The end of the old year

Happy New Year to you all! Having transferred all my memorable dates from one diary to another, written in the commitments that I already have for the year ahead and filed my online Tax Return, I feel able to write another blog with a clear conscience!

'Honeycomb' tea light holder

I had nothing planned before Christmas apart from a special treat for Jeni and me – a day of porcelain tealight lantern making in Cheltenham at the beginning of December. We arrived at the venue at the Wilson Gallery (the new and improved Art Gallery and Museum in Cheltenham) at 10.00am and were soon busy, along with six other ladies, learning how to make these translucent lanterns. I have never done any pottery/ceramics work before and Jeni had never worked in porcelain, so we were keen to learn – I think we were all novices on the course but it was amazing how successful we all were and what differing designs emerged. We had been asked to bring items to imprint onto the porcelain and I had brought a few shells, Jeni had brought some ivy leaves and dried flower stalks and there were some other bits and pieces brought by the tutor. It was a bit like using rolled out pastry, printing the design onto the flat surface and then wrapping it around a circular base and joining it with an overlapping seam. The course finished at 4pm with a three-quarter hour lunch break and by then I had made ten tealight holders! One of my favourites was a picture that I drew, using various blades on my penknife, to create a vista with hills, trees, a house and birds in the sky – when the tealight is lit it looks as if the windows in the house are all illuminated! The tutor took away all our efforts to fire in his studio kiln and then, a week later, I went back to retrieve two carrier bags of lanterns from the Guild of Gloucestershire Craftsmen's shop. It was really exciting unwrapping each holder to see how it had fired and I was really pleased with the effects once they were lit.

Tea light holder unassembled

I was all set for a quiet run up to Christmas after that, but I got an urgent email from my friends Geoff and Sally at Bristol asking if I could do an emergency farm sit as Sally had to go away for the weekend and Geoff had injured his ankle and was in plaster! So, off I went.

It was a beautiful sunny day so I decided to go the scenic route via Cirencester and Tetbury, rather than use the M5, as I would be able to enjoy the Cotswolds en route. The A435 runs south from Cheltenham to Cirencester and is a road I frequently use. As I drove along enjoying the golden light and long shadows of the midwinter sun I got to thinking about this road and how diverse it is.

At first there is the long steep climb up the Cotswold escarpment at Charlton Hill to the summit at Seven Springs where the road from Gloucester crosses it from west to east on its way across the Cotswolds. Seven Springs has long been disputed as the real source of the River Thames and it is certainly the source of the little River Churn that runs all the way along the A435 to Cirencester and eventually joins the Thames near Cricklade. When I was a Girl Guide (when the world was young!) I took my patrol on a hike to Seven Springs where we saw the springs bubbling out of the ground and the plaque that reads (in Latin) Here, Father Thames, is your seven-fold source. If you stop at the layby on the A417 near the burger van just before the junction with the A435 you can still see the pool where the springs emerge.

Just after that junction there is a farm on the left where there are 5 dark blue grain silos of varying sizes. These were my markers when I was a child because, when I spotted them, I knew we were nearly home from our holidays and I didn't need to ask 'Are we nearly there now?' Even after all these years I still think that I'm nearly there once I spot them on the horizon – I shall be very upset if they eventually decide to take them down! What is so amazing is how ell they have stood the test of time – they must be nearly sixty years old!

From there it is a gentle incline down the dip slope towards Cirencester passing Coberley, Cowley Colesbourne and Rendcomb with arable fields rolling away on either side. At this time of the year they either lie fallow or are sown with the fresh green of winter wheat and rooks rise lazily from their busy feeding as I sail along. At one point a small covey of partridges took flight from one field, flew across the road just above car height and clattered down into the field on the other side of the road and, during the shooting season large numbers of young pheasants can be seen wandering in a dazed fashion along the verges. Unfortunately, they do not have much experience of roads and cars and tend to learn the hard way about road safety!

Snowdrops at Rendcomb

The River Churn runs to the left hand side of the road after Colesbourne and can be seen very easily from a car. If, in springtime, you turn off the main road at Rendcomb you are rewarded with the most amazing display of snowdrops on both sides of the hump-back bridge which spans it at this point and where there was once a mill. It is a favourite outing with my Mum and I when we are in need of signs that Winter is ending and Spring is on its way. As I was driving towards Rendcomb through some mixed broadleaf woodland (mainly beech) I spotted about eight deer crossing the road from the wooded slope and disappearing down towards the stream on my left, their coats glowing a warm red in the low sunshine.

The next village is North Cerney and here is to be found Cerney House Gardens which are open to the public for most of the year. They have recently designed and created a Snowdrop Walk around the estate and they also have fabulous spring bulb displays, too. One quirky aspect of the gardens is that there is a little tea room within the garden where you can make yourself a cup of tea and have a piece of homemade cake, leaving payment in the Honesty Box.

The road curves and bends reflecting the meandering nature of the Churn at this point, as it weaves its drunken way through water meadows, which frequently flood in winter, and where the silent heron can often be seen waiting patiently for small fish to swim by. All the hedgerows are smothered with Old Man's Beard that looks, in the sunshine, for all the world like blossom – I have never seen as much of this plant anywhere else on my travels.

