A Quick Gallop through 2025 (or where did all the time go?)

A beautiful Spring day in the Chew Valley

Warning: This is quite long so you may need to make a cup of tea before you plunge in!

I had seriously meant to write more blogs this year but, as always, I don’t know where the time has gone, so this is basically a gallop through 2025 barely stopping to catch breath! 

The first part of the year was dominated with sorting out Mum’s house ready for putting it on the market, which involved multiple trips to Cheltenham to meet up with my sister and brother and many trips to charity shops and the recycling centre. During this time Jeni and I were also throwing ourselves back into gardening, when the weather allowed, in order to distract ourselves. I wouldn’t normally be gardening in January or February as I had spent the last few years holed up in Cheltenham with Mum, but we managed to find enough to do to keep us busy.

At the end of January, Jeni and I decided to move the old shed remains in my garden to a bonfire heap at the bottom of the garden. All went well until we moved the last panel and discovered a hibernating hedgehog! Luckily, I had bought a hedgehog house for Jeni and her partner as a Xmas present and she was pretty sure it was still empty, so we leapt in the car, drove down to Jeni’s house, grabbed the house and then managed to lift the sleeping hog and all its bedding into it. Later in the Spring I dared to look inside and found evidence that it had successfully made it through hibernation. 

The beautiful alpaca girls

In April, despite saying I could no longer do farm sits for large animals as I didn't feel confident to deal with any emergencies on my own, I was asked to do a long weekend sit for the alpacas. Luckily, Jeni was free to come and help me and it made such a huge difference having a second person, with much younger legs, to share the fetching and carrying. The weather was amazing for April and we had some lovely walks with the dogs (and once with Jasper, the cat, as well!) I really miss looking after farm animals but I can no longer do it single-handed. 😢

And Jasper came too!

At the beginning of May, and following on from my hive installation at Easter, Jeni and I took Bunty, the camper van, down to Cornwall for a Natural Beekeeping course. It was a  day course held at the Lost Gardens of Heligan and we camped at a site that was literally next door. Again the weather was amazing and we nearly cooked inside our bee suits, which we had to don to inspect the various hives. It was a fascinating and inspirational day and I had high hopes of getting a swarm to come to my hive but, sadly, I shall have to wait until at least next year before those dreams are realised.

I realise I look much better behind a veil!!

Inspecting one of Heligan's hives

Our classroom for the day

The course was held on a Friday so, on the Saturday, Jeni and I drove the short distance to Jo and James at Launceston and spent the night there. Amazingly, Number 74, the sheep I helped to save all those years ago, is still alive and enjoying her retirement in their orchard, where they also had a natural log beehive that they’d been given. Armed with our new knowledge we were able to suggest moving the hive to a more suitable spot in the orchard – time will tell if any bees moved in after that.

One of my favourite places in the world

Visiting with No 74 in the orchard

June brought a house sit for my friend, Mary, to look after her two aging ponies, her sole remaining chicken and a brain-damaged wood pigeon called Walter! By this time we had entered the incredibly dry season that was this year’s summer and I was called upon to water plants at various clients gardens while they were on holiday. Mum’s house had been on the market since the beginning of May, with many, many views but no offers, so we were still going up and down to try and keep on top of the garden, so that it would look presentable for the viewings. However, as the drought continued the grass all died off and most of the plants looked the worse for wear as the garden is very sandy and well-drained. We were relieved that Mum was not there to see the devastation 😢. 

My camper van went in for her MOT in the middle of July and the news was not good – the engine was knocking so badly that they didn’t dare do the full emissions test in case the engine blew up! I had no option but to consign her to the scrap heap as it was not cost effective to have the engine rebuilt as she had quite a rust problem, too. I was really upset and so was the garage owner who decided to buy her off me and use it as a father/son bonding project over the winter – he has promised that she will go back on the road eventually. 

Obligatory Cropredy photo

Another sunny Cropredy photo

This left me with a bit of a dilemma – I had bought tickets for the Fairport Cropredy Convention in August for Jeni and me and we now had nowhere to stay! I had a look to see about the cost of hiring a van for the weekend but the costs were astronomical and I couldn’t afford a replacement van. In the end we opted to stay in a Premier Inn just outside Banbury and drive in each day. This proved to be an eye opener – the place was full of people going to Cropredy! We were lucky to get a room as it is usually fully booked months in advance! We actually quite enjoyed the experience – a comfy bed and shower and a decent breakfast every morning which meant that we only had to get snacks for lunch and then buy an evening meal of some sort on the field. Yet again we were really lucky with the weather, in fact it was ridiculously hot on the field as the sun beat down and several people turned an interesting shade of salmon pink over the weekend. Even though the festival had been cut down in size, due to increasing costs, the music was still really good and the smaller number of attendees was not that noticeable. We were going to call in to Cheltenham on the way back and collect some more bits and pieces and, on the way there, we stopped off at the Rollright Stones, which I had never been to before. They are an ancient stone circle not far from Chipping Norton and well worth a visit. 

