Alpacas!

Angelina and friends

It’s been more than two years since I last wrote a blog, and I really didn’t think I had anything left to say, but a friend told me that she really missed reading about my goings-on!

I know it’s now July, but my first blog is going to be about June, so you might get two this month! But first of all, a very quick update on what I’ve been doing in the last two years. I am now a regular trader at two weekly markets – Castle Cary and Shepton Mallet, at which I sell my homemade preserves, cookies, scones and cakes, plus woollen items – hence the name of my stall – A Little Bit Sheepish. On the days when I am not at market I do gardening for a few local clients and several times a year I do dog-sitting and smallholding-sitting at various places. That’s my life in a nutshell!!

My son made his annual pilgrimage to the Glastonbury Festival at the end of June, so I had to prepare my old caravan for his arrival. Of course, last year there was no festival, so the caravan had had two years of ‘stuff’ deposited in it, which I had to sort through and put away so that I could construct the bed! What was originally the tiny shower room is now floor to ceiling with boxes and bags of knitting wool and vacuum-packed fleeces! I really must stop acquiring yarn and raw fleeces, but it is very addictive. If someone offers me a fleece, especially one that I don’t already have in my ‘collection’, I find it almost impossible to turn it down. Last year I went to help a friend when the shearer came, as she thought she would struggle to handle the sheep by herself, but the shearer brought a helper, so I really didn’t do anything to earn the Manx Loaghtan fleece that I was given! When the shearer heard that I did spinning he offered me a Wensleydale fleece as well! Oops!

Anyway, once the caravan was put in order and son had duly arrived, I had to leave him to it and travel twenty miles nearer to Bristol to do a weekend farm sit for some new clients. They had chickens and geese and ducks, a Labrador and … alpacas! I did explain, before I went, that I hadn’t got any hands-on experience with alpacas, but thought I would just be checking that they were all upright and had fresh water. However, Sarah explained that I would also be on babywatch as they were due to produce cria in July, but they could always come early! I was only staying one night, so thought I was probably going to be OK.

Before they left on the Saturday morning, Sarah showed me around their beautiful smallholding, located in a tiny hamlet, right next to a river. We let out the geese and the goslings, let out the ducks and the hens and then went off to see the alpacas. They are fed every morning with a special camelid feed and are also given hay, especially now that at least six of them are heavily pregnant. They kept their distance from me at first but came a bit closer when Sarah was feeding them. We then went to another paddock where the boys live to feed them and check that they were all OK. During the previous week Sarah had had a terrible fright when one of them choked on his dry food and she had to call the vet. All was well in the end, but she has been advised to add some water to their feed to aid its progress down their long neck – a bit of a design fault really!

Sarah had kindly printed me out a comprehensive list of everything that needed doing, which is brilliant, because you think you will remember, but you never do! We had run through the evening routine, so I felt quite confident that all would go well – how wrong I was! I had forgotten that people’s animals act quite differently when a stranger shows up.

The first job was to let the two goslings out of their pen in the paddock and walk them back up the hill to their dog cage in the first goose house, making sure that they had fresh water and feed available overnight. At my approach the goslings went into panic mode and started racing around their pen shrieking in terror, which meant that all the adult geese came over to the fence and started hissing at me, which just added to the goslings’ fright. In the end, I had to pick them up and tuck them under my arms and carry them back up to their cage.

The second job was to put the two groups of geese back in their respective houses. Luckily, although they hissed quite a lot, they behaved impeccably and put themselves in the correct houses. Next it was on to the ducks – there were three adults (1 male, 2 females) that were in one pen, and 7 large ducklings that had a separate pen and house but could squeeze through the stock fence and roam in the bigger paddock with the geese all day. However, the three adults had somehow got out of their pen – the male was in the large paddock and the two females were in the duckling pen, so I had to sort that out. Meanwhile the 7 ducklings popped back through the stock fence looking for their tea, except only six managed to squeeze through, the seventh was clearly too big (or thought he was) and started running up and down the fence looking for another way in. After many fruitless attempts to guide him round the fence to the entrance, I finally succeeded, only to find that the adult ducks had broken back into the ducklings’ pen and scoffed all their tea, and chased them back through the fence – it was all starting to get a bit farcical! Eventually, I got all my ducks in a row, and in the right houses, and could turn my attention to the hens.

