More Rambles with Reg

 

Green-veined White butterfly

Common Blue butterfly

Reg, the Labrador, was so chuffed to have been included in my September blog that he has asked to feature again! I am currently doing a house sit at the farm 15 minutes from home and have been here a week, during which time we have had some glorious weather!

'Princess' Spice on my jigsaw puzzle box

Since I was here in September a new cat has joined the household – Hilary’s Mum’s cat, Spice. She is a long haired tortoiseshell cat with an imperious air and I’ve taken to calling her Princess Spice as she seems to think that everyone, including me, is there purely for her benefit! I brought a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle with me to while away the evenings and set it all out carefully on the dining table only for Princess Spice to leap gracefully onto the table and sit on the box, thereby obscuring the picture that I needed to refer to all the time. She obviously objected to my being distracted from her majesty by such a paltry thing as a jigsaw! Another time I was sitting, reading but she decided that she wanted a cuddle so climbed onto my lap and settled down – it’s immensely difficult to read a book with a large, fluffy cat curled up on your lap. She is rather beautiful, though, so I can forgive her a lot.

Because this little valley is so secluded and edged on two sides by woodland, there are plenty of birds and wildlife around. I sleep with my window open and have been greeted by the morning chorus every day, which starts at about 5.00am. Most of the birds are relatively quiet at first but there is a cock pheasant and his two wives who arrive under the front garden bird feeder early on and he does the loudest call and wing flutter! It almost sounds as if he’s in the room with me.

My favourite walk (and I suspect, Reg’s too) is the one I described in my September blog, but it is totally different in the Spring: the trees are just unfurling their soft green leaves and in the sun-dappled glades there are drifts of beautiful bluebells that scent the area with their delicate perfume, closely followed by huge swathes of wild garlic, now fully in flower, which also scent the area with their not-so-delicate perfume. I remember bluebell woods from my childhood, but I don’t recall wild garlic at all – perhaps it doesn’t grow as prolifically in Cotswold soils but here, on the Mendip Hills it grows everywhere! You could easily set up a lucrative business just making Wild Garlic Pesto. (My only foray into wild garlic pesto making was not a resounding success – it tasted delicious but quickly fermented in the jars and oozed oily green sauce everywhere. I still have no idea what I did wrong.)

Bluebells

Wild garlic

I now have a very good bird app on my phone (Merlin) which identifies songs in real time so that I can walk along with my phone out identifying which birds are calling at any one time. I know the more common birdsongs and these are here in abundance – robin, wren, blackbird, song thrush, the various tits, but there are others that I don’t recognise such as blackcaps and chiffchaffs. There is also a pair of Dippers that have a favourite vantage point on a rock in the stream by the farm entrance gate, but you have to creep up extremely stealthily to see them before they fly further downstream – needless to say I’ve only caught a glimpse of them once when I’ve been out with Reg – I don’t think ‘stealthy’ is in his repertoire.

Victims of ash die-back in Edford Wood

The other day Reg and I went on a walk that was new to me and in the opposite direction to Harridge Woods. Again we started off in woodland (Edford Wood) and this had a sign on the gate saying that the footpath was closed indefinitely due to the number of dead and dying ash trees that could shed branches but, as it was obviously still a very well-used footpath I decided to risk it – I guess the Woodland Trust who own these woods have to cover themselves against litigation. Once through the woods the footpath skirted a farm/industrial yard and headed uphill but Reg and I were unable to take it because, try as he might, Reg could not get through the bars of the stile – the first time this has happened on our walks as there is usually a dog-sized gap left to one side of the stile or there’s a kissing gate arrangement. In the end we had to walk through the farmyard onto the lane and continue on the road for about half-a-mile before we could regain the footpath in the village of Edford near a rather nice-looking farmshop and café (note to self:  must come back here, without a dog in tow, and investigate further). The track we turned onto was obviously an ancient trackway linking Edford to the village of Pitcot as it had been ‘surfaced’ at one time with hard-packed stones. On this walk, as on many others, we saw lots of wildflowers in the hedgerows and fields: violets, primroses, bluebells, more wild garlic, greater stitchwort, cuckoo flowers, jack-by-the-hedge, and lousewort (a new one for me). In a few week’s time it will all have changed again and other flowers will be dominant.