The Rollright stones

As an early birthday present to myself, I booked Jeni and myself on a scything course in August. (I really like learning new skills, although some people were slightly shocked that a 70 year old would contemplate such a thing). It was very interesting and, apparently, I was a natural so I am now the owner of a scythe and sharpening stone and have used it a few times to cut the grass in my orchard/wildflower area. It’s a very good workout particularly for the waist and oblique muscles! 

Yours truly, wielding her scythe

Working my way up the field

After a comment from Dave, and also seeing my next door neighbour’s new bifold doors, I decided to have patio doors put in my sitting room so that I could see the garden from the comfort of my settee. It’s made a tremendous difference to the room and inspired me to finally decorate it. I’m really pleased with the results. 

The new patio doors

At the beginning of September I finally picked up my new chickens from Sally. I’d decided to have four: a Light Sussex, a Speckled Sussex, a Copper Black Maran and a Copper Blue Maran but after a few days I thought it would be nice to have another two! I found a website called Chickens to your Door with a local pickup point at the feed store in Wells, so I ordered a Silver Sussex and a hybrid called an Amber Rock. They all settled in really well after a couple of squabbles and two of them have since started laying. I was glad that Hutch had built the run like Fort Knox and with a clear plastic roof as we are now back in Flockdown due to Avian Flu and no wild birds can get anywhere near my girls. I’d forgotten how much I liked keeping chickens. 

The girls!

Also in September I did the house sit for Hilary and Tom who have poultry, the Labrador Reg and three cats that I wrote about in my previous blog. 

In October I did another house sit for Mary. Dave is living there at the moment in the annex that I used to live in a few years ago, so it was really nice to see him on an almost daily basis. However, I must remember not to sing to the ponies at the top of my voice when feeding them in the stables as Dave could hear my warbling through the wall – I don’t think he was impressed! 

The painter/decorator that I had been waiting for for some months finally turned up in October and painted the outside of the new porch so that it now blends in with the rest of the house, and also painted the hall, stairs and landing so that I was able to hang the beautiful quilted wall hanging that Hilary made for me. I think it looks stunning and brings a smile to my face every time I go down the stairs. 

My lovely ammonite wall hanging over the stairs

At the end of October I boarded the Berrys Coach in Shepton Mallet en route to the bright lights of London to spend a long weekend with my brother and his partner. I made it across London from Hammersmith to Plumstead without any mishaps and wonder why I used to be so paranoid about travelling on the Tube. Admittedly it can be a bit bewildering when changing lines (I have to try and remember whether I'm travelling East or West) but being able to use my bank card to pay for each journey at the barrier instead of trying to work out ticket machines, has made it much easier for me. Unfortunately, although my bus pass works on the buses it doesn't work on the Tube! 

It's amazing how much we packed into a few days - we went to a poetry reading, a choral concert and the theatre, ate several meals out, went for some lovely walks around Plumstead (it's a very green part of London) and also went to the Chelsea Physic Garden, which was fascinating. We joined a guided tour of the main 'physic' beds where there were many plants that gave rise to modern day medicines. I got a bit tearful when the guide mentioned Vinca (our common Periwinkle is the same family) as the derivatives from this plant were used in the two types of chemotherapy that were used to treat Jeni's Lymphoma when she was 14. I came home on the Wednesday feeling slightly mind-blown by all the sensory input from the Big Metropolis but much more cultured! 

The City of London at night

Under a Golden Rain tree in the Chelsea Physic Garden

Phew! I think that’s about it for now – there may be another shorter blog before the year end but don’t hold your breath!

Bunty, the Camper Van on her last adventure - RIP

Rambles with Reg

Hello everyone. It's been months since I last wrote a blog, although I have tried several times to get some words down. It's been quite a busy summer, but more of that in another blog.Today, for the first time in ages I have felt the urge to create a blog, so this one is completely out of date sequence but will, hopefully, pave the way for an absolute torrent of blogs shortly!

 I am currently doing a house sit only about 15 minutes from home but it is on a farm situated down a long driveway with only one neighbour and is incredibly quiet and peaceful. My charges consist of a few poultry, 3 cats and Reg the Labrador. Apart from feeding everything and letting the poultry in and out, my only real job is to walk Reg twice a day. The morning walk is usually the longer of the two because that's when I feel most energetic, and the weather has also been better then as well. Today there was the first frost of the year and it was quite sharp down here in the little valley where the farm is situated. After everyone had been fed and the chickens and geese let out of their houses, Reg and I set off. 