Finally, passing the old turnpike house on the right I enter Stratton and then into Cirencester itself, where I negotiate the ring road and head off towards Tetbury, passing the 'real' source of the Thames on my way! I love this route, especially in good weather, as it shows the Cotswolds off to perfection and there is always something interesting to see.

The farm sit went off without a hitch and Geoff was able to hobble around in a support boot – he has torn his Achilles tendon, after an argument with one of the Labradors – so was not such a bad patient as I'd been expecting! On Winter Solstice evening I was tending yet another bonfire in their field overlooking Bristol, looking at the twinkling lights on the suspension bridge and watching the sheep as they edged nearer to the circle of warmth. When I went to check on the fire later they were all gathered round and a few were lying down almost in the embers – such a lovely, peaceful, Christmassy scene!

I made it back to Cheltenham in time to make the mince pies and ice the Christmas Cake and then the festive season was upon us. My two children came on Christmas Eve and my sister and her family came on Christmas Day in time for lunch so there were eight of us around the table, followed by present opening and, much later, turkey sandwiches and Christmas cake around the fire. On the day after Boxing Day we all went our separate ways again and life resumed a quietness that had me feeling quite introspective.

I find New Year's Day probably the most difficult of the year, and I suspect that I am not alone in this, because it forces me to look back on the previous year and forward to the unknown. In future I think I will spend it entirely on my own and wallow as it was a huge effort to rise to the occasion of a visit from three of Mum's friends and I soon made my excuses and retired to my room. However, by 2^nd January I was back on an even keel and ready to face the year ahead, as I hope you all are. I wonder what adventures I shall have in 2015? Whatever they are you can rest assured that I shall keep you all informed!

'Little house' tea light holder

Withdrawing into Winter

Frosty morning at Moelfre

Jeni and I left Wells at 7.30am on a damp, autumnal day towards the end of November heading for the Powys/Shropshire border near Oswestry. By the time we got to the M5 at Weston the rain was torrential but, with no obvious alternative available to us, we duly joined the northbound flow and were immediately engulfed in a fog of spray. Just north of Clevedon we met the back of a traffic queue which remained stationary for nearly an hour as we all dutifully dovetailed into the outside lane, as per the flashing signs, to avoid the accident that we could see about a mile ahead. I hate being stuck in traffic jams on the motorway – they make me feel vaguely unsafe somehow and my feelings of frustration mounted exponentially when the inside two lanes started to fill up with traffic (despite the overhead signs) which was all moving forwards whilst we remained parked! We passed two more accident sites in the relatively short run up to Gloucester at which point my nerve and my patience went and we turned off to make our way across country. We obviously made the right decision because, after a very few miles, the sun came out and it was like a totally different day!

The 'project' at Llangurig

The reason for our early start was to give ourselves time to make a small detour to Llangurig to view a property that I had been watching for over a year on Rightmove and which had been reduced by £20,000 the day before! Fate was not on our side as the estate agents could not spare anyone to take us round so we had to content ourselves with a look around the outside and peering through the ground floor windows. It was definitely 'a project' but, as Jeni pointed out, it could be a lonely project to take on and I somehow couldn't imagine it as my 'forever home' despite the lovely views, the beautiful area and the fact that one of my favourite towns, Llanidloes, is only about 5 miles away. I did think about making an appointment to view on the day that I returned south but, on further consideration, decided not to.

We eventually made it to our final destination at 3.30pm – I was completely exhausted and by the end of supper was unable to string two words together, so retired to bed, hoping that a good night's rest would revitalise me.

Dreamcatcher

The next day was such a total contrast, as Jeni and I attended Dawn's 'Retreat into Winter', held mainly in their wooden lodge in the centre of the garden with views out across the valley. In the company of a couple of other women we spent the day meditating, doing yoga and walking around the gardens collecting small bits and pieces with which to decorate the dreamcatchers that we made in the afternoon. It was such a wonderfully relaxing, self-indulgent day and more than made up for the day before.

Jeni had to catch an afternoon train home the following day but, in the morning we started on some repair work to the steps at the side of the lodge, that Dawn and I completed later in the week. My main reason for heading back to Moelfre was to help Tony re-fence the vegetable patch and I had sworn to do it whatever the weather! In fact after a couple of frosty days the weather became damp and foggy but with very little rain so we were able to get on with the job quite well. However, they had had a lot of rain recently and some of the level cross paths were very muddy whilst the steep slopes around the vegetable garden were like ski slopes! I was quite glad when we'd banged in all the fence posts as I could use them to hold on to as I slithered and slipped my way around.

New rabbit-proof fence

I hadn't realised just how short the working day was at this time of the year as by 3.30pm the light was dimming in the valley and things began to take on a mirage-like insubstantial quality, which is not what you want when you are trying to bang fencing staples in with a hammer! However, by the end of my ten day stay we had managed to fence all four sides with rabbit netting that extends out about 30cm at the bottom (to prevent digging) and now all Tony has to do is to make three gates to finally secure the area against those fluffy, long-eared pests that scoffed nearly all his vegetables this year. He obviously feels more confident about next year's growing season as we all spent one evening, in front of the log fire, poring over seed catalogues choosing the vegetables that they want to grow.