I was beginning to feel that the gods were against me, and the chickens proved to be my biggest challenge. Picture, if you will, a small paddock in which about 30 hens are free-ranging. Within the paddock are 4 hen houses and attached runs, of various sizes; two of the houses and runs hold the majority of the hens and one cockerel, one house and run houses 4 hens and the last house and run houses one cockerel. According to Sarah, this is how the evening shut-in works: throw a small amount of corn into the run of House #1, all the chickens will rush in, then throw a small handful of corn into the run of House #2, some of the group will now rush in there. Close both doors on the runs and then walk the solitary cockerel down to his house and shut him in. Once that is done, walk back to the runs, where the 4 hens that live in House #3 will have realised that they are in the wrong place and will be waiting by the doors to be let back out. All chickens should now be in the correct runs. Job done!

What actually happened was: throw handful of corn into the run of House #1, most of the chickens rush in, move to House #2 and throw in more corn, some chickens rush in. Close doors to both runs, only to discover that there are still a lot of hens not in either run, and they are running round the perimeters of the houses, like the proverbial headless chickens, trying to find a way in to get to the corn. Open both doors to runs, throw in more corn, chase outside chickens round the pens towards the doors, only to see a bunch of chickens making their bid for freedom. Eventually, all but one chicken is in the two pens, re-close doors. Walk solitary cockerel to his pen - this bit worked well! Return to the pens expecting to see the 4 awaiting release (easily identified by their green leg rings). Wrong! Go into each pen and try to separate out the 4 from the melee of slightly worried hens, who all seem to think that they are in the wrong pen! After much frustration, I have 4 hens with green leg rings outside the pens and manage to get them into House #3. All of the hens that should be in House #2 have white leg rings – half of them seem to be in House #1 – I open the doors and try to remedy the situation with a resounding lack of success. In the end all of the hens are safely shut in the two runs except for the original escapee, who seems to think that she lives in house #3, despite the fact that she has a purple leg ring and I already have the Green Leg Four safely shut in! I give up – I open House #3 and let her in. Everyone is now safely shut in, not in the right houses, it’s virtually dark and I’m exhausted!

The final challenge of the day came when I finally got around to feeding myself and discovered that all of the kitchen cupboard doors have child locks on … and I had no idea how to open them! (We didn’t have cupboard locks when my two were small) Luckily, the cupboard housing the saucepans hadn’t quite closed and there were enough dirty dishes in the dishwasher to enable me to eat off a plate. Sarah had told me to ring her if I had any problems, but I was too embarrassed to tell her that I couldn’t open the cupboards!

Next morning, the routine went more or less like clockwork, there were no baby alpacas, and Bonnie, the Labrador, and I went on an amble around the smallholding and spent a long time sitting on a bank in a grassy meadow watching the alpaca boys eat their breakfast, to make sure that nobody choked. There were bees, Meadow Brown butterflies and Marbled White butterflies flitting from wild flower to wild flower and House Martins hunting insects low over the waving grass. A tractor was busy cutting grass, either for silage or for hay, on the hill opposite and it was difficult to imagine how close to Bristol we were. I still consider myself to be very lucky to live and work in such surroundings!

Baby Albert

Sarah and family duly returned on Sunday evening and I returned home. On Monday morning, Angelina, the large white alpaca gave birth to baby Albert – talk about a close call!

Spring wildlife

Early morning reflections in Moelfre Lake

Well, the blogs are getting fewer and further apart! I always suspected that this would happen when I stopped travelling around so much, but I still find it disappointing that I seem uninspired to write much these days.

Snow!

Way back, at the very end of February, I set off to Moelfre on the Powys/Shropshire border, stopping at lunchtime at my favourite French restaurant at Shatterford (funny how I seem to arrive there at lunchtimes!). It is not quite at the halfway point, but has proven, over the years, to be a very good place to stop and have a break. I hadn't been this far north this early in the year before and I did wonder what the weather would have in store for me, so I packed loads of winter clothes (including thermal underwear) so that I could layer up against the cold. The weather started off being very wet and windy but, the day after Dawn and Tony left for Brittany it snowed! As it had been raining when I first woke up I didn't think it would settle but, as the day wore on and the snow kept falling it soon became obvious that it was settling. In the end we had about 1 inch of snow but it soon thawed and went back to being wet and windy!