Ancient trackway between villages

Violets

Lousewort

Cuckoo flower (or Lady's Smock)

When I was last here in September there were thousands of acorns on the ground, but also thousands of beech nuts. I picked up a few acorns and planted them but every single one was carefully removed from the seed tray by a rodent of some description - possibly a squirrel. However the beech seeds had to be treated differently in that they had to overwinter in my fridge to simulate a cold winter! In February I noticed that a lot of the seeds had roots growing so I popped them into seed trays and left them in the shed to see what would happen. Imagine my surprise and delight when the majority of them sprouted  - I now have about 15 beech seedlings that I have no idea what to do with!

Beech seedlings

The mummy/daddy beech trees

Reg is not really interested in all this flora and fauna (he didn’t even chase a squirrel that leaped across the path in front of him!) His main interests are finding interesting ‘sniffs’ and collecting sticks/logs that he will carry for some distance to bring them home – he obviously takes his firewood collecting duties very seriously, as shown in my September blog! His other great love is to throw himself into streams, preferably after a stick. He seems to still be very fussy about the sticks he will bring back for me to throw again – if they don’t meet his exacting standards he just stands chest deep in the water and chews them to splinters before giving me a look that asks me to find something more suitable. Because a lot of dog-walkers frequent Harridge Woods and obviously play the same games, it is difficult to find a suitable stick in the immediate locality. I decided to take one of Reg’s many tennis balls with me so that we wouldn’t have to carry sticks for long distances but this was obviously not an acceptable substitution as he just stood and watched as it got swept away downstream – I wonder how far it got before it snagged on a branch or got washed into the shallows?

Reg enjoying a dip

Reg and stick

The house has a first floor outside decking area over the kitchen extension and this made a super spot for me to watch some wildlife one evening. I’d spotted four roe deer a few evenings before on the edge of the woods but, on this particular occasion there were just two, a buck and a doe, and I watched them for ages just outside the garden in the field. Then, my attention was caught by another deer, but it wasn’t a roe deer, it was a muntjac. These little deer stand about the same height as Reg and, at first, I thought it was a dog but then it came nearer and nearer until it was in the furthest part of the garden browsing on a small tree on the boundary. They are not a native species and were originally part of the collection at Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire from where a few escaped. They obviously found the English countryside to their liking and have rapidly spread across the country – unlike our native deer they can breed all year round with rapid increases in population.

Roe Doe

Roe Buck

Muntjac deer nibbling a tree

After ten days it was time for me to go home so I bid a sad farewell to my walking buddy – until next time.

Spring is just around the corner!!

Signs of Spring awakenings

 

A belated and very wet Happy New Year from the Mendip Hills in Somerset! As you may have seen on the news (or indeed, be experiencing for yourselves at first hand!) Somerset is pretty much underwater at the moment and, with no let up in the rain in the foreseeable future, is likely to stay that way for some time. At approximately 800 feet (244m) above sea level I am unlikely to be flooded out but the ground is heavy clay and completely waterlogged, making it very unpleasant to attempt any sort of garden tidy up.

Jeni and I have done no gardening jobs for 2 months now and I, for one, am beginning to seize up from lack of regular exercise! My weekly Pilates class is becoming increasingly important to stop me creaking as I move about! I’ve had to give myself a stern talking to as I realised that every time I sat down I said “Ooof!” and every  time I got up it was accompanied by a loud groan – neither of these noises is necessary or in any way helpful to the task in hand!

Since the beginning of January my neighbour and best friend, Karen, and I have been aiming to walk her dogs every morning, except when it’s blowing a hoolie and pouring with rain at the same time. There are three road walks around our part of the village which are usually passable, if a bit muddy, whatever the weather and help us clock up a 2 mile start to our day. Our favourite of these walks is along a little-used lane which is slightly lower than the fields on either side and sheltered from most of the bad weather by the hedges. Unfortunately, it is not a circular walk and we usually turn round at a particularly deep lane-wide puddle that stays in situ for most of the winter. Looking at old maps, I discovered that this lane is part of a minor Roman road that ran at right angles to the more major road across the top of the Mendips and was probably used to transport goods from one place to another within this industrial Roman landscape, hence it’s previous name of Portway Lane. A bit later in the Spring we’ll find clumps of purple and white violets growing on the banks and the old stone walls are covered in moss and lichen with several varieties of ferns growing in the gaps.

Ferns and moss on stone walls

Not only did the Romans leave a legacy of roads criss-crossing the Mendip Hills, and lead-workings at nearby Priddy, but they also introduced the Roman snail, which is larger than our native garden snail, and edible. For many years the miners at the leadworks had snails in their diet and this dish was revived as a gastronomic treat by the Miners Arms pub which, in its heyday in the late 1990s was serving up more than 4000 snail meals a year. I have it on good authority that the youngsters of Mendip were paid money to collect buckets of these snails which were glamourised by the new name of Mendip Wallfish! The dish was similar to French escargots but used a variety of fresh herbs in the butter sauce rather than garlic.