Most of the work in the garden at this time of year has been hard landscaping and, when I wasn't busy fencing with Tony, Dawn and I raised a sunken area in one of the paths to make it safer and more level to walk along and set six paving slabs in another area prone to mud at the top side of the lodge. We also created a living willow arch by the side of the second lodge (Dawn had already created a living willow arbour by the first lodge) so that, by springtime, the lodges should be ready for holiday lets. Exciting times! (wyldwoodsretreat.co.uk)

On my last evening I stood halfway up the garden tending a rather slow-burning bonfire and watched the sunlight fade from the valley. The valley runs almost east-west, the sun rising over the mountain, Gyrn Moelfre, at one end and setting over the high valley side at the other, so that the last thing to be illuminated by the setting sun is the beautiful mountain, that at this time of year glows a rusty red as the rays touch the browning bracken. As the last rays left the mountainside a hush descended on the valley like a soft blanket. The jackdaws have left their summer roost in the trees opposite taking with them their noisy squabbling, leaving the mewing buzzards as guardians of the air; the small birds were settling in the trees; a pheasant clacked nervously from its roost in the woods behind me and an early owl hooted from nearby, being answered by another further up the valley. The sheep grazed peacefully on the hillside, their new generation safely growing within, and soon there was no noise at all. I turned to go indoors, as the chill began to rise from the ground, and saw an almost full moon sail silently into the sky to one side of the mountain shedding a silvery light all up and down this lovely valley. Cilrhiw, the Heart of the Mountain, your peace creeps into my soul, your magic calms me and prepares me for the winter ahead – a time to dream, a time to plan, a time to just be. I will return to you in the springtime to witness the arrival of the new year, the new growth in the plants, the new life in this valley. Until then, stay safe and protected, surrounded by your ancient mountain ramparts and the spirits of all those who have trodden in this beautiful place.

Evening sun on Gyrn Moelfre

Carnival!

The 'spectacular view' from my cottage

 I drove from Cornwall to Somerset arriving at lunchtime at my empty cottage. Luckily I'd made some sandwiches before I left and devoured them hungrily with a glass of water (unfortunately, nowhere near as nice as the spring water I've been drinking for the last few weeks!) whilst sitting, rather disconsolately, on the stairs staring out at the 'spectacular views'. Once refuelled I started work by tearing up the ripped vinyl that I'd only put down four and a half years ago to reveal the previous vinyl floor covering underneath. This was stuck down with some incredibly tacky glue that adhered to my work gloves and stuck the fingers together! I was so pleased that I'd put the gloves on as I hate sticky fingers and I had no soap or detergent in the house. Under the second floor covering I found some old lino tiles! These I had to prise up with my filling trowel leaving a layer of rubbery adhesive on the concrete which was incredibly difficult to remove so, I decided to call it a day, think about it overnight and come back in the morning.

Next morning, having waved Jeni off to work I sauntered along to the local bakers to buy my lunch and then drove over to resume work at a rather more leisurely pace than I'd used when I was here a few weeks ago. First stop was my friendly builders' merchants, who actually seemed pleased to see me, where I bought a plastic spreader and grouting tool as I'd borrowed some before. I then retrieved my electric tile cutter from its storage place, set it up on the floor in the utility room and set to work. Once I'd painstakingly removed the rubber compound from the floor, using a Stanley paint scraper, it all went surprisingly well and I managed to tile the steps and put in the metal edging strips before I got fed up and went to have a cuppa with my neighbour.

She invited me for lunch the following day so I managed to cut some of the trickier tiles and lay half the entrance lobby, so that I would have something firm to stand on the next day to do the rest of the floor, before clearing up again and going for a leisurely, chatty lunch that extended well into the afternoon! The following day I cut and laid the rest of the tiles and was finished by lunchtime so went back to Wells and relaxed until Jeni came home. That only left the grouting to do on Friday, which was just as well, as it was Wells November Carnival in the evening and I wanted to be back in good time to find a parking space before the hordes descended.

One of the floats at Wells Carnival

It was the first time I'd been to the carnival for several years and it was a huge bonus just to be able to walk to a convenient spot from which to view it. We first took Jeni and David to see the carnival when Jeni was still in a pushchair, swaddled up against the evening chill in several warm layers and a blanket! We have been going sporadically ever since and it never fails to impress me the amount of work that goes into the floats. Next year's floats will already be at the planning stage and construction takes place in heavily fortified sheds dotted all over Somerset, with fierce competition between the rival clubs (to the point where espionage techniques are employed to find out what they have planned!)

We stood with a group of friends on a corner near the start/finish line (so we got to see all the floats twice), next to a pub with an outside bar serving Thatchers Gold cider and next to several burger vans – what more could we want? The parade started at about 7pm and meandered its way around the streets of Wells taking nearly 3 hours for everyone to get round. When we first used to go, there would be some large gaps between the floats as someone invariably got stuck negotiating the tight bends and narrow streets of the city centre, but these days I think they have stricter parameters governing the width of the floats although some of them are extremely long, with a tractor pulling them and a huge generator to power all the light bulbs, music and moving parts, being towed at the rear. Each float is accompanied by its walking army of marshalls to make sure that everything is safe and the public thronging the pavements don't get swept off as they glide by.