I love these beautiful early autumn days: conkers and craneflies, frosts and fruits, mists and mud! We decided (it was a mutual decision) to head off along a footpath that winds through trees and beside a stream before turning almost at right-angles and climbing uphill past the ruins of an old papermill.   

The wall of the mill and mill race

The weir by the mill

 I may have written about this before, but it's worth revisiting (in my opinion). There were many paper mills in Somerset in the early 19th century situated mainly along the line of the Mendips owing to the purity of the spring water and the one here at Stoke Bottom, near Stoke St Michael, produced watermarked writing paper of a fine quality and also processed logwood which is a tropical hardwood that produces a rich purple dye. Unfortunately, I could find no reference to what this was used for within the paper industry. The mill gave rise to a small hamlet, all traces of which have since disappeared apart from some crumbling walls in the grounds of the 'big house' which was, presumably, the mill owner's dwelling.

The mill had fallen into disuse by the end of the 19th Century but the weir and mill race still exist as do the imposing stone pillars on either side of what must have been the driveway to the mill and house.

The stone pillared gateway

 

This driveway is now a washed out footpath with large ankle-busting stones tumbled everywhere and this is the way that Reg and I took to get into the top field and then out onto a lane. We went straight across the lane and entered a fairly scrubby field where there are many youngish oak trees that, this year, are absolutely laden with acorns. In the woods proper there are a lot of mature oaks and the ground is literally carpeted with acorns. I tried to stop myself but about 10 acorns made their way into my pocket to be planted later when I get home! 

Immature oak laden with acorns

A carpet of acorns!

We entered the woods near the ruins of the old Keeper's Cottage which is now a protected bat roost and went down the slightly vertiginous stone steps to cross the bridge over the stream and up some more steps on the other side. When we did this walk the other day we kept to the well-defined footpath but today Reg was most insistent that we went along 'the path less travelled'. He knows these woods much better than I do so I let him lead the way with me slipping, sliding and stumbling after him. At one point I had to crawl under a fallen tree that had obviously come down fairly recently. The wood is mixed woodland with mature oaks, beech, conifers and some very diseased ash trees. In fact I got quite nervous when we were walking there the other day as the wind was strong and gusty and some of the trees are very tall. 

Mixed woodland against an autumn sky

Eventually, Reg brought us out, through a grassy, sunlit glade, onto a path I recognised that dipped back down to the stream and a pool into which Reg immediately plunged. He was very disgruntled that I hadn't thought to bring a ball for him to retrieve and showed his disdain by chewing up every stick I threw in for him. He is a funny dog! 

Reg feeling disgruntled

An old stone bridge over the stream

We came out into a field where there are some cows and calves but they took no notice of Reg and he took no notice of them, which was a relief as I'm never sure how these encounters are going to go. From there we climbed over a stile back onto a lane and came back to the farm on another footpath that goes past the bottom of the papermill, where I found (and picked) a bag of sloes. I've missed most of the blackberries this year as they ripened so early and took me by surprise, along with the elderberries, but at least there'll be sloe gin for Xmas.

Autumn bounty - sloes

Another view of the mill ruins

I'm glad that I've finally got some words down and it will, hopefully, have released the writer's block so that I can get you up to date with summer's happenings. Much love and autumn blessings to you all. x

Sad times and busy times

Mum, Jeni and me at Xmas 2024

 

It’s been just over four months since I last wrote a blog, but in some ways it feels much longer. I have tried, on several occasions, to put my thoughts and doings into words but nothing was forthcoming.

At the beginning of January my Mum had another fall which precipitated a slow brain bleed. I had stayed with her, as had become our usual habit, in the week between Christmas and New Year and then gone home on 2^nd January with the intention of returning the following weekend to help my sister redecorate the dining room and turn it into a downstairs bedroom. My sister and brother-in-law travelled down from Sheffield after Mum’s fall and I went back to cover on 4^th January. All seemed fine until the morning of 8^th when Mum suddenly collapsed. She had left a very detailed document, written in conjunction with her doctor, about her wishes in the event of something catastrophic happening and so the decision had been made for us really, which made us feel we were doing the correct thing in opting for palliative care only, with no further intervention.

Mum died on 11^th January at home with her family around her, just as she had wanted.

