving the day before the wedding so that Mum would have a chance to get over the journey. I’d been quite anxious about what I should wear as I have so few ‘smart’ clothes these days. I was really touched when Jeni rang to say that she had been around the local charity shops and bought me a complete ensemble! Her choice was spot-on and fitted really well – I think I shall employ her as my ‘personal shopper’ again!

Mum and me in our finery

Don't they scrub up well!

The wedding was quite informal with the service taking place at the old industrial complex called Kelham Island, in a former engine house, complete with tall red brick chimney stack, and was then followed by a sit-down meal at a nearby venue, owned and run by the same people. The food was plentiful, imaginative and delicious and was then followed by chatting and dancing. It was a lovely, happy gathering and it made a change to see Lynda’s garden, and the rest of Sheffield, with plants in leaf and flowering, as I normally only see it in the depths of winter.

Katie, Simon and Leo

Three cousins having a good chinwag

Unfortunately, on the Sunday morning, Mum felt she was going down with a cold and spent the drive back to Cheltenham alternately coughing and sneezing, and sometimes both together. A couple of days later and she tested positive for Covid and my brother’s partner came from London to look after her, as she was quite weak and wobbly. On the same day, Dave also tested positive and I had begun to feel as if I had a cold coming, too. I'd been so lacking in get-up-and-go, that I had happily sat in front of the TV for several hours watching the coverage of the State Funeral for Queen Elizabeth II. I am not a royalist but was moved by the spectacle and our ability, as a nation, to pull together an extraordinary and splendid ceremony. 

All that week the tests proved negative, until last Saturday when I was feeling quite under-the-weather and ‘Bingo!’ a positive test! Luckily, I’d kept myself pretty much to myself during the week so, hopefully, haven’t infected anyone else. Lynda took over from Jo on Sunday, looking after Mum, and now I have felt well enough to come and do my bit, too, releasing Lynda to attend a long-booked play at Stratford. Mum is gradually recovering and the enforced inactivity won’t do me any harm either – there has been quite a lot of TV watching and knitting of socks!

Gatekeeper on water mint