Walks with Woody (and other excursions)

Woody and me at Maesbury iron-age hill fort

Today marks the anniversary of the commencement of my WWOOFing adventure 5 years ago but, instead of doing a summing-up of my previous year I have decided to get up-to-date with my general blog. I have called this blog 'Walks with Woody' because I rather liked the alliteration, but there has been a lot more than that going on recently.

Rabbit proof fence panels

Once back in Somerset I set to with a vengeance to make my rabbit-proof fencing as everything in the greenhouse had doubled in size whilst I was away! My friend thinks the whole idea is ludicrous as I have spent quite a lot on buying treated timber battens, 1” square weld mesh, fence posts, etc to guard a vegetable garden which will eventually be about 24 feet long by 12 feet wide and contain one raised bed 20 feet long by 6 feet wide and a few assorted pots and containers. But, as I pointed out to her, it will help to keep me occupied when I am 'at home'. I have made friends with a chap who rents some land on the other side of the main road on which he has constructed several raised beds and a polytunnel and is now growing salad leaves commercially. I spent a few hours one Friday morning picking leaves for a local restaurant and, in return, Mick gave me a huge bag of salad leaves, some rhubarb and sea kale – one day he may be well-established enough to pay me in money but, until then, I shall never have to buy salad again!

On Friday, 1^st May, Jeni and I donned some 'decent' clothes and headed off to my friends' handfasting ceremony which was held in their garden on top of the Mendips at Binegar. They have been together for many years but finally decided to make it all legal, and the handfasting was just the beginning of a weekend of celebration which Jeni and I were privileged to attend. Unfortunately, the weather was not as kind as it could have been and our flimsy summer clothes were no match for the cold wind that was blowing atop Mendip. However, the ceremony itself was lovely with Karen and Ade being 'handfasted' (literally having their hands bound together) with strings of ivy, before jumping the broomstick and also a cauldron of hot coals! This ceremony has its roots back in antiquity when the poor of the parish could not afford to pay the priest to marry them in church and so, with all their friends and family as witnesses, they 'tied the knot' and jumped the broomstick to begin their lives together. It felt very special to be part of such an age-old custom.

A lovely cake for a lovely couple

On Sunday the actual marriage took place and, because the Shepton Registry Office is in the throes of moving and the Wells Town Hall venue was unavailable due to the upcoming elections, the Registrar was able to perform the ceremony in the marquee that had been set up just along the road from their home, on land belonging to some good friends. Karen had requested that everyone (both male and female) wore hats to the ceremony and had then provided clothes pegs around the marquee on which we could hang them, if we wanted to. Respecting Karen's wish that we post no photos on the internet of the actual ceremony and guests, I have taken the liberty of including a couple of general shots from the day. I didn't know many people there although, over the years, Karen had mentioned most of them so it was good to put names to faces at last. One person that I did know, however, was my old work mate, JP, who was over from Ireland especially for the ceremony and had brought his lovely new partner, Nina. What a treat it was to catch up with him again after so many years.

Festive bunting and hats

On Bank Holiday Monday I drove to my Mum's in Cheltenham prior to us going on holiday the following day. We set off for Port Eynon on the Gower Peninsula just after 10.00am and met up with Mum's friend, Meg and her daughter, Deb, at a beach just south of Bridgend for a picnic lunch. Well, although the day was bright and dry there was a stiff breeze (strong wind!) blowing in off the sea so that our salad was in severe danger of blowing away so Mum and I retreated to the car to eat ours. Afterwards Mum and I went for a walk to stretch our legs and investigate a walled garden (I am such a sucker for walled gardens!) that was just along the beach and was the sole surviving part of a large house called Dunraven Castle. This beautiful-looking stately home (from the photos on the information boards) was demolished in 1962 as there was no perceived use for it! Criminal! It would have made an amazing hotel or holiday apartments – why did so much destruction of fine buildings take place in the 1960s?

Having lost our bearings around Port Talbot, and seen rather too much of that town, we finally arrived at our holiday cottage at just gone 4.00pm and joined Meg and Deb in the pub, which was just across the road. We ate there that night and the food was surprisingly good plus they served Thatcher's Gold cider on tap, so I was happy. The cottage itself was done out very stylishly – not an old lobster pot or carved seagull anywhere! - and was very well-equipped. There were four bedrooms and three bathrooms so we hardly got in each other's way at all and it had been a well-priced bargain for a mid-week break. From there, for the next couple of days, we explored as many of the beaches and bays that we could drive to and managed to get Meg, who uses a 3-wheeled walker, down onto a couple of them. I had never been to the Gower before and thought it absolutely beautiful with its long, sandy beaches, narrow lanes and abundance of wild flowers – I don't think that I have ever seen so much wild garlic growing anywhere before – the woods were carpeted with it!

Port Eynon, Gower, South Wales

We came back on the Friday, calling at Aberdulais Falls at Neath, to break our journey, look around the old tin works and have some lunch in the old schoolroom and then, on Saturday, I headed back to Somerset where I weeded the vegetable garden, packed my car and headed off to Binegar to house/dog sit for Karen and Ade while they went to Cornwall for their honeymoon.