There was no funeral to arrange as Mum has left her body to medical science, but we felt the need to hold some sort of event for her friends and family to celebrate her life. As a family we have no strong religious beliefs, so we arranged a secular celebration in the form of an Afternoon Tea at a venue in the heart of the village that Mum had called home for over 60 years. When we went through Mum’s address book, to notify people of her death, we realised just how many friends she had made and ended up catering for 70 people! Not everyone managed to come but there were still between 55 and 60 people present and much laughter, tears and stories were shared during the afternoon.

Since then we, as a family, have been travelling to Cheltenham on odd weekends to start sorting the house out ready for it to go on the market. Although it was not the home that I and my siblings grew up in, it still feels odd to think that, once it sells, we will have no reason to return to the town of our birth ever again. This, I think, is one of the reasons for my mental struggle over the last few months: I am not grief-stricken by my Mum’s death as she was 96 and was finding living independently becoming more difficult, which she hated, plus she never had to go into a care home or hospital at the end. However, to me she felt like the glue that held the family together, the hub about which we rotated, the passer on of family news, both good and bad, and increasingly, the friend to whom I could confide most of my worries and aspirations, who always had good advice to give and with whom I could have a jolly good rant about the world in general! I feel a bit like a rudderless ship or one whose captain has suddenly left the bridge, leaving the junior officers in charge who aren’t quite sure what to do. It has thrown me more than I realised it would.

With no two-month stay with Mum to look forward to, I started gardening jobs for clients in late January and, when the weather allowed, it has been pretty much constant ever since occupying 3 or 4 mornings a week with regular clients and a few other times for some irregular clients who just wanted their gardens prepared for Spring. I don’t quite know what happened to my idea of retirement – I seem to be working harder than ever, but at least it keeps me fit. However, it does mean that work on my garden and house ideas has been slow and sporadic.

Towards the end of March, and during a dry spell, I had a chap with a mini digger come and do some major work in the garden – he graded the bank at the bottom of the garden, scraped  off a flat area for the chicken run, dug two planting holes for new fruit trees, graded another uneven area behind the shed and dug out a wildlife pond! So far I have managed to plant the two fruit trees – a Bramley apple and a Victoria plum, but have since acquired three more that now need planting . Jeni and I both bought trees on the same day from the same place – she bought me a Conference pear and a cherry tree for Mothers’ Day and I bought another Conference pear! I now have quite an orchard going on as there was an apple and pear tree already in situ when I moved in and I have planted two espaliered apple trees against the fence – one is a grafted tree from my friends Jo and James in Cornwall and is thought to be a Tamar variety called Mrs Bull’s, and the other is a grafted tree from the garden that I used to work in on the Shropshire/Welsh border – it is from an unknown tree there and Tony named it Cilrhiw Wassail, which I think is a great name. I also have a small cherry tree in a pot gifted to me by my best friend and next-door neighbour, Karen, a young crab apple in a pot gifted to me by another friend and a so-called bush cherry (I’m not convinced that such a thing exists) that I bought off the internet and also in a pot. All of these need to be planted in the ground at some point!

Jeni’s partner, Adrian, is building me a chicken run and I have pointed out that the clock is now ticking as my future hens have now hatched and are growing well – I must take a trip to Dundry to have a look. Hopefully, the run will be finished before the hens are due to arrive! There will be more about them in later blogs, I hope.

Back in the Autumn and inspired by the success of one of my gardening client’s tree hives, I ordered a beehive from a chap in Cornwall who advocates more natural bee keeping. On Easter Sunday Simon duly drove up from Cornwall, arriving at 9.00am, and installed my new hive. It is a particular type known as a Layens hive and is a more bee-friendly hive – I should be able to take a frame of honey for myself once a year, but the purpose is to give our important pollinators a home. The hive sits on a purpose-built stand within the orchard area and faces South – now all I need is a swarm of bees, but this seems to be the most difficult bit as, apparently, there is a long waiting list for swarms in this area. ☹

The ’wildlife pond’ is still just a hole in the ground as I need to go and buy a liner from a pond centre near Frome and I haven’t found the time to go there yet – another project that will have to wait for a bit longer. I suppose it’s good to have things to look forward to, but it’s frustrating as well.

In March I also had a new exterior oil-fired boiler installed as the existing one was old, although it worked well, but I had to heat an entire tank of water every day just for the needs of one person, which was not economical. The new one is a combi-boiler so it only heats the water I need on demand, which meant that the old tank could be removed from the airing cupboard in the hobby room and freed up a whole new storage area. I have now decorated the inside of the cupboard(!) and installed extra shelving so that even more things can be put away. I have made a promise to myself that nothing will get put in the loft – if I can’t find a home for it in the house or shed then it has to go!

I’m going to finish this blog here for the moment as it has taken me a while to write it, but I hope to post another blog shortly.