Exhausted juvenile otter

Before Dawn went away, we had a morning out in Oswestry getting in supplies and enjoying a leisurely lunch in a vegan restaurant, before dropping in on a local lady who runs an organic grocery shop from her home. We bought bread fresh from the oven and Bara Brith amongst other things and then Eiriann said: 'I've got an otter in the conservatory – would you like to see it?' It was a juvenile in a very sorry state, huddled in a cardboard box and had been found outside the conservatory door that afternoon, crying piteously. It turned out that another youngster had been found a bit further down the road (and nearer to the stream) that morning and taken to the vets in Oswestry who, in turn, passed it on to a specialist rescue centre. No-one knows what had happened to the mum, but it had been an exceptionally wet and stormy night, so perhaps they had been swept away? I didn't realise that young otters are dependent on their mothers for thirteen months, so this was a disaste,r as they couldn't fend for themselves. Once Dawn returned, we went to see Eiriann again and found out that the siblings had been re-united and were doing well – hopefully they will be returned to the area when they are fit enough to be released.

I know I've said this before, but the peace and quiet in the valley is exceptional, and the number of birds, frequenting the feeders outside the dining room window, stunning in quantity and variety. At Dawn's request, I tried to make a list of all the birds that I have seen, either in the garden or flying over, and came up with at least 34! Added to the list this time, was a lone red kite who flew over most days – I wonder if it will be joined by a mate soon? One morning, on the niger seed feeder, I counted nine goldfinches and there were often two or three siskins waiting their turn. I felt very inspired by all this bird activity and decided to add a needle-felted nuthatch to my repertoire!

Needle-felted nuthatch

On the day before Dawn and Tony came home, Jeni travelled up by train to spend some time with me. The weather had improved so dramatically by then, that we worked in the garden in just T-shirts – very different from 10 days earlier! We then we travelled back to Somerset together (stopping at Shatterford for lunch, surprisingly!) It was a gorgeous, sunny day without a cloud in the sky, and I didn't feel like driving on the motorway so, with The Navigator plotting the route, we headed off towards Evesham, up the Cotswold scarp to Broadway and then south through Cirencester and Tetbury on my usual route back from Cheltenham. It was a lovely drive but it took hours – we only just made it back in time for our Pilates class!

I had missed two Friday markets while I had been away, but had been working on some new items for my stall as, on March 19^th, we held the first of our monthly Sunday Markets, as well. It was really busy, but I didn't sell as much as I'd hoped and nowhere near the amount of the inaugural market back in November, but it was great to see so much activity in the town. I dusted off the spinning wheel and it made its first appearance of the year, much to the interest of several passers-by.

March Sunday Market

On 30^th March, I finally went back to Cheltenham to finish off the decorating of the little bedroom that I had started early in February! Mum was away for most of my stay but had provided me with several ready meals, so that I wouldn't have to do too much catering. Luckily, this time the decorating went quite well and I even managed to lay a new piece of carpet before I left, so that the room was all finished and furnished for when Mum came home – just as well as she is due to have a house full over Easter and will need all of the bedrooms.

And, finally, our swallows returned from Africa on 4^th April and are already busy building nests in the outhouses opposite my annexe. When they're not busy, they sit on the wire and 'chitter' conversationally – I'm sure they are trying to tell me of all their adventures since I last saw them. Every year I look for their arrival as I feel that Summer is really on its way, once they are back.

Springtime Creativity

Potted snowdrops and snowdrop pouches

Well, here we are into March and I haven't written a blog since the start of 2017! It's a good job that I didn't make it a New Year's Resolution to write more frequently.

To be honest, the New Year did not start well as two of my Mum's friends died within a month of each other and, as I knew them both quite well, I went to Cheltenham for the funerals. They both went off as well as these things can do and in both instances we were given flower seeds to plant in memory of them, as both had been keen gardeners in their time. I think that that is a lovely idea and I shall look forward to planting my flowers once Spring finally arrives!

At the end of January I ran my short Introduction to Spinning course for six lovely ladies from the Somerset Smallholders Association. It was a great afternoon, with lots of questions and exchanges of information and I hope everyone got something out of it – I certainly did, and hope to branch out into running a few courses later in the year. I also launched a Facebook page for my nascent business – A Little Bit Sheepish – and have had some good feedback on the photos that I've posted.

At the beginning of February Mary announced that my workroom was ready so in I moved. It is a wonderful space to work in, with much better natural light than in my annexe, and the work table is about six feet long so that I can spread my projects out and leave them there. I have also brought my drum carder in from the (very cold) workshop where it had been languishing, and fixed it to the end of the table so that I can card wool whenever the mood takes me and I don't have to don thermals in order to do it! I have been in the workroom nearly every day since and have created quite a few new items, with lots more still in my head just bursting to get out.

Vinyl wallpaper stripping!