Woody is a Border Terrier crossed with a Jack Russell Terrier and is a lovely little chap. He always gets very excited when I visit so I was a bit concerned when I opened the front door and he didn't even come to see me or bark at my arrival. I can only think that he had seen Karen and Ade packing and was upset that he'd been left behind – I don't think they've ever left him before. However, we soon settled down together and he took me for a lovely walk around the village that afternoon. I say 'he took me' because, as we walked along the lane near the house, we passed one public footpath sign, which he ignored but, when we got to the next public footpath sign he got very excited and pulled me off along it! We crossed a field and clambered over a stile into another little lane and walked along this, passing under a disused railway bridge, before coming out on a lane I recognised and making a circular walk back to the house.

The next day was dry with some sunshine but a really cold wind. I had looked at the Ordinance Survey map of the area and decided to visit Maesbury Castle, an iron-age hill fort, which was a short car journey away. Woody sat as good as gold as we drove the couple of miles to a pull-in that I had noticed at the side of the road, and then we clambered over a stile and walked steadily uphill until we reached the hill fort. The earth bank ramparts are still really impressive, particularly from the outside where they are about 20 feet high, in places. From the top of the bank there is a 360 degree panorama and, on a clear day, you can see to the Quantocks in the South, the Bristol Channel to the West, the Cotswolds to the North and Wiltshire to the East – an amazing defensive position. It was a bit hazy but the view was still spectacular and Woody enjoyed himself trying to dig for moles and rabbits, which obviously abound up there.

Weather changes so rapidly on Mendip – the following day was hot and cloudless with hardly any wind and we spent some time in the garden. Later in the afternoon I decided to take our last walk together along a lane in the village, along some footpaths across farmland and back into the village further down the hill before returning to the house and, perhaps, calling in on Karen and Ade's friends in their beautiful cottage on the corner. However, things did not go according to plan! I took the map with me (always a good idea) and we set off happily enough along the lane. It was very pleasant walking in the dappled shade with bees and flies buzzing about and the bluebells nodding on the grass verge. Eventually we came to the track that was marked on the map as the start of our footpath walk. It looked like someone's driveway but soon widened out into what had once been a sizeable lane. At the end of this green lane we came out onto a farm track and this was where our problems started. We walked up the track towards the farm and were directed, quite firmly, by a man in a tractor, away from the track and through a field gate. 'Go through the gate, turn right and across the field', he said, so that was what we did. Unfortunately, the only gate out of the field was back onto the track on the other side of the farmhouse and was tied shut. It also had weld mesh cladding on one side (and this is important in the story) so, while Woody scrambled under the barbed wire fence, I climbed over the gate and dropped down the other side, as I couldn't climb down because of the cladding. Back on the track we took off again but then I realised that it was veering away from the direction shown on the map and we soon found ourselves on the disused railway line – not where we were meant to be at all! I did not want to go back the way we had come because I couldn't climb the gate from this side (because of the cladding) and I didn't want to walk through the farmyard and risk being shouted at by an angry farmer on a tractor! I made the (foolish) decision to walk along the railway line towards the road, in the hope that we could get out from there. It was not long before I was thigh-high in nettles and brambles and poor little Woody had disappeared in a green jungle that closed over his head. We struggled on for a bit but it was obvious that we would never make it back to the road that way. In the end we slid our way down the embankment, over a barbed wire fence (under in Woody's case) into a field and then through another barbed wire fence into another field that ran alongside the embankment, which we then followed until we reached a lane where, thankfully, there was a gate. We were both hot, tired and I, for one, was tingling all down my legs from numerous stings from the nettles, and scratches from the brambles, and we still had a mile or so to go to reach home. However, the walk along the lane through shady wooded areas restored us both a bit and I was looking forward to calling in at the pub for half a pint of cider, but it looked as if it was still closed as we tramped past and I felt rather disheveled anyway so, nearly three hours after we had jauntily set off on our short walk, we limped home and collapsed in a heap. Well, I did – Woody promptly went off to find a ball in the garden and try to persuade me to play catch!

En route between Somerset and Cheltenham on top of the Cotswolds

Springtime in Cornwall

Spring flowers

My overnight stop in Somerset extended to lunchtime on the following day as I needed to set up my new trays of seedlings, etc in the greenhouse and plant out two rows of garlic, as I had picked up a couple of garlic bulbs that were shooting from Dawn & Tony. I also planted out my potatoes that had been 'chitting' for a few weeks. I was surprised by how much growth the onion sets had put on in my absence but the veg bed is south facing with a rendered block wall behind it so the soil is very warm.

I had a good drive down to Cornwall arriving at about 4pm to be greeted by Jo and James, who were both in the lambing shed, with the words “You're too late, we've finished lambing!” Luckily, they were teasing me, but only just – in the 12 days since they had started lambing 22 of the 34 ewes had given birth! Henry must have been a very busy boy when he first went in with his girls in the autumn!

As Jo and James had both been 'full on' for the previous 12 days and nights I offered to do the late check at about 10.30pm so that they could get a reasonable night's sleep. When I first went out everything seemed quiet and settled but, as I was turning to go back in, I heard a whickering bleat from one of the ewes that was expecting twins. This little low bleat is the noise they use to bond with their lambs once they are born and is sometimes one of the first indications that labour is starting, along with restless pawing at the ground and/or a look of distant thoughtfulness! I managed to get her into a pen on her own and her first lamb was born at 11.25 with the second being born about 20 minutes later. One of the invaluable tips that I have picked up from James is that the sucking reflex is particularly strong in the lambs not long after they are born so, if you can get them to suck before they are even on their own four feet, they usually have no problems locating the teats for themselves later. It is really important that they get a good feed of colostrum in the first couple of hours as it is full of nutrients and antibodies which help protect the newborn lamb from all sorts of nasty-sounding diseases. Once I had made sure that both lambs had had a good feed and I had doused their navels with iodine (another important anti-bacterial precaution) I went to bed.