There are two types of float – the action ones where all the participants are dancing and the tableaux where all the participants have to hold statue-like poses. There are judges all the way round the route checking to make sure that the tableaux don't move right until they cross the finish line and, bearing in mind that this can take nearly three hours, their fortitude is amazing! Of course, all the dancers have to keep dancing too and some of them are only young children – they must be so tired when they get back. There are also a number of individual walking exhibits that show a large degree of ingenuity – the one I liked the best this year was a guy dressed as Superman sitting in a little motorised cart with a dummy body extending out of the back to look as if he was flying – he was hilarious! Each float blares out its music to accompany the theme chosen for the year and they all have huge numbers of light bulbs illuminating them which kick out an amazing amount of heat and create light pollution that can be seen for miles around. If you stood on Mendip you could tell which of the towns' carnivals it was that night by the eerie glow in the sky!

This year we had high hopes that the weather would stay dry but, halfway through, the heavens opened and we all got decidedly damp. Rain also tends to play havoc with the electrics on some of the floats so one came past the finish line with no music, but with its crew still manfully trying to dance so that they wouldn't be penalised by the judges, and another one had lost all their electrics and were in darkness. On the 'Dancing on Ice' tableau the wet had caused further problems – the girls in their skimpy skating costumes and posed in the same position for hours were in danger of getting hypothermia – in fact one of them had been covered with a high-vis jacket and we could hear her teeth chattering from where we were standing, but she was still stoically holding position. The following night she would have had to do it all again at Glastonbury! (Have a look at the photos here http://www.somersetcarnivals.co.uk to get an idea of the complexity and attention to detail that goes into these floats)

More tiling!

The next day I returned to normality and went back to the cottage for a final polish of the tiles and to do a few small jobs that needed doing, such as replacing the broken handle on one of the kitchen drawers and rehanging the front door curtain that I'd washed and mended. As it was such a gorgeous sunny day I couldn't resist asking my neighbour to come for a walk with me up the hill, as I haven't done that for over four years, so away we went. When we reached the top we came across a guy in a Landrover busy consulting a map. Apparently he was surveying 27 dew ponds across the Mendip Hills for the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation group who are hoping to get a grant to restore/reinstate them as important habitats for the Greater Crested Newt. We had an interesting chat with him and directed him to his next dew pond, before we climbed over the stile and made our way back down the lane that runs past my old smallholding and so back to the cottage. I still own a field on this lane (which always surprises me when I think about it) and was gratified to see that my ex has almost finished reinstating the small barn in one corner of the field, after four years of nagging!

A portion of the failed stone pipework

The next day I left Wells and drove back to Cheltenham for a few days to spend some time with my Mum. Over breakfast one morning we were talking about the fact that I now had several skills I could utilise if I ever bought a property 'in need of renovation'. I said that I might even try plumbing with these plastic pipes and fittings although I was worried that they might leak. “Oh, like the stone ones”, said Mum. “What stone ones?” I enquired. It turns out that in the early 1800s there was a quarry and works at Guiting Power, a small village on the Cotswolds, making water pipes from lumps of Cotswold stone. They hewed large blocks of stone from the quarry , shaped hexagonal pillars about 1 metre long from them and then bored out the centres to create water pipes of varying sizes which they sold to the Manchester Water Company for the city's water supply. It was only after 60 miles of pipework had been laid and joined up that the massive flaw in the idea was discovered – not only is Cotswold stone extremely porous but, under pressure from steam-driven water pumps, the pipes burst apart with disastrous results! The company went bankrupt eventually but not until £37,000 had been paid by Manchester (a figure of 3 million pounds in today's terms). Was it fraud on a grand scale or ignorance as to the strength and nature of the material? Two hundred years on and, I believe, the jury is still out on this one!

Wells Cathedral and the Bishop's Palace

Back to Cornwall - better late than never!

I finally made it down to Cornwall almost a week after I'd initially planned to be there and spent the weekend re-acquainting myself with the farm and moving the various groups of sheep to new grazing, as Jo and James were going off to their son's on Tuesday morning and I would be 'in charge'. What I hadn't realised was that I was also to have my very own WWOOFer to assist me! Her name was Janelle and she came from Montenegro and was a freelance artist with an American father and an English mother.(Check out her artwork at   janellebaker.blogspot.com) She duly arrived on Monday afternoon and seemed very friendly and chatty, so that boded well for the week. She had also been WWOOFing for a few months already so was not a complete novice, which was all to the good plus, she loved cooking!

We started on Tuesday morning by taking hay out to the ewes and re-filling the hay rack before going off around the other groups of sheep to check that they were all OK. In my book this means counting them all, checking that they are not tangled in brambles, checking for signs of lameness by watching them as they move around grazing, and looking for any 'odd' behaviour. There were three separate groups: the ewes, this year's lambs and, finally, the 'odds and sods', consisting of some ewes who didn't lamb this year, some shearlings and some older wethers who weren't ready to go to the abattoir earlier on. There was also a group consisting of Henry, the stock ram; the previous stock ram, who is too closely related to most of the ewes to be used for a couple of years; a three-year old wether, kept as company for the other males; and a ram lamb from this year who may, if he grows on well, become a stock ram in his turn. It took an hour or so to check everything by which time the weather had really deteriorated and we were trying to count sheep through a thick mist of rain.

Henry and Little Henry

In the afternoon we went up to the vegetable garden and started cutting back the hedge on top of the stone bank, that I'd helped to lay back in 2010. We were getting along really well but we managed to disturb a wasps' nest in the bottom of the bank and Janelle was stung three times before we could get far enough away – they were very aggressive and were buzzing around for ages, so we abandoned the hedge for the day. Her poor hand swelled up quite alarmingly and began to resemble a paw – you couldn't see the knuckles, but she reassured me that she was fine so I didn't rush her off to the local hospital. The next day it was still swollen so we got some antihistamine tablets which made her very sleepy!

Nathaniel and his sister, Clare

On Wednesday we also had visitors – Nathaniel and his sister, Clare, from America. Nathaniel had WWOOFed with me back in 2010 and helped to lay the hedge in the vegetable garden. He and I also spent several days decorating the bungalow that Jo and James subsequently let out for holidays. It was lovely to see him again and very gratifying that he seemed to remember our time together with as much affection as I did. They found us up in the vegetable garden having a wonderful bonfire with the hedge clippings which is, more or less, where I was the last time that he saw me! He and his sister were over from the States visiting relatives and friends and had really wanted to see Jo and James but made do with me instead. They stayed for lunch and then carried on to visit other friends further down in Cornwall.

 

The weather turned progressively wetter as the week went on so we did some indoor jobs, making apple and grape jelly using grapes from the outdoor vine in the vegetable garden and then some apple chutney, and I did a pile of ironing while Janelle chopped 2kg of onions for the chutney – it was only when Jo returned that we discovered that there was a food processor in a cupboard that I hadn't noticed before!

Once Jo and James returned it was full steam ahead with sorting out which ewes were to go to the ram this year. Janelle and I helped construct pens, round up the 24 ewes and bring them in where James put each one in the turnover crate so that he could examine their teeth, assess their condition and check their udders before we trimmed their feet – he did the front ones and I did the back. Once we'd done all that each ewe was marked with a coloured stripe on her head: green for OK to go to the ram; blue for having a year off to get in better condition; red for a one-way ticket to the abattoir. I am very pleased to report that sheep No 74 came through her examination with flying colours and went back into the flock sporting a snazzy green stripe of approval! Phew!

The following day, because of a dire weather forecast, we moved the pen and turnover crate into the barn as we had the 50 'odds and sods' to sort and that was going to take most of the day. Because it was half-term we also had Jo's and James' grandchildren, Christopher and Ella, helping out and we became quite a slick team: Janelle and Christopher moving the sheep into the holding pen and then along and into the turnover crate; me trimming back feet; James trimming front feet and all the other checks and Ella manning the front gate of the crate and handing James the foot spray.

Lovely little workhorse!

Finally, towards the end of the week we put all the 'green stripes' together and set about trying to choose 30 (ish) of the potential 45 or so. It was really difficult to choose but eventually 34 girls were selected, but at that point James went down with a terrible sore throat and cold and retired to bed so Janelle and I stepped in and did the sheep work over the weekend while James recuperated. It wasn't completely altruistic on my part as it meant I got to use the quad bike to take hay bales out to the sheep and, even at 15mph in horizontal Cornish rain, it is such fun that I felt very lucky to be allowed to do it!

During the following week we were joined by more WWOOFers, a couple and their baby. Silad was from Hungary and his partner, Vanessa, was from Germany and they had an eight-month old baby boy called Henrik. Silad worked outside with us and Vanessa helped prepare vegetables and sorted out the linen cupboard while Henrik was asleep. The first job of the week was to get the ram out with his ewes so we moved the 34 ewes to a new field and then Henry was brought up by chauffeur-driven tractor and let out with them. At first no-one seemed to notice his arrival but, gradually, the whisper went round and the ewes began to wander over in twos and threes to greet him. After a few days we penned everyone up again and checked to see whether he was 'working' – in four days he had covered 13 ewes! If they all hold in lamb to this first service lambing will start on about 28^th March. At this point James changed the colour of the ram's crayon, that he wears strapped to his chest, from yellow to orange and then we let them all out again. The next day there were two or three girls with orange markings – what a busy boy!

During the time that I had been in Cornwall I had hoped to hear from my estate agent that they had found a winter tenant for me, but there was no positive news so, in the end, I decided to make my way back to Somerset and tile the entrance lobby and steps down into the kitchen to match the new kitchen floor, so on a blustery and damp Monday morning I bade farewell to Cornwall for a while and headed back up the motorway to Somerset. With a bit of luck I will be back in Cornwall in mid-April to help with the lambing

Autumn Walk

Early morning, Autumn dawning.

The rain-bleached sky an ethereal blue, combed with wisps of high cirrus cloud.

Sheep in the field rising and stretching,

shaking like dogs, from tail to head,

the droplets flying from their ears like crystals from a dowager's necklace, spilling on the ground.

Water tinkling from drain pipes; dripping from ferns; chattering over the pebbles in the trackside rill; onwards, always onwards and downwards towards the mill.

A pause at the pond,

all seems silent and still, where, in summer, dragons hunted the margins on gossamer wings.

A sudden flash, bright colours glinting, like gems on the hilt of an ancient sword held aloft by a naiads hand, as a kingfisher darts, iridescent in the rip of sunlight.