Another of our walks (again not circular) takes us towards the site of the old railway bridge as, at one time, Binegar had a station on the Somerset & Dorset Railway and also served a narrow gauge railway that came from the Oakhill Brewery situated a few miles away. This successful brewery sent beer all over the country via the railways but, following a devastating fire in 1924, it closed down. Several attempts were made to re-start the brewery during the 20^th century but none were ultimately successful. From the railway bridge we turn along a lane that runs alongside a large disused quarry and turn at Emborough Pond (real name Lechmere Water) which is now a privately-owned fishing lake. Originally it was a fish lake constructed  for the nearby monks of Wells centuries ago. During the winter months there are often mallard ducks and Canada geese to be seen on the water and squirrels race through the trees on the wooded slopes which make the two dogs get very excited!

Lechmere Water covered in ice

In other news, my six chickens have settled in well and I think 5 of them are laying, although not on the same day yet. Even with the clear plastic roof covering their entire run, the rain has still blown in and made the pen a sea of liquid mud. Concerned that they would grow webbed feet or actually become ill, I have invested in electrified poultry netting and fencer so that they can come out onto a grassy area, which they love. I did try letting them free-range in the entire garden, while I was outside, but they soon found that it was more fun to cross the non-existent fence into my neighbour’s garden from where they were reluctant to return home. Luckily, I have trained them to come for sunflower seeds (a favourite morning treat) so could lure them back by rattling the tin and calling ‘Chook, chook, chook!’. They then follow me down the garden in a long line and happily return to their pen. By having an electrified netted area I can safely leave them out when I’m not there, as it would be a very determined fox that crossed that barrier.

Some of the girls on excavating duties!

December seems a long time ago now but Jeni and I managed to attend three markets in the Town Hall during the month. We had successful markets each time which made up, somewhat, for the poor markets we'd experienced for most of the year. By far and away the most popular items were the needle-felted Christmas tree decorations and we ended up creating all sorts, from snowmen and penguins through to highland cows, foxes, hedgehogs, badgers, swans and even a sprout with googly eyes! I also sold quite a few pairs of my hand-knitted socks which is just as well as I have been doing a lot of knitting during this bad weather, so can replenish my stocks for next year. We probably will confine ourselves to October, November and December markets in 2026.

Highland cow bauble

Penguin baubles

As it was our first Christmas without Mum, we decided to have a different sort of Christmas to the one that had become established. In recent years we have decamped to my sister’s house in Sheffield and she and Paul have taken on the mammoth task of feeding us all – I understand this involves many lists and spreadsheets, but they make it look effortless! This year Lynda and Paul opted to have a year off and have a quiet family Christmas with their daughters and the two grandsons, Rich and family went to Jo’s family in Ireland (which they do every other year) and Jeni, Dave and I spent a quiet time in Somerset. I realised that I had not cooked a Christmas dinner for about 15 years and got quite stressed about it. However, it all went off relatively well although ‘lunch’ was eventually dished up at 5.15!

It is now more than a year since Mum died, which seems unbelievable at times. The house sale has still not been finalised although none of us has been back to Cheltenham since the house clearance people emptied it back in September/October. I sometimes imagine how the garden would be looking at this time of year with the snowdrops appearing in little clumps around the beds and the winter aconites blooming under the weeping silver birch tree, the magnolia buds growing long and fat and daffodil bulbs beginning to poke through the soil. I was pleased to see that a few of the snowdrops and one lone aconite have appeared under my apple tree, where I planted them last year and the cuttings of the climbing rose that I took appear to have all ‘taken’, so a little part of Mum’s garden will live on in mine.

Well, that’s about it for now. Let’s hope that the next time I write a blog the weather will have improved and I’ll be back gardening in earnest and basking in warm sunshine!

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

A beautiful Spring day in the Chew Valley

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

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

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

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

The beautiful alpaca girls

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

And Jasper came too!

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

I realise I look much better behind a veil!!

Inspecting one of Heligan's hives

Our classroom for the day

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

One of my favourite places in the world

Visiting with No 74 in the orchard

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

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

Obligatory Cropredy photo

Another sunny Cropredy photo

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

The Rollright stones

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

Yours truly, wielding her scythe

Working my way up the field

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

The new patio doors

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

The girls!