On the 9^th February I was off to Cheltenham for funeral number 2, but also to do some decorating for Mum for a week. She wanted the small single bedroom decorating and I estimated that I could strip the wallpaper, make good any problems with the plaster and emulsion it round easily within the week. Unfortunately, I had failed to notice that the wallpaper was, in fact, vinyl and it had been on the walls since Jeni was a toddler (about 30 years!). The bedroom doesn't get direct sun but it does get daylight and this had been enough to degrade the vinyl so that, instead of coming off in large sheets (as I was led to believe on the internet) it came off in approximately 1cm wide pieces and 15cm long! Of course, being impermeable, I was unable to soak it off or use a steamer so each piece had to be laboriously scraped and peeled off and then this, in turn, created a static charge so that the strips stuck to everything – me, the step ladder, the wall – it looked like an explosion in a paper streamer factory! Suffice to say that I did not finish the decorating in one week and will have to go back as soon as I can to complete the project as Mum now has two bedrooms unusable, as all of the furniture from one room has had to go into the other.

Needle-felted snowdrops

I had to go home after a week because I had other commitments: a special Friday Market to celebrate the start of the inaugural Shepton Mallet Snowdrop Festival and a wedding on the Saturday, that the choir had been engaged to sing at. Trying to come up with a snowdrop theme for my stall I decided to create some needle-felted snowdrops in pots and these proved quite popular and has led me to try making primroses and violets for the markets in the run up to Mothering Sunday. I am trying to concentrate more on the felting side of my craft work as, in the last couple of weeks, another stall has come to the market selling knitted goods and she is a much better knitter than I am and has far more stock. I spent the first week feeling quite upset about the competition but then decided to change focus slightly. I'm also hoping that the weather improves soon and then I can take my spinning wheel back to the market.

Needle-felted primroses

 I am now off on my travels again, and have headed back to the Shropshire/Powys border to house sit for Dawn and Tony for ten days – but I'll tell you all about that in my next blog!

Needle-felted violets

Festivities and Fun on the Farm!

Sunset over East Penrest farmhouse

Well, I failed miserably to get out a pre-Christmas blog, so may I take this opportunity to hope that you all had a happy festive season and that 2017 will be a good year.

On 10^th November I headed off to Cornwall to do a brief farm sit for my friends, Jo and James. I was a bit anxious as to what I would find there as, earlier in the year, they had decided that they would drastically reduce their sheep flock and not put any ewes in lamb. I was really pleased to discover that they are retaining seven breeding ewes, because their granddaughter was so upset that there would be no lambs at the farm, and that my lovely No 74 was one of them! I had entertained thoughts of adopting her and driving back to Somerset with her strapped into the passenger seat of my car, if they had intended to sell her with the rest of the flock! James had split this mini-flock into two groups and put a ram in with each, and then the rest of the sheep that they hadn't yet sold were in three groups around the farm. During the first afternoon that I was there, I went round with James to see what was where and find out quantities of feed, etc. We visited No 74's little flock and, at first, she was a little stand-offish but then, just as I was going out of the gate, she walked over and lifted her head. I put my head down until our noses were virtually touching, fondled her ears and then she walked off to join the others. The fact that she still remembers me always brings a lump to my throat and tears to my eyes – hardly a hard-bitten farmer!

Luckily, all of the animals behaved themselves for the few days that I was in charge and several of the ewes 'went' to the rams, so hopefully, there will be the patter of tiny feet at the beginning of April, although, with only seven to lamb, I don't think my services will be required this year!  The chickens had had to be confined to their house and run as their numbers had been severely depleted by the frequent visits of a large dog fox, who picked them off one by one as they free-ranged around the orchard and fields. Jo had even seen him sitting brazenly in the middle of the orchard when she was outside! One afternoon I took the dogs for a quick walk as it was getting dusk and was surprised when Pickle suddenly hurtled off at full speed, shot under a field gate and proceeded to chase something down the hedge. I was just wondering why she'd taken it into her head to chase one of the farm cats when a blur of red and a large bushy tail broke through the hedge about ten yards from me, shot across the farm track and disappeared into the old quarry with both Pickle and Jess in hot pursuit. I'm glad that I didn't have a third dog with me as that would have been counted as 'hunting with dogs' and would therefore be illegal!

My Sunday Market stall

I returned to Somerset just in time for the inaugural Sunday Market in Shepton Mallet. It was an astounding success, even though we only had three weeks in which to promote and advertise it! We were also extremely lucky with the weather as either side of that Sunday we had torrential rain and there was widespread flooding in the area on Monday. The little stream that gurgles along about twenty yards from my annexe rose alarmingly and water poured in from the road and across the yard to add to the torrent. For a while I thought I might have to evacuate!