Stillness returns, but the water moves on, gathering momentum, gurgling over stones, twigs and leaves while overhead the mosses on the ancient oak boughs drip their melancholy syncopation to add to the torrent now throwing itself downhill, in joyous abandon, crashing over the weir to join the over-burdened river on its rush to the sea.

In the woods, the air stills, the oaks seem to exhale a long relaxing breath at the end of their busy summer, and huddle more closely into the lee of the hill.

A leaf falls.

Of heroes, tiles and tyres

The rotten floor boarding

 Have you noticed that heroes and super-heroes often have a trusty sidekick? Sherlock Holmes had Watson; the Range Rider had Dick West (the All American Boy); the Lone Ranger had Tonto; Roy Rogers had Trigger; Batman had Robin; Dangermouse had Penfold; and Superted had Spotty! Quite often the reason for these sidekicks was to act as a sounding board for ideas and theories and also to step in on the odd occasion when the hero was in too much trouble to get out by himself.

Unfortunately for me, Super-WWOOFer (so designated by my daughter), has not had the benefit of her sidekick, 'The Navigator', as her day job (as Jeni Oborn, mild-mannered secretary and PA), has kept her from my side. Even the local ex- hero, Super-Pooman (ex-hubby, Barry – so-called because he used to be a herdsman on a local farm) has turned into a grumpy old man with two replacement knees, and his faithful sidekick, Shitty-Mutt (liked to roll in badger poo!) has long since gone to doggy heaven. So, basically, I was on my own.

The task at hand? To go to my cottage and sort out the kitchen floor! When I went to look round it a few weeks ago to assess its condition, the first thing that I noticed (and so will anyone else) was that the floor in the kitchen was very uneven and the vinyl was torn. It was obvious that water had got under the vinyl and that the flooring board we had laid on top of the concrete had acted like a sponge and then swelled up.

I decided that the best way forward was to remove the rotten boarding and replace the vinyl with ceramic tiles. However, when Barry and I replaced the original ceramic tiles (they were a hideous mottled pink colour) we had laid the flooring boards wall-to-wall and then built in the kitchen units on top, which seemed like a good idea......at the time. Obviously, I couldn't take out the units so I would have to cut out as much of the damaged board as possible – but how?

At this point I went to my local builders' merchants, CRS (where I know the boss), and asked for advice. They suggested using a circular saw so off I went to the local hire shop and hired one for the next day as they didn't have one in stock.

That night I found I had a flat tyre so, bright and early, I went to the local tyre place to get it fixed. However, it wasn't the tyre that was the problem – the wheel rim had rusted through and the air was bubbling out through the metal work! They put on my space-saver spare wheel (what is the point of those?) and I spent an hour or so of precious floor-cutting time, trawling round the local scrap yards looking for a spare Peugeot wheel rim. Luckily I found one at my second scrapyard about ten miles away, bought it and took it back to have my tyre refitted. Towards lunchtime I finally got back on track and started removing the floor. It was a horrible job as the circular saw was quite a chunky one, vibrated a lot and spat out flakes of chipboard and sawdust everywhere. It also left a margin of about 1.5 inches (38mm) all round the units, so my initial idea of putting down a floor screed and laying the tiles on the top level with the original floor wouldn't work, as a margin of chipboard would be visible. I also discovered that Barry had screwed the boards down in certain places and the screws had rusted solid so, after prising the boards over the screws, I then had to hit them at the base with a hammer and chisel to break them off. Finally, I had as much of the old, damp mildewy boards removed as possible and carried them outside and then it was time to go back to the builders' merchants!

They suggested sealing the concrete with a bitumen coating and then relaying new chipboard flooring board on top, so that it was level with the old floor, and then tiling over the whole lot, as long as it didn't stop any doors opening. In that respect, my luck was in as, raising the floor by the depth of the tile, would not affect anything too much. I ordered the flooring boards but couldn't take them with me as they come in 8 foot (2400mm) by 2 foot (600mm) lengths, so later that afternoon they were delivered. The guy unloaded them for me and put them outside the cottage and then I encountered the next problem – getting them into my cottage as I thought it might rain. It's difficult to describe how awkward it was to manoeuvre the boards into the cottage as they had to be lifted vertically into the small entrance lobby, rotated 90 degrees and then lifted up a small step and slid into the utility room before being propped horizontally against the wall. The sheets themselves are solid, bulky and smooth on both surfaces, so they are not easy to get a grip on and I had six to get indoors. After three I was virtually exhausted and almost in tears – I so needed my trusty sidekick at that point, if only to shout words of encouragement - but I managed to get them all in and then drove back to Jeni's where she stepped into super-hero mode with a reviving cuppa and then cooked supper. I was so glad that I'd persevered with moving them as it poured with rain that night!

I didn't do any work at the cottage over the weekend as the bitumen coating had to dry out. Luckily I hadn't had to do the whole floor as, on most of it, we'd laid a damp proof membrane (why didn't we do the entire floor?). So I was able to attend the Wells Festival of Literature on Sunday to hear four speakers talking about different aspects of nature and the countryside under the banner of the Somerset Wildlife Trust. Jeni had also managed to get a ticket so we spent a couple of hours sitting in a large marquee in the grounds of the Bishop's Palace, before emerging and going to investigate the Wells Food Festival which was being held in the Market Square, along the Palace moat and in a nearby park. It is amazing the range of foods that are available from the local-ish area – all sorts of cheeses made from goat, sheep and cows milk, biltong, rare-breed bacon, ciders, artisan breads, cakes, chocolate, etc. My favourite Lovett pies were also there so we bought four to help Phil sell out so that he could look around the rest of the festival – we saw him wandering around later, so he must have sold out. We bumped into several people that we knew and altogether had a lovely day off.