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

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

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

My lovely ammonite wall hanging over the stairs

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

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

The City of London at night

Under a Golden Rain tree in the Chelsea Physic Garden

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

Bunty, the Camper Van on her last adventure - RIP

Rambles with Reg

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

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

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

The wall of the mill and mill race

The weir by the mill

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

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

The stone pillared gateway

 

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

Immature oak laden with acorns

A carpet of acorns!

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

Mixed woodland against an autumn sky

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

Reg feeling disgruntled

An old stone bridge over the stream

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

Autumn bounty - sloes

Another view of the mill ruins

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

Sad times and busy times

Mum, Jeni and me at Xmas 2024

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The end of 2024

Needle-felted pumpkins

 I thought I’d better squeeze in one more sneaky blog before the end of 2024, as I seem to have been very lax this year!

September continued in pretty much the same frenetic way as the previous few months as there were the regular gardening jobs and two markets in the Town Hall.

I had agreed to do a weekend farm sit for the alpacas, even though I have said that I can no longer do the longer farm sits, as I find them too tiring and stressful. Just to complicate matters, Jeni and her partner, Adrian, had the trip-of-a-lifetime offer to accompany Adrian’s mum to visit his godfather who is very ill in Canada. I agreed to cat sit for the 10 days that they were away but it clashed with the alpaca sit, so they had to get a friend to feed the cats until I could get there on the Monday evening. I drove straight from the alpacas to their house, even though I passed the road to my village on the way!

Before the Canada trip had come up, I’d agreed to look after my friend’s ponies and chooks while she went away to Croatia on holiday so, having picked up the Canada contingent from Bristol Airport in a minor monsoon, I headed straight off to her house for 5 days! My best friend teased me that I slept around a lot! She’s right – 3 different beds in two weeks, and none of them my own! 😊 I did begin to feel that everyone was going away on holiday, apart from me. I must try harder to get away more in my camper van next year.

New porch

Suddenly, October was halfway through, and my porch door and window arrived. I’d decided to bite the bullet and have all of the rest of the windows replaced at the same time as the front had been double-glazed about twenty years ago, and some of them were beginning to fail, and the back of the house was still single-glazed which meant, once the cooler weather came, they ran with condensation. I’d found the double-glazing guy via my brilliant builders and his price was very reasonable, plus it only took him and his mate (Kev and Trev!) two days to fit everything. Within a couple of days of their completion of the installation, the builders came back and finished the porch, matching the render really well with the existing render on the house. I still have to paint it to match but that can wait until better Spring weather, but I have now painted the inside walls and ceiling.

Back in the summer, Dave had been given notice to quit his rented property in a secluded spot on the Mendips. He’d tried hard to find something similar but private rents have gone through the roof, as they are in such demand, and he couldn’t find anything in the area in his price range. It seemed as if he might be about to be made homeless, when it suddenly occurred to me that my friend, Mary, was looking for someone to take on the tenancy of the little annex that I’d inhabited for 6 years. She didn’t really want a stranger so was more than happy to let Dave rent it until he could find something else. It’s very small so quite a lot of Dave’s belongings had to go into a storage unit nearby, but we managed to shoehorn in the essentials and he seems to be quite happy for the moment.

And so to November! I decided to have a bonfire on the evening of the 5^th as I had a whole heap of hedge offcuts, some old lengths of timber, the sitting room door, etc and decided to invite my next-door neighbours and Jeni, Adrian and Dave for a party! I was going to cook jacket potatoes in the ashes of the fire but, on reflection, decided that that would be too hit-and-miss, so cooked them in the oven instead. We also had mugs of homemade soup that we drank whilst watching the fire consume the vast amount of material I’d accumulated. We did move the entire heap of twigs and branches so that we didn’t accidentally cremate any wildlife, but there was no sign of anything hibernating in the bottom.

Snowy Bristol in November

Blossom tree on the same day!