Stream in spate

Normal winter stream level

We have just heard that we will be allowed to run a monthly market on every third Sunday in 2017 starting in March, so that is really exciting news. The Friday Market has been a bit sporadic as far as sales go, but I live in hope that one day it will take off. The knitted Fairy Mice proved quite popular, and I am thinking of expanding the range to include Flying Pigs! I have also had several ideas for needle-felted animals and figures, but haven't had the time or space to experiment yet. In fact, before Christmas, I was living in such chaos surrounded by various knitting and felting projects and bags of wool and yarn that I got quite miserable, but things are about to change! My friend and landlady, Mary, is going to allow me to use one of the rooms in her house as a workroom and has been re-decorating it and making me a large work table so that I can leave projects out instead of having to tidy them away! I have been asked to run a one-off workshop on spinning, peg-loom weaving and preparing fleeces for the Somerset Smallholders group at the end of January and, if it goes well, I may offer to run some classes in my new workspace, so that will be amazing.

The run up to Christmas seemed to pass in a blur (doesn't it always?). We had our choir's Christmas Concert on 3^rd December, which was very successful, and this was followed up on the 16^th, 17^th and 18^th with Carol Services in our three local churches and finally a lunchtime concert on 19^th for the Senior Citizens in Bruton! Surprisingly I still had a voice left at the end of it, which just proves how much my voice has strengthened over the last year with regular workouts!

On the 20^th I was heading back down the A30 to Cornwall. In exchange for a Christmas farm sit, Jo and James offered me the use of their wonderful barn conversion for a family Christmas. Not all of the family could come but my Mum, my sister, brother-in-law and one of my nieces plus my two children managed to converge on Lezant on 23^rd December, and stayed until 27^th. The barn proved a brilliant space in which to celebrate with plenty of space for us all to get involved in meal preparation without getting in each other's way, and a snug/library area off the main room with a huge log burner that got very cosy in the evenings. I had one minor panic about Christmas dinner – the turkey that I had ordered online from the Tamar Valley Food Hub weighed in at an impressive 11.95Kg and only just fitted in the oven! It was, however, absolutely delicious and only took 6.5 hours to cook!!

The Christmas branch

Many years ago, when my ex and I were still together, we substituted a Christmas tree for the 'Christmas twig', as we didn't have much space in our cottage, and I would decorate it with white fairy lights and crystal decorations. Because we were only going to be together for a few days at the barn, we decided not to buy a real tree, but we still wanted some festive decorations, so I enlarged on the Christmas twig theme: James and I had cut down some overhanging branches from the track by the pond back in November, so I went and retrieved one of these and dragged/carried it back to the barn where I set it up in a large decorative pot and wedged it in with split logs. I then decorated it with lights and baubles and tinsel in red and gold and I must say that it looked quite attractive. I also cut holly and ivy from the hedges and made a willow wreath for the front door and draped the rest (artistically!) around picture frames, shelves and window sills.

Quad biking!

The weather, which had been wet and windy when everyone first arrived, managed to improve so that everyone could appreciate why I love coming to this part of Cornwall so much. Mum came down as far as the pond and also managed to see the Shepherd's Hut, and my two came for a walk down to the river and back through the wood on a couple of occasions, as did my sister. I think Jess, the sheep dog, thought she'd died and gone to heaven as she managed to persuade Dave to play stick throwing with her all the way down the farm track and all the way back up again! My niece went on a couple of three-mile runs around the local lanes (where does she get all that energy from?) and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. It was certainly great for me to have company whilst doing a farm sit. Jo and James had not managed to sell any more of their flock so I ended up looking after 60+ sheep, which justified me using the quad bike every day to ferry feed and hay to the various groups, so I was happy.

From Jo and James' I drove straight to Cheltenham to spend New Year with Mum and my brother and his daughter, so I have seen virtually all of my family in the last couple of weeks, which has been lovely as, being spread quite far apart, we don't often all meet up together.

I have a couple of farm sits booked for this year already and I am intending to do some actual WWOOFing again at some new venues, as well as with some old friends. I wish you all the best of health in 2017 and look forward to catching up with some of you. x

Dave with Jess, Pickle and stick

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

My epic summer blog!

The Oast House, Mayfield, Sussex

 I'm getting very lax with my blogs – it's been more than two months since I last wrote one! I'm sure you've all been missing hearing about my day-to-day adventures, so I propose to update you in one epic blog, so grab a cup of tea, put your feet up and settle down for a long read!.