All too soon Monday rolled round and with it the need to visit Wells Tyres again – this time because I thought my exhaust was blowing. It was, and I needed two or possibly three bits of the four-part system replaced – the catalytic converter end had only been replaced just over a year ago, so that was OK. Phew! It was booked in for Tuesday morning so I was able to use it to drive to Glastonbury to buy the tiles, before driving back to Draycott and fighting with the flooring boards again. Because the weather was decidedly damp I set up workshop in the utility room which is quite a restricted workspace – once I'd got a flooring board on to the Workmate there was barely room for me to squeeze past.

The first board I had to lay was virtually full length with a notch cut out of one end to fit into a doorway. I measured twice (measure twice, cut once!) and felt quite proud of myself when it only needed minor adjustment in situ. Before I laid board number 2 (again, full length with a notch cut out) I checked to see whether it was a tongue or a groove that I needed to match up with board number 1, and that was when I read the 1.5 inch high stencilled lettering on the boards that said 'This side up'. Of course, I'd laid board number 1 with the other side up – idiot! So I had to cut a new board and utilise the wrongly-cut board as board number 2 which was narrower. After that first mistake things went a bit more easily and most of the other boards were a lot shorter and easier to manipulate into place. By the end of the day I had all the flooring down and sealed with PVA and the good bit was that I had only used four of the six boards so could return the others for a refund. Bonus!

First tiles laid on top of new flooring board

On Tuesday morning I took my car in to have the exhaust done, only to find when I got there (a distance of 0.25 mile at most) that I had another flat tyre! I really couldn't believe this run of bad luck – my car rarely gives me any problems. The worst part was that I had to kick my heels in a rain-soaked Wells for an hour when I could have been doing the kitchen floor. From Wells I drove to Glastonbury and bought an electric tile cutter from Screwfix as I couldn't bear the thought of doing fiddly little cuts and angles with a manual one. Back to Draycott and my work day finally started at about 11.30! Assembling the tile cutter was a bit tricky as the photos in the handbook were a bit dark and I couldn't work out where one bit went at all, at first, but once it was up and running things went pretty smoothly. By the end of the day I had all the whole tiles laid and was ready to start cutting the edge ones, but my hands were aching pretty badly from mixing the tile adhesive manually in a bucket so I gave up and went 'home'.

It was with great trepidation that I approached my car in the morning and checked it all round, but it was fine so I got to the cottage in good time, only to decide to go and get some more tile adhesive from CRS. I also bought a mechanical mixer (like a giant whisk attachment) for my drill to save the wear and tear on my poor hands, and asked for someone to collect the spare flooring boards tomorrow, as it would be my last day on-site. The guys in there have been really patient and helpful and I've learned quite a bit!

Armed with all the kit I could possibly need I managed to cut and lay all the rest of the floor tiles by mid-afternoon and then painted one of the bedroom walls and fixed the curtain rail which had fallen down. Things were beginning to look better!

Thursday dawned (very early – Jeni and I were drinking cups of tea at 5.30am!) and my designated 'final day'. I should have been in Cornwall on Monday, but kept having to defer my arrival as the job became larger and larger. Luckily, Jo and James were very understanding and just said 'Come when you've finished, we're flexible'. I finished cleaning the cottage and doing last minute bits and pieces before I started on the grouting as I wouldn't be able to walk through the kitchen into the rest of the cottage once I'd done it.

The grouting took longer than I'd expected, particularly cleaning up the tiles carefully afterwards, as it said it's almost impossible to get off once it's dried, so I spent ages on my hands and knees with a damp sponge and a bucket of water – brought back 'happy' memories of my house-cleaning days! I was really pleased with the effect once I'd finished and the kitchen does look a lot better now. Was it all worth it? I really hope so, especially as I may well go back in a few weeks time (after Cornwall) to tile the small entrance lobby and the steps down into the kitchen using the two boxes of tiles I have left over!

Jeni reckons that I'm some sort of a super-hero but I think I'm just bloody pig-headed – I refuse to be defeated by jobs once I've started them, often to my own physical detriment!

The finished floor!

One of our ducks is missing................

Roe deer in the orchard at Dundry

 I left Moelfre on a hazy, overcast Thursday morning and drove across Shropshire via Shrewsbury and Bridgnorth to Kidderminster and on to the M5 at Worcester. As I drove further south, the weather began to clear and it was soon a sunny, autumnal day and very warm in the car. I hadn't been in a happy mood for a couple of days and was finding the drive a bit difficult (I often find driving is when I feel at my loneliest) so I randomly chose a CD from the box in the passenger footwell – it turned out to be a copy of a Canned Heat album that my friend JP recorded for me years ago and, after playing it through twice at full volume I felt much better!

It took me about three hours to get to Bristol and my next 'assignment', a farm sit at Dundry. This was my second visit of the year, but a few things had changed – the rabbit had 'shuffled off this mortal coil' on the Sunday before I arrived, which was very sad, because he was quite cute and not very old, but there was a new tortoise added to the collection, who was also quite cute and tiny compared to the 'girls'. I think he may well get hen-pecked (or is it tortoise-pecked?). There were slightly fewer chickens, I was led to believe(!), two extra ducks, making 10 in total, and 7 geese. There were still 42 sheep, after this Spring's little accidental population explosion and, of course, there were the two Labradors and the six cats, so quite a handful to be looking after. Obviously, you need to be very precise about numbers of animals (apart from the chickens that I have never actually counted) as, at the end of the farm sit, you hope to hand back the same number – preferably all still breathing!

I did a hand over with Sally on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning, as they were leaving on Friday afternoon. There were two ram lambs in one of the stables because they had had a late case of fly strike (a euphemism for 'maggot attack') and had some nasty bald patches on their rear ends. We decided that it was better to keep them in for the week where I could easily monitor their progress and, as we had had a huge electrical storm on Thursday evening and it was warm and humid, we thought we'd better get the rest of the sheep into a pen and give them a quick once-over as well, as that was ideal 'fly strike' weather.

We managed to get them all into a pen relatively easily and that's when the fun really began! We wanted to catch one ram lamb who had had a minor fly strike problem, not because we were worried about his health, but because Sally had noticed that he still appeared to have some parts of his anatomy that he should have been without, and therefore needed to be removed to a safe distance from the females of the flock to avoid a repetition of the Spring flock increase! We caught him quite easily and put him in the stable with the other boys and then we thought we'd better check the rest of the ram lambs for 'accoutrements' – there were twelve rams in total and three were already out of the flock, so we were rather dismayed to discover that the majority of the other nine still seemed to be sporting their 'bits'. I hasten to add, that Sally had had a friend in to castrate the lambs, and was composing a rude text message to him as we worked!

Having separated the rams from the ewes, we then thought we'd better check everyone for fly strike and found a couple more with maggots in their fleeces. I won't go into graphic details but, suffice it to say that, left untreated, a sheep with fly strike can be dead in a couple of days – and I certainly didn't want that, so we ploughed on until all 42 sheep had been checked, trimmed and treated where necessary. This led to a late and slightly strained departure for the holiday, but at least we had treated everything and separated the (potential)boys from the girls!

I kept a careful eye on the flock for the next couple of days and by Sunday realised that another of the rams looked as if he had a problem and I would have to take action. Knowing that I had to try and get them into a smaller space so that I could catch him, I lured them into one of the larger chicken runs that opened off the paddock they were in. Once I had them safely inside I constructed a further pen-within-a-pen, using sheep hurdles, and managed to catch all nine of them. I then caught the boy in question and had just started sorting out his rear end when my mobile rang. It was Jeni to say that she was just leaving Wells and would be with me soon, so I told her I couldn't talk for long as I was removing maggots from a sheep's bottom and had got to a rather crucial point! There was a slightly stunned silence from the other end of the phone but, knowing the strange things her mother gets up to, she soon recovered her equilibrium and rang off. Luckily, that was the last of the sheep problems for the week and, as the nights grew colder, the possibility of further attacks grew less and less.

The rest of the animals behaved in a more or less exemplary manner – Samson, the younger Labrador, only escaped twice, and that was only into another paddock that he couldn't get out of (a bit like tunnelling into the cell next door) and Mike, the handyman, soon put paid to that little excursion by blocking up the hole – for a large dog he can get through remarkably small spaces.

However, Fate had one more little joke to play on me before the end of the week: Julie, who lives in a flat at the farm, kindly came out to help me shut up the poultry on the Saturday evening that Geoff and Sally were due back. We'd spent the afternoon creosoting a chicken ark and were looking forward to sharing a bottle of wine and cooking a quiche for Sunday lunch and having some supper. We'd shut up just about all the arks and runs when I went in to feed the ducks and shut them into their house – there were only 9! Julie came in too and we counted them again – 9, and again - 9. I even knew which duck was missing – inevitably, it was one of the new ones, with dark greeny-black plumage and a tufted head. I ran and got a torch and put on my wellies before going back to join Julie who was bashing down the undergrowth in the pen. I waded into the pond and poked about in the undergrowth on the far side but there was no sign of her. By now it was almost dark and we were looking for a virtually black duck in deep and impenetrable undergrowth! In the end we gave up and went inside – I was so upset to have got so near to the end of the farm-sit and then for this to happen, because I knew, that even if she was still alive out there, she wouldn't be by the morning, as the fox makes his/her rounds of the pens every night and anything outside the house would be dinner. After a rather subdued supper, Julie went outside again for a last look around, and came rushing back in to say she'd heard the duck splashing in the pond so, we shot back out armed (footed?) with wellies and a torch and, amazingly, there was the duck waiting to be let back into the duck house! We had no idea where she could have been hiding as the pen is not that big, but we were so relieved that we went inside and cracked open another bottle of wine and then Geoff and Sally came back and we opened another bottle of wine! I finally made it to bed at gone 1.00am!

I stayed on for a couple of days after they got home (mainly to sober up!) and spent one day cutting down a load of brambles, so that I could have a bonfire, and creosoted another two chicken arks, before I left to return to Cheltenham for a few days.