Jeni had to have an operation at a hospital in Bristol in the middle of November. She was due to be in and out on the same day but wouldn’t be able to drive herself, so I volunteered to go with her and wait until she was ready to go home. As we drove over the Mendips, it began to snow and it got more persistent the nearer to Bristol that we got. Jeni had to be there for 11.00am but, after she’d registered, I wasn’t allowed to stay with her, so I wandered off to the coffee shop in the reception area and spent a bit of time there, reading the book that I’d put in my bag. I then went out for a walk around the area which turned into a rather long walk all the way down into the centre of Bristol and then back up what used to be one of the main shopping streets. It’s a very long time since I trudged the streets of Bristol and I was surprised to discover that Park Street is now mainly coffee shops and barbers! I decided to get some lunch, but most of the venues were packed with students, so I eventually wandered into a Wagamama, not having a clue what sort of food I’d find there but, in the event, I had a lovely plate of little spicy meat dumplings and a delicious cup of lemon and ginger tea, made with sliced lemon and grated ginger. Jeni texted me to say that she was still waiting to go to the Operating Theatre and so I went back out into the snow, trying to find something else to occupy myself. I stumbled (almost literally) into the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery and spent an hour or so there before making my way back up the hill to the hospital, where I once more took up position in the coffee shop. The day dragged on and, at about 7.30pm, the coffee shop closed, and I had to resort to a seating area in the hospital foyer. Finally, at about 8.30pm I got a phone call from the day bed nurse to say that Day Beds were now closing and that they were transferring Jeni to a ward as she hadn’t long come out of Recovery! I was allowed to see her at about 9pm when we decided that it would be best to leave her there overnight and I would return in the morning to collect her. Apparently, she had gone down to theatre at about 4.30 so she had been more than 12 hours without any food – no wonder she was feeling so wiped out and weepy when I got to see her!

The fallen beech tree

Another weekend farm sit for the indoor/outdoor cats, Reg the Labrador and some poultry rounded off November. I went there after Storm Burt had ripped through the area and Reg and I went for a walk in the local wood where we had to clamber under a huge beech tree that had succumbed to the wind. The streams were full and it was easy to imagine that the area once hosted water-driven grain and paper mills.

Swollen stream near the ruined paper mill

When Jeni and I were driving over to Cheltenham at the beginning of November, my car’s wing mirror, which had been making the most constant, horrible noise ever since it had been hit in a supermarket car park 3.5 years before(!), suddenly went eerily quiet – I thought I’d gone deaf for a moment! However, the relief was short-lived as I then began to notice another worrying noise from under the bonnet. After a week or so I plucked up the courage to take it to my local garage and get them to take it for a test drive. The verdict was not good – they thought a bearing was going in the gearbox and, with a Christmas drive to Sheffield on the cards, I made the decision to find a new car. Amazingly, I quickly found another, later model, Honda Jazz being sold by the same garage where I’d bought my last one. They had a Black Friday deal on but, unfortunately, it clashed with the weekend farm sit, so I asked Dave if he would go down and test drive it for me, which he gladly did. He managed to persuade them to hold the car at the reduced price until the Tuesday, when I could get there, and we both went down to Yeovil and I took it for another test drive. It has rather a lot more ‘bells and whistles’ than I’d like but in most ways it’s very similar to my previous model, which has stood me in good stead for 8 years. A week later I drove my old car to Yeovil, bid her a fond farewell and picked up the new one. I couldn’t think what to name her as I couldn’t make a name out of the registration letters but, in the last two weeks, she has named herself - Hyacinth. This is because she is blue but also tends to be like Hyacinth Bouquet in Keeping up Appearances in that she is constantly trying to make me aware of non-existent hazards and keeps trying to tell me how to drive! 😊

Jeni and I travelled up to Sheffield together for Christmas, at my long-suffering sister’s and brother-in-law’s, together with the rest of the family. We had a lovely time; too much was eaten and too much was drunk, but we had a lovely walk in bright sunshine on Boxing Day afternoon in the Peak District which is only a 10-minute drive from their house.

The view from Higgar Tor

Unfortunately, the weather on 27^th December was nothing like as pleasant as we all said our goodbyes and headed homewards. Dave took Jeni back to Somerset and I brought Mum back to Cheltenham where I aim to stay for a few days. We were heading for the M1 but, as we neared Chesterfield, the fog rolled in and when we got to the motorway it was absolutely stationary with the joining queue starting on the roundabout! I changed my mind, went round the roundabout again and took off towards Mansfield, briefly stopping in a layby to warn Jeni and Dave about the holdup, but also to program an alternative route into my Google map app on my phone (My new vehicle doesn’t have built-in satnav, which is just as well as I have only just found out how to turn the radio on!). I have no idea exactly where we went as visibility was awful but eventually we found the Fosse Way, with which I’m familiar, and headed back. The fog only lifted significantly when we were about three miles from home and by then it was pitch black, but at least we were home safely.

The next time I communicate with you all it will be 2025, so I hope you all had a good Christmas and that the New Year is a peaceful and a healthy one! xx

Needle-felted fox