Going into July I was very busy with three different gardening jobs, another mammoth painting and decorating job for Jeni's boss (no, pedants, it wasn't a mammoth – it was a newly-created cottage!) and my weekly stall at the Shepton Mallet market, so it was with some relief that I took a few days off to go, with my sister and my Mum, to Sussex, to revisit the places where my grandmother had lived for most of her life and to trace her family's roots. I'd done a bit of research beforehand and had come up with two known addresses for my great-grandfather, and various other places that were connected to the family. I hadn't been back to Sussex since my grandmother had died when I was fourteen and I think my sister had only been a couple of times.

We rented a self-catering, converted oast house on a working farm and duly arrived in a torrential thunderstorm! However, it didn't take long to get warm and dry and have some dinner – Lynda had suggested that we both take something for the first two evening meals so that we wouldn't have to spend a lot of time shopping, so I'd done a quiche and salad and lemon possets to follow. The little oast house was really comfortable and Mum was quite intrigued to be sleeping in the round tower where the hop drying floors had once been.

We were only away for four days and three nights, but we managed to pack so much in that it seemed longer. After much searching we eventually found the two houses that my great grandfather had lived in, one of which was where my Gran was born, and I also found a lot of old photographs of the village on the internet so we could see what it must have looked like when they lived there – it's now bisected by a very busy A road out of London. We also found the convent where my grandmother had been the gardener, and had a sneaky trek down the driveway to see the cottage that she'd lived in then. I swear that the same fig tree was growing against the old, mellow brick wall from which one of the nuns, thinking to give us a treat, plucked two figs and popped one into my sister's and one into my mouth. As we were only about four and five at the time, we found them absolutely disgusting and it has taken nearly sixty years for me to try another one! They're actually delicious!

Bodiam Castle

Interspersed with trying to track down various cottages in various villages, we also managed to visit Bodiam Castle, Sissinghurst Castle Gardens, Batemans (home of Rudyard Kipling) and Sheffield Park Gardens which are all National Trust properties – we certainly feel as if we've got our subscription's worth this year! We also stopped at two or three community-run shops and cafes, which seem to be very popular in that part of the South-East, and are run by very friendly and helpful staff, most of whom are volunteers. We were also there at peak cherry time – if you ever get to Kent, be certain to go in cherry-picking time as they are absolutely gorgeous; dark red and bursting with fruity goodness! Needless to say, we ate rather a lot and brought some more home with us, too.

I was surprised and pleased to discover that that part of the country is still quite rural and full of glorious trees, mainly oaks and sweet chestnuts, and that the inhabitants are very friendly – I'd expected places to be like ghost towns during the week, as it is commutable to London, and that people would be a lot more 'stand-offish'.

Once back in Somerset it was on with the gardening, decorating, marketing routine and I even took on another gardening job! I really am a glutton for punishment – on every other Tuesday I now do six hours gardening, followed by a further four hours on Wednesdays. As I explained to some people at the market, even if I don't sell anything and my pitch is £7.50, it's still worth it to me as I get to sit down for four hours without feeling guilty that I should be doing something else!

Cropredy skies!

In the middle of August I headed back to Mum's at Cheltenham to meet up with Lynda, Paul and their camper van and hit the road for Cropredy in Oxfordshire, and the annual shindig that is Fairport Convention's music festival. There were twelve of us in our encampment and, as always, the catering went like clockwork with cooked breakfasts every morning and picnic lunches on the field – there were even late-night pancakes on one occasion! I really feel as if I belong to our festival family now, especially as I was allowed to cook the scrambled eggs (a huge responsibility!) and the cookies I took as my contribution have now been renamed Cropredy Cookies (or Crookies for short).

My festival name is Scrumpy so I felt I should take a decent tipple with me, not that there isn't a good drop of cider to be bought at the bar (Weston's Old Rosie and Stowford Press), so off I went to Roger Wilkins Cider Farm at Mudgeley. I'd wanted either Dave or Jeni to accompany me as I'd only been once or twice before and was unsure of the etiquette when purchasing direct, but neither of them were available so I had to go it alone. Although it is best to look and/or sound as if you know what you're doing, I needn't really have worried, as there were only two other punters present and 'Uncle Roger', who greeted me with 'Want a drink?'. I should explain further how this on-farm purchase works: you turn up and are offered a drink to ascertain what mixture of the two huge barrels of cider suits your palate. One is labelled 'Sweet' and the other, 'Dry', and, having tasted Dave's purchase for Glastonbury, I already knew that I wanted the dry side of sweet. Normally, the sample glass is a half pint so, if you get the mix wrong and need another sample, you can swiftly become quite inebriated! I declined the offer, as I was driving (as are most people, as this farm is out in the back of beyond) and settled for just under half sweet, topped up with dry as a good mix, then with my gallon of scrumpy safely wedged in the boot of the car, I left the other punters to it and went home.

The music at the festival was the usual eclectic mix of old bands mixed with new artists and folk, blues, ska and rock music all mixed in as well. 'Madness' headlined one evening and 'The Bootleg Beatles' on another, plus some pretty heavy rock bands on the Friday afternoon, when Lynda and I chose to go off on our annual walk along the canal back into Cropredy, looking at all the narrowboats and the various stalls set up in the village. One of the most exciting bands, in my opinion, were a duo from Australia called The Pierce Brothers. Their music had similarities to Mumford & Sons and was incredibly energetic – I was amazed at how much sound two people could produce! They had been touring Europe for three months in a camper van with their tour manager, playing at small venues and this was their last gig before they flew home. It was a blisteringly hot day and there were 18,000 of us sitting on the hillside watching them play – they had driven overnight from Brussels, across Belgium, caught a ferry and then driven halfway across England to get to us and we gave them an amazing reception that blew them away, completely. The Red Arrows even flew past as they launched into their number 'Flying Home' – how spooky was that!

My prize-winning Labrador

All too soon the festival was over and I was once more back in the routine – it felt as if the decorating job was never going to end, and every day, including weekends, was fast turning into a work day. I did take one Saturday off to go and help man the Somerset Smallholders Association tent at the Yesterday's Farming Show, with my friend Cathie, who I met through our local choir. The weather was distinctly windy and damp so I didn't spend much time looking around at all the old tractors and farm machinery, but I did take my spinning wheel with me, which seemed to attract people over for a chat. On the following day, it was the Mid-Somerset Show at Shepton Mallet, where I had entered several wool items in the Arts and Crafts competitions. I was really pleased to win third prize with my needle-felted Labrador, in a strongly contested class, although my winnings of £2 could not compete with the £135 that was dished out to the girl in front of me in the queue at the secretary's tent – it's obviously far more lucrative if you ride horses!

The following week I finally gave myself some time off to go and see Karen and have a massage and a catch up. If you remember, back in June, Mick and I had created two no-dig veg beds for Karen and Ade and I could not believe how productive they have become in such a short space of time! It was fantastic to see how much fun and pleasure they have had this summer from being able to grow their own veg again. Mick has now started coming to the market on a Friday morning and has already built up quite a gang of regulars, all clamouring for his fresh veg and salad leaves, so I'm pleased to see all his hard work paying off.

Karen's garden in August

Karen's garden in June

And now, here I am, up my favourite remote Welsh valley, looking after one of my favourite dogs, Jasper, while Dawn and Tony are in Brittany. Can you fall hopelessly in love with a garden? I have been coming here for six years now and I really love reacquainting myself with it – usually at the end of a small hand fork! This time it has really been a bit of a challenge, as Tony has been very occupied with helping Dawn make sure that the two lodges, that they rent out in the gardens (wyldwoodsretreat.co.uk), are all up together and that the paths around the grounds are accessible, the lawns cut, etc., so the poor vegetable patch has taken very much a back seat. I have been attempting to exert some control over it and bring it back to a usable state so that Tony doesn't become too despondent. At the same time I have been helping Dawn clear spaces in one of the borders to plant new shrubs to give it a bit more structure. I would also like to cut back some of the hedges, prune the fruit bushes (I've done the raspberry canes), have a bonfire, reconstruct the compost heaps, dead head roses and other flowers that have finished, and weave in some new willow in the arbours! Unfortunately, I am only here for another couple of days, so it isn't looking possible!! Each time I come, the garden offers me an unexpected gift – this time it was a patch of pale pink cyclamen blooming in a shady area, right under the trees, so that their appearance was made even more striking. I love this garden!

The lovely patch of cyclamen under the trees

No-Dig - it's a no-brainer!

My raised vegetable bed - May 2015

My raised vegetable bed - June 2016

Over a year ago now, I was introduced to Mick, (affectionately referred to as 'Mick the Leaf' by me) a vegetable and salad leaf producer who rents some land across the road from me. I know that I have mentioned him a couple of times in my blogs before as I sometimes go and help him pick salad leaves and last year watered his plot and polytunnel while he and his wife went on holiday during the Glastonbury Festival. He grows all his stuff the No-Dig way and I have become quite intrigued by this method. It is not a new idea but the current expert, and mentor of Mick, is Charles Dowding who lives a couple of villages away and has written several books on the subject of organic, no dig vegetable growing. Having seen at first hand how the beds are constructed I made my own beds based loosely on the idea and working with the materials I had to hand i.e. lots of well-rotted horse manure and some fairly poor, ashy soil that already occupied my site. Last year's bumper harvest of fresh vegetables made me decide to extend a bit further along the yard and create a fruit bed using the same method, and this seems to be getting on quite well, too. The strawberry plants and some of the autumn fruiting raspberry canes came from one of my gardening clients, a couple of gooseberry bushes were reduced to 75p each in Aldi (and looked 'sick unto death' when I got them home), the rhubarb crown came from my friends and WWOOF hosts, Dawn and Tony, in Powys and some more autumn-fruiting raspberry canes, a blackcurrant bush, a redcurrant bush and a thornless blackberry from Mick, so it was nearly all free! I very quickly had to extend my rabbit-proof fencing as the chickens were pecking off all the new green leaves as soon as they emerged and seriously hampering growth!

The site of my raised fruit bed - 2015

My raised fruit bed - June 2016

Mick and I generally work on a barter basis – I pick leaves, or water in return for bags of salad leaves, veg and plants for my plot and this recently extended to a goodly amount of municipal compost that was surplus to his requirements but would be very useful to me, because my friend Karen had told me that their veg bed was so overgrown with raspberry suckers and perennial weeds that Ade was despairing of ever getting back on top of it, so I volunteered to establish a no-dig veg bed for them in exchange for free aromatherapy massages from Karen! I spent a few hours over a period of weeks removing as many of the raspberry canes, dandelions and buttercups as I could and then thought about the construction of the beds. Their soil, despite much improvement by Ade over the years, is still heavy to work and retains a lot of moisture, but in a raised bed system this could well be an advantage but, talking it over with Mick, who has a background in civil engineering, it soon became apparent that I would need a huge number of manure-filled bags and compost to make the beds that I envisaged so, again in the spirit of barter, Mick offered his trailer, and eventually himself, to help get things underway.

'Mick the Leaf' barrowing muck!

The beginnings of Karen's and Ade's new veg beds

We chose probably the hottest day of the summer to shovel manure from the huge heap in our back yard into the trailer , and then drive the few miles to Karen's house. As we approached Binegar, Mick remarked that he had only ever been there once before to pick up some cardboard from a Freecycle ad, that he subsequently used to construct his original beds and pathways. Imagine our mutual surprise when we realised that he had got the cardboard from Karen and Ade in the first place!

We used two wheelbarrows and, with Mick's expertise and unfailing good humour, the beds were soon shaping up and, after a quick stop for lunch we filled a second trailer load with 'my' municipal compost for the top layer and headed back to Binegar. By the end of the day we had constructed two raised veg beds about four feet wide and twelve feet long with paths running around each, and a few days later I took a consignment of plants up – some that I had grown far too many of ,and some from Mick ' for payment for the original cardboard'. I realise that I would never have managed to finish the beds in time to grow anything this year without Mick's help and the use of his trailer, so probably need to do lots more watering and picking to 'pay off' the debt. Meanwhile, I am enjoying lovely aromatherapy massages as my 'payment' from Karen – such a nice way to do business. 

The completed veg beds

On another topic: as mentioned in my previous blog, I went to help on the WWOOF information stand at the recent Green Scythe Fair at Muchelney, and it proved to be an interesting day in more ways than one! I arrived at about 9.30 am but my fellow representative didn't arrive for another three quarters of an hour as she'd been held up with unexpected jobs at home. Unfortunately, she had all the leaflets, banners, etc so for a while it was just me standing rather disconsolately behind an empty table! Jane has been a WWOOF host for many years and is located only about 8 miles from me, so I may go and have a day's WWOOF at some point, just to keep my hand in. The weather turned in to a day of torrential showers and we had not been provided with any cover! Both Jane and I had brought large umbrellas with us and Jane had also had the foresight to bring a large sheet of clear polythene – we got very adept at whipping it over the stand at the first drop of rain and therefore managed to save things from getting wet, which was just as well as I had taken some needle-felted sheep, a peg loom rug and some skeins of wool along with a wooden bowl and spoon that I made, to enhance the rather bare stand. We met some lovely people, some of whom were thinking of becoming WWOOF hosts and some who were already WWOOFers, including a couple of Spanish girls who insisted on taking our photo. I didn't get to see any of the scythe competitions, but I did have a quick look around the other stalls before I left and had a lovely chat with a fellow spinner. I will definitely go again next year, as a visitor, so that I can enjoy the day more (as long as it's not raining!).

(Wo)-Manning the WWOOF stand at The Green Scythe Fair