As it turned out this was one of only two births that I was to witness during my stay – all the others happened off my watch in the middle of the night or in the early morning or when I had a day off and was away from the farm! This was very disappointing as I had gone back specifically to help with the lambing, but I did help with the after care of ewes and lambs and got to spend time watching the lambs gambolling out in the field.

Number 74 - proud mum of twins

I know you are all desperate for news of Number 74! Well, I was anyway. She had been the tenth ewe to lamb (hence the large No 10 on her side in the photo) but James had kept her in the lambing shed so that I could personally congratulate her on the birth of her twins (a boy and a girl!). She condescendingly deigned to take a gift of dandelion leaves from me but did not acknowledge my presence further and was more than happy to join her friends out in the field where her twins soon joined the 'lamb gang'.

At about 8.00am each morning, Carina (a Swedish WWOOFer who was just a bit younger than me) and I went out to help with the daily round of feeding, watering and bedding up the ewes and lambs and then we started work in the vegetable garden. James had been in with the tractor and rotavator but we decided that a system of raised beds might be easier to manage so spent one day building two raised beds about 20 feet long and about 4 feet wide. During my stay I added another two beds to the total although the clay soil became increasingly difficult to dig as the weather turned hot and sunny with day after day of blue skies. I planted some broad beans, runner beans and peas in pots in the greenhouse at the beginning of my stay and they were all just emerging when I left a couple of weeks later. I also weeded the greenhouse beds and planted six tomato plants that Jo bought and a couple of rows of salad leaves. We also got some replacement glass for the two panes that got broken by the wind last year and the one pane that got broken by a stone thrown up by the rotavator – at least that should stop the cats and squirrels going in!

On the first Saturday of my stay I took Carina to the Cheesewring on the edge of Bodmin. This is a natural stack of granite boulders perched precariously one on top of the other on the side of a hill and we scrambled up the steep hillside to see it. The views from the top were far-reaching, barren and a bit hazy but well worth the scramble and the strong wind that whipped around our faces. Afterwards I took her to Looe as I felt she needed to see the sea and partake of a Cornish pasty! I decided to save my pasty until I was back in the car as I don't seem able to walk and eat at the same time, but Carina started eating hers as we walked along. Suddenly there was a flurry of huge wings and a large herring gull mugged her for a bit of pasty! Amazingly, although she gave a small scream, she did not let go of the pasty which I thought showed remarkable courage under fire! You don't realise what big birds they are until they fly into your face! Safely back in the car, we enjoyed our pasties before driving back along country lanes to the farm.

The 40 foot ash tree begins to fall

We had to move the lambs from last year (now called hoggets) to new grazing and also the other group of miscellaneous sheep, so James and I went off in the Landrover to do some chainsawing as a couple of trees had fallen in the field that they were going to. However, before James could saw up the 'fallen' trees we had to get them to fall, as they were resting on the branches of another tree. This is where the Landrover came in – it has a very strong winch on the front. First of all James notched the tree in the direction that he wanted it to fall and then attached the winch cable around the trunk before chainsawing through the rest of the trunk from the other side. At first, the winch started to pull the Landrover up the field but, eventually, after a little more alteration to the position of the strap around the trunk, the tree slowly fell to earth and was cut up for logs. My job was to cut off all the brashy branches and drag them into the wood where they will eventually rot down whilst providing food and homes for lots of invertebrates.

Whilst we were working in this field I was distracted by the sight of some enormous beetles crawling about in the grass. I tried to take some photos (which didn't come out very clearly) as I was quite certain that they were oil beetles which are growing increasingly rare and mainly occur in organically farmed areas. One of them was almost 2” long and the other two, that I saw at the same time, were about 1” long and shone a metallic blue in the sunshine. Beautiful! 

The blue/black oil beetle

As usual, the beautiful timelessness of the farm worked its magic on me and the clear, crisp morning air meant it was never a chore to get up and go outside to wonder at yet another day – the spring flowers were in abundance on all the banks and in all the hedgerows: the daffodils were still blooming in the hazel spinney but had been joined by the first bluebells and there were large primroses everywhere vying with the buttercup-yellow of the celandines, the purple of the violets and the white of the stitchwort. There was even some early pink campion pushing through in places and the pretty pale lilac of lady's smock. What a wealth of beautiful wild flowers we have in this country, if we just know where to look.

The last ewe lambed on April 18^th – 34 ewes, 55 scanned lives and 54 live lambs – a very impressive result. I extended my stay for a week so that Jo and James could go off to visit their two sons and their families, leaving me in charge of rather a lot of sheep – 168, I think. Luckily, I had the trusty quad bike at my disposal as it was a long way down the farm track to the bottom paddock where the miscellaneous flock was and I checked on them twice a day. Also, because the weather continued, for the most part, hot and dry, the hoggets ran out of grass in their paddock along the road so I had to carry bales of hay to them on two days so that they wouldn't be tempted to break out.

On Monday, 26^th April I packed up my car and drove back to Somerset so that I could spend a few days at home before my next adventure.

The 'lamb gang' exploring a fallen oak tree

March 'goes out like a lion'!

The earthworks at Avebury

I was back at home for the partial eclipse of the sun on 20^th March but, due to overcast conditions, nearly didn't get to see it at all but, just at the crucial moment, the sky cleared enough to be able to make out the sun as a crescent-shape through the murk – I don't think my friend's welding goggles were really needed! The weather improved after that so I spent some time tending my new veg bed and planting out my onion sets.

The sleeping 'Horned God'

On Sunday, 22^nd March, as it was such a gorgeous sunny, spring day, Jeni and I decided to head to Avebury and the stone circle as I had never been, even though it only took an hour to get there. I was truly amazed by the number and size of the stones and the huge earthworks that surround them and, what I hadn't realised, the village of Avebury sits inside the stone circle! Jeni's friends Tom and Carly were at the stones with their druid group to welcome in the spring and we were invited to join their celebrations, which was really energising as we had to make a lot of noise to awaken the Horned God, who seemed to be particularly deeply asleep! We all stood in a circle and invited the spirits of the place to join our celebrations and then each one of us had to make a statement “I am.....”. The Priestess kicked off by saying that she was the spirit of the wind and others were birds, flowers, etc. By the time it got round to Jeni and me (we were standing just to the other side of the Priestess) I was beginning to worry about what I could be. Jeni chose to be a butterfly awaking from winter hibernation and, in desperation, I chose to be the earthworm bringing fertility to the soil! Nothing like making a humble statement! I'm sure we must have got some odd looks from the many visitors to the stones that day as we capered and sang to welcome in the season but, when you're 'in the moment' you actually don't notice.

Even if you have not reinvented yourself as an ageing hippie there is a lot to enjoy at Avebury, as the village is very picturesque, the pub serves good food all day and the shop sells non-trashy arts and crafts and very good ice cream! After lunch we set off to walk to Silbury Hill and the West Kennet Long Barrow but hadn't realised they were quite such a distance from the village so, when we drew level with Silbury Hill we climbed up a nearby hill and joined the Stone Avenue back towards the village where we had parked the car.

One of the many standing stones (and me) at Avebury

A day later saw me packing my car again and heading to my friends near Oswestry to look after their property while they went off to Brittany for ten days. They were going a month earlier than usual so I was not quite sure what clothing to pack as the weather can be totally different in Powys to Somerset. I was very glad that I had kept some winter weight clothes in my bag as on the day that they left, it snowed! Luckily it didn't last long but it heralded nearly a week of torrential rain which prevented me from doing much outside. I was also very annoyed that I had forgotten to bring my camera with me (the perils of having a home to leave things in!) as I could have got some 'winter' pictures to turn into this year's Christmas cards.

More or less confined to the house I found that time in the valley slowed to almost a standstill, and that got me thinking. We know, from the War Memorial in the nearby village of Llansilin, that a man from this house died in the First World War and I'm sure that he would still recognise 'his' home if he were to return. Apart from the telephone wires on poles down the valley, the view can't have changed much from when he was here. There is very little intrusion of modern day life into the valley as the lane outside only serves a very few houses and doesn't go anywhere that cannot be reached by a better route, so there are only three or four vehicles daily. In the skies above the high valley sides you can sometimes see vapour trails left by planes on their flights to exotic faraway places and, about twice a year, a helicopter arrives at eye level and practices low flying and hovering for a few minutes.

It was even more silent than usual during my stay this year as it was too early for the farmer to have put out his ewes and lambs in the field opposite. I saw lots and lots of fields of ewes and lambs on my journey but this field is remote from the farm so that the lambs have to be quite well-grown and sturdy before the farmer dares to put them out, as he cannot check on them every day. So, in the mornings when I opened the back door and went outside, the only sounds I could hear were the tremendously diverse birdsong, distant tractor noises, distant dogs barking and the far-off sound of sheep – I might have been living in a different century!

I found it quite hard-going being confined to the house so much but made great strides forward in my latest project – knitting jumpers for an orphanage in Tanzania. Now that I have finished my crochet blanket I needed something else to do in my leisure time, preferably something small enough for me to do without getting bored and simple enough for my pretty mediocre knitting skills. Unfortunately, knitting makes my arthritic thumbs ache quite badly so I can only do a bit at a time and had to intersperse it with reading.

When it did stop raining I managed to clear up and clean out the potting shed ready for another season of vegetable growing and planted up several trays of seeds – both flowers (for Dawn) and vegetables (for Tony). Outside, I weeded several of the raised beds ready for planting out the surprising number of plants that Tony had already got established in the greenhouses and cold frames, and also pulled up many ash seedlings which are threatening to take over the wider garden. In future years we will probably discover that they were the only ash trees that were resistant to 'ash die-back' but they are in the wrong places and therefore, technically, weeds!

I took Jasper, the Miniature Schnauzer, out for a couple of walks in the woods during my stay but, after a very stormy night, I decided to walk down the lane in the opposite direction to avoid fallen/falling trees as it was still very windy and there had been a severe weather warning for the area. It was as we turned for home once more that I noticed a bird flying along the road towards us about 4” off the ground. I expected it to divert or fly upwards when it spotted us but it just kept on coming on its chosen flight path and passed us within inches and disappeared around the bend. I am pretty sure, by the very close look that I got as it shot by, that it was a sparrowhawk – very exciting! I also spent ages one morning looking up a 'mystery' bird of prey that was sitting on the telephone wire down in the valley, until I realised that it was a kestrel – it's been such a long time since I've seen this once-common bird close to that I'd forgotten what it looked like!

Towards the end of my stay the weather suddenly dramatically improved and I was working outside in a T-shirt, so I arrived in winter and left in summer – very weird. As I was missing out on a family Easter in Cheltenham I decided to console myself with a bonfire which I started on Good Friday and kept going until the evening of Easter Sunday! To make sure that I had enough material for the fire I, fairly brutally, cut back some very overgrown shrubs of which there are still an awful lot throughout the garden – I think I could work here full-time and I would still never get to the end of the jobs that need doing!

Annoyed with myself for being without my camera, I suddenly realised that I had video capability with my laptop and webcam so, if you have a few minutes to spare, join me on a wander around the gardens using the following link, it's a bit shaky and not fully in focus but it gives a flavour, I think: http://youtu.be/x9w7xFTkgvI

Once Dawn and Tony were safely back from Brittany on Easter Monday I re-packed my car – now with additional trays of seedlings and some tomato plants from France, that Tony had brought back for me – and prepared to head back to Somerset for an overnight stop en route for Cornwall – again!

Sheep wrestling in Cornwall!

James making a much better job of feeding the ewes than I did!

I apologise for the long gap since my last blog but I forgot to take my camera with me to my last WWOOF host and it still had the photos from the previous farm sit on it. That's the trouble with having your own home – you can leave things behind!!

The day after I arrived in Cornwall, on 6^th March, Jo and James headed off to help their son and daughter-in-law get ready for their imminent house move and I was left to tend the sheep for ten days. Because we had a couple of bright, sunny days the mud in the fields started to dry up and this, although better from a human point of view, doesn't seem to be quite so good for the sheep. The sticky mud gets between the two digits of their cloven hooves and then, because of the heat of their bodies, bakes hard so that it must be like walking with a huge stone in your shoe! After a couple of days I had a few lame sheep in the pregnant ewe flock so managed to entice them into a pen in the yard with the help of a bucket of feed and the rather sporadic 'help' of Jess, the sheep dog. Once the sheep were milling about in the pen it was almost impossible to see which were the ones that seemed so lame out in the field but I did manage to catch and treat three of the worst offenders by getting the hard mud out from between their 'claws' and then spraying their foot with an organic fungicidal spray (which, incidentally, smells lovely!).

After a couple of beautiful days, the weather returned to cold, wet and windy and feeding the sheep and riding around on the quad bike, with trailer attached, became less of a pleasant occupation. Unfortunately I still had a very lame sheep in the flock of last year's lambs (now called, mysteriously, hoggets) so decided that I must try and pen them up, too. Unlike the ewes, they have not learned to, reliably, follow a bucket of sheep pellets, so I tried to enlist Jess's help. It would have been funny if it hadn't been so frustrating as, when I gave her the command 'Away', which was supposed to send her in a sweeping arc around the sheep in an anti-clockwise direction, she lay down and, when I became more insistent, she actually put her nose under her tail as if, like a toddler that closes their eyes to become invisible, I would no longer be able to see her if she couldn't see me! In the end I had to resort to stealth and cunning by positioning a barrow of silage at the far end of the pen and waiting until their natural curiosity and greed got the better of them. In this way I managed to corral all but two of them and was able to catch and treat the lame one by turning him over and cutting his toe nails, which had trapped a lot of gritty mud in them ,and then spraying with the foot spray again. I sent Jess home in disgrace!

The other flock of sheep, consisting of ewes that weren't put to the ram this year, for one reason or another, and a few castrated males (wethers) who were not heavy enough to go for slaughter when they should have, were all out in a field on a hill and every morning and afternoon I loaded the trailer with silage and hay and took it out using the quad bike. After a couple of days of heavy rain the steep slope up to the feed rack was getting quite slippery and, even in 4-wheel drive, gave me a couple of heart-in-mouth moments as the back end twitched and slid sideways – but then I am a bit of a 'wuss' when it comes to off-roading and it was never a real problem. The biggest problem was keeping the sheep at bay while I tried to lift the silage into their rack without being squashed by 39 bodies all trying to get the best bits at the same time!

The hoggets were given some sheep pellets, in a long line of troughs, morning and afternoon and a top-up of their silage rack but they were still a bit hesitant about coming close to humans and so this was not a difficult task but, the pregnant ewes were a completely different story! They also had pellets in the morning and afternoon and would wait by the gate bleating impatiently while I loaded up the big green handcart with silage and poured two bucketfuls of pellets into an old feed sack. Then they would follow me closely down the field where I would move the troughs (to stop the ground getting too muddy round them) and wipe them out before getting the heavy bag of pellets and trying to pour an even stream into the troughs whilst walking as quickly as possible along the line. Each morning it seemed to get more difficult to manage this without being barged, from all directions, by woolly bodies until, after about four days, they managed to trip me up. Luckily I fell fairly gently onto the soft, muddy ground and hardly spilled any of the pellets so I just got up and carried on. The next morning they did it again and I began to feel that I was in a wrestling match – three falls or a submission to decide the winner! I must admit that I felt like submitting at that point. It was actually more like being in a Rugby match with 34 players on one side and only one on the other all piling into the scrum, or possibly the first opening of the department store doors on Black Friday! Finally, on the morning that Jo and James were coming home, they had me over for the third time and this time, instead of falling backwards, away from the trough, I fell forwards hitting my knee and shin on the edge of the metal trough so had a couple of pretty bruises by the end of the day!

The weeded and rebuilt herb bed (and Jess)

In the hours between feeding the sheep, and when the weather was dry enough, I finally finished a job that I had been trying to do for three years – I dug over and weeded the small bed outside the house that is going to be a herb garden. It was edged with large rocks, some with beautiful quartz veins in, but these had become surrounded by a very invasive perennial grass as well as Lady's Mantle so that I had to remove them all (and some of the paving slabs in front of them) to remove as much of the root system as possible. It ended up being a much larger job than I'd first thought but it is now done and ready for planting. I do wish I would remember to take 'before' pictures though!

I also went to help at the churchyard tidy-up day – lured by the promise of a bonfire and pasties for lunch, and met up with several people that I'd worked with on the tidy-up day back in the autumn. I also attended the local WI (I'm thinking of becoming a member!) and had another of those odd coincidences – I was chatting to the lady sitting next to me, during the social time, and telling her about some of the places I'd WWOOFed and it turned out that, for twenty years, she had worked at Kincardine Castle on Royal Deeside where I WWOOFed for two weeks about three years ago! She had actually retired from there the month before I arrived and then moved down to this tiny rural community in Cornwall. I almost come to expect these coincidences now – and to think that I used to think that Dickens' plots were contrived!

The empty maternity suite

Once Jo and James arrived home we made a start on preparing the 'maternity wing', as the ewes could start lambing within ten days, so I spent a couple of days pressure washing metal hurdles, hay racks and feed troughs and then erecting pens in the covered yard. As the weather had turned back into warm, balmy weather and this was forecast for another week, James wasn't going to bring the ewes in just yet, but it's a good idea to be prepared well in advance.

On Thursday, 19^th March I packed up my little car and headed off, in beautiful sunshine, towards home. The sunshine lasted until Exeter when it became overcast and windy and this continued all the way back. However, I had decided to visit a National Trust property on the way and, in the end, decided on Barrington Court, near Ilminster. I got there just in time to join a guided tour of the house, which was very interesting. Unlike most National Trust properties, there is no furniture in the house as it is the architectural features that are most noteworthy. I didn't watch Wolf Hall on television but, apparently, a lot of it was filmed in the house, which is of the Tudor period. When it was taken over by a member of the Lyle family (of Tate & Lyle) in the early 1900s it was little more than a derelict shell being used as farm buildings, but he was very keen on architectural salvage and searched out panelling, staircases and even ceilings of the correct period with which to restore the house – the result is breathtaking!

Barrington Court

Number 74

No 74 - aka 'Lady'

"She's in the pen over there, too weak to stand,
We'll have to foster her twins."

I stand and look at you, you won't meet my eyes

as if ashamed to be found weak and helpless

Your twins bounce around the pen, use you as a climbing frame

unaware of your plight

We find a foster mum, she's reluctant to feed them,

so we hold her while they suckle and then return them to you

You show no interest in the babes of whom you were so proud,

your mind turned inwards on your illness

We dose you with antibiotics, you fail to rally.

Next day we take your lambs away, they are too much for you

and you can no longer look after them

We move you gently and support you in a standing position

but there is no hope in your eyes, and little in my heart

We feed you high energy drinks of molasses, minerals and water

a tube placed gently at the back of your throat

Almost in despair I try natural yogurt mixed with water

it's worked on another sheep before

Days pass and you grow weaker – you no longer bleat

for your babies, and the foster mum has accepted them completely

One more time we lift you to a standing position, pressed against the pen side

your head lolling feebly near your water bucket

Miracle!

You dip your head and drink as if your life depends on it which, of course

it does. I cry.

Ridiculous hope refuses to be quenched

I gather ivy leaves and cut grass from the field.

I bring them to you like gifts for a queen or a lady

Lady – that is what I call you and I talk to you all the time as I sit in the straw,

roll grass into small pellets and gently hand feed you.

You chew, perhaps it is a reflex action, but you chew and chew and swallow

and my heart soars with hope

I tell you of how the summer will come and the grass will be green and the sun will be hot

and you'll graze in the meadows once more.

Do you understand? Do you believe me? You chew and swallow, chew and swallow

rest your head in my lap, chew and swallow, chew and swallow.

The day before I have to go I ask if you could try and stand by yourself .

I really don't hold out much hope, you are still so weak.

Next day I come to say 'Goodbye'

You are standing – on your own – by yourself.

Nostalgic end to February

Cornish daffodils

The end of February has been a time of strangely mixed feelings and emotions, as I had two funerals to attend within a week of each other, plus the longer days and lighter mornings brought on feelings of restlessness.

The first funeral was of my childhood friend's father. Our parents had been great friends and we had shared many holidays together as families, staying in Gorran Haven in Cornwall one year, on a farm near Gwinnear in Cornwall the next and then on a farm near Harlech in North Wales, plus lots of visits to each others houses. Our parents remained good friends over the years and shared other holidays after we children had all grown up and flown the nest, so Mum wanted to go and so did I. My brother also came down from London as he and George had always got on well. The service and cremation were held at Gloucester Crematorium and it was a non-religious service with a lovely eulogy given by his eldest son that had us all smiling at familiar stories. Afterwards we went to a local pub for the wake and a catch-up with the family – although I have seen Carol a bit in recent years, I had not seen her older brother, Kevin, for 45 years! He lives in Denmark now so I probably won't see him again for another 45 years!!! Although funerals are sad occasions the inevitable bringing together of people to reminisce brings a lighter note – I always feel slightly guilty for laughing and chatting at the wake but, after all, we are sharing and reinforcing memories of when the departed person was still with us and enriching our lives. George definitely enriched our family holidays with his cine filming mania which lasted for a couple of years and had us up and out early in the morning to shoot the epic smuggling adventure 'The Feet', before the rest of Gorran Haven had got up and trodden all over the set (the beach). This cine film has not seen the light of day for many a year, despite pleadings from all sides to get George to edit it and transfer it onto video (and then CD!), but it has passed into family folklore as my children and my nieces have all heard about it, and a few years ago I even took Jeni to Gorran to show her where the film was shot on location! George was also the person who had the patience to teach me, aged eleven, to finally ride a bicycle in an almost competent manner! Long may he remain alive in our memories.

The following week saw Jeni and I heading to Hampshire for the funeral of her paternal grandfather, where we met up with my son, Dave, who'd driven from Stevenage, and my first husband and his partner, before going to the local church. We met at John's bungalow so that the grandchildren could all choose something of Grampy's to keep, and for me it was a strange experience as I hadn't set foot inside the bungalow for many years. The oddest thing was that nothing appeared to have changed in all those years.

The service was held at the local church which surprised me as, as far as I was aware, John had been an atheist (or at least an agnostic), but it had been largely organised by his daughter and their family and reflected their religious beliefs with hymns, readings and a sermon. The only part of the service that really seemed to be personal to John was the eulogy that his son had written and read out. This time it was a burial, rather than a cremation, and there is nothing quite as sobering as standing next to an open grave on a cold, blustery day, as the coffin is lowered into the ground by four black clad men, the chief of whom was attired in a top hat and tails. He looked a very Dickensian character in his official mourning garb but looked more like Bill Sikes to my way of thinking as he was a large man with a scar on his face. This irreverent thought managed to lift my spirits a little, as I had been very fond of John and felt sad that I had seen so little of him in recent years.

From there we went to the local golf club for the wake and this time I was seeing people that I hadn't seen for 25 years or more, including my nephew and niece who were 12 and 9 respectively the last time that I'd seen them. Needless to say they had changed a bit! At this point I did get a little introspective, wondering where all the years had gone, and what the point of it all was, especially as I felt rather detached from the proceedings having not 'belonged' to this family for so many years and witnessing the age and infirmity of several who had been hale and hearty then.

Luckily I did not have much time to dwell on the passing of the years, as I was only back at home for a couple of days before my WWOOFing/farm sitting year began in earnest with a farm sit at my friends at Dundry. I am having to re-learn all my timings for journeys from my new home and it was quite a surprise to realise that it takes about 50 minutes to get from my house to Dundry – I was thinking that it was 'just down the road'! The farm sit was only for a long weekend but was a good introduction to the year. After two days of slipping and sliding in the muddy paddocks my calf muscles were really aching but, after a warm bath they eased off and didn't give me any more trouble. By the time I've been to Dundry, Cornwall and Powys over the next few weeks I should be back to peak fitness, as they are all on hills! Having managed to hand back most of the animals in a good state of health (I had two chicken fatalities!), I had an overnight stop at home before re-packing my car and heading off to Cornwall.

I realised that the most obvious route to take to Launceston hardly involved any motorway driving, except for a couple of miles around Exeter, so I set off on a bright, sunny morning down the A37, onto the A303 at Podimore and then, eventually, onto the A30 all the rest of the way. This was a route that I have never driven before and it is so stunningly beautiful that I can't believe I've missed it for so long! The A303 runs through fairly flat countryside to start off with and then suddenly starts to climb into the Blackdown Hills, where vista after vista opens up on either side and, in my opinion, vies very favourably with the glorious scenery of northern Powys. One of the things that made it such a pleasant drive was the lack of traffic on the road – I understand that this stretch of the A303 is absolute hell in heavy traffic as there are so few places to overtake slow-moving vehicles. It seemed no time at all until I was turning in to the now-familiar driveway of the farm near Launceston and greeting my friends Jo and James. After a catch-up lunch, it was out round the farm with James to find out where all the sheep were and what the feeding regime was for them all. There are still over 100 sheep on the farm, even though some of them were due to go shortly after my last visit in November, as they lost condition quite rapidly and were not fit to go. Upon further investigation it turned out that they had some mineral deficiencies, mainly iodine, probably caused by leaching out of nutrients from the soil due to the heavy rainfall. The problem has now been rectified and as soon as the new spring grass starts to grow, I am sure that they will start to look better. Luckily, the pregnant ewes were already being given important minerals on their food so didn't suffer the same problem.

Back at the end of October, when I was here before, we were picking out which ewes should go to the ram. James likes to lamb about 30 but we put in some extras as they don't all hold in lamb and, in fact, at least two of the barren ewes we included had not had lambs for two years and were on their 'final warning'. James always has his ewes scanned in January to see how many lambs each ewe is carrying so that feed, etc can be tailored to suit so, imagine his surprise, when all 34 ewes scanned 'in lamb' – it's going to be a busy few weeks at the beginning of April! Of course, my immediate question was 'How many lambs is No 74 expecting?' and I was pleased to hear that she is expecting twins. I will be back here again in the second week of April to help with the lambing so I just hope that she can hang on until I get back!

Early purple crocii in the churchyard at Lezant

On the move!

Well, here we are already half way through February and there are snowdrops out everywhere now – when I wrote my last blog there were only one or two poking their heads out of the frigid ground.

My New Year started off with a very special treat – a visit to the ballet in London, as part of my brother's 60th birthday present to me. I had been given the option of any number of cultural activities that the Great Metropolis could offer, but settled on Swan Lake as I have never, in all my 60 years, been to a live ballet performance and Swan Lake has always been my favourite. I decided to travel from Cheltenham on the Megabus service and couldn't believe that a return ticket was just £5.50! (Out of interest, I worked out that I could travel by Megabus from Cheltenham to Aberdeen for £25.50 although I would have to go via London and it would probably take two days!)

Details from the tapestry

I arrived at Victoria Coach Station at about 12.30pm on Thursday, 8^th January and was not due to meet up with my brother until about 3.30pm so I had planned to go to a small gallery, The Fleming Collection, in Berkeley Street where there was the largest collection of Scottish Art in private hands. It was also displaying a tapestry that had been woven in Scotland and was a copy of a painting of a wintry scene with a lone shepherdess trudging through the snow to feed her flock, but all the shades had been achieved using various natural British wools. I had heard about this tapestry on Radio 4's On Your Farm programme and was intrigued to see it – it was definitely worth the visit and usefully occupied a couple of hours until I could meet my brother.

The finished tapestry

'Cutty Sark' at Greenwich

On the Friday, we took the bus to Greenwich Park and walked down the hill, past the Observatory, to what used to be the Naval College, but is now the Trinity College of Music, to listen to a lunchtime recital in the amazing baroque chapel, and from there we walked to Cutty Sark and around Greenwich Market before walking back up through the Park and catching the bus home. I still can't get over the flocks of parakeets that inhabit the London parks and screech loudly in the trees as you walk by and, also the squirrels that come up and virtually mug you for titbits – brazen creatures. I even caught site of a fox, from the top of the bus, as it wandered quite unconcernedly through a clump of trees on the common.

Saturday was a quieter day but, in the evening, we went to Kings Cross to see a performance that was part of the London Mime Festival. It involved three guys who explored heterosexual male friendships through a mixture of mime and acrobatics – it was stunningly good and I was awestruck by their talent.

Finally, Sunday arrived and we had an early lunch and then made our way to The Coliseum near Charing Cross to see the National Ballet's Swan Lake. It was everything I'd hoped it would be – we were in the Dress Circle so had a really good view of the stage. It was very much a classical performance, of which I was glad, as I don't think I would have enjoyed the recent all-male production in quite the same way. I hadn't realised that there were several possible endings to the story, but they went with the more traditional one where the lovers fling themselves into the lake and are together for ever in the spirit world.

I headed back to Cheltenham on the Monday afternoon but not before visiting Tate Britain and seeing the Turner exhibition which was jaw-droppingly wonderful! I think perhaps my cultural life has been a little lacking in recent years but this incredible weekend should go some way to redressing the balance. I really must get out more!

The next excitement came a week later when I started the move back to Somerset. I am now based just south of Shepton Mallet and renting a small conversion (which I think I shall refer to as 'The Byre', although it has no separate address) from a friend of mine. She has never got into the internet, so it has taken me a while to get it all sorted out, but I am now back online after a month of very little connection. I hadn't realised just how much I relied on it to keep in touch with people, do shopping and banking, etc. 

My new home

 So far I have brought two car loads of stuff from my Mum's and there is still plenty more to keep me going back and forth for some time yet! Luckily, most of my possessions have been stored at this same friend's for the last five years so I only had to move things across the yard – the easiest house move I have ever done! It has taken a while to find homes for everything that I want, but it is gradually coming together.

The best thing was the arrival of my Cornish bed! My WWOOF hosts and friends down near Launceston were replacing the iron-framed bed that I normally sleep in, with a modern divan, and asked if I would be interested in giving it a new home. I always sleep pretty soundly in this bed so knew that the mattress was comfortable and I longed to have a double bed as I don't sleep very well at all in a single bed, not having had one of my own since I was in my teens, so I jumped at the opportunity. On the second Friday after I'd moved in a man and van arrived with my bed on board and I wasted no time at all in assembling it and making it up. Now, anyone who has seen me over the last year will know that I am usually to be seen travelling with a large bag of assorted knitting wool that I have been slowly converting into a crochet blanket for just such a bed, so I sat up on that Friday evening until I had finished sewing it all together and then put it on the bed. What with that and the 100% cotton bedlinen that my son had bought for me for Christmas, I had the most wonderful night's sleep, and have continued to have ever since. Brilliant!

After nearly five years of living in other people's homes it has been quite exciting to get my own space again and I have discovered several things amongst my possessions that I'd completely forgotten about, which has been lovely. I have been quite tough on myself though and created a charity shop box of things that I don't like or will never use again for one reason or another.

After a couple of weeks of moving stuff around and unpacking, I decided to look at the possibility of creating a vegetable plot somewhere, so I am now in the process of building a raised bed out of railway sleepers. There was already a bed in this area but it hasn't been used for some years and was full of nettles, so I started off by digging out all of the weeds. The bed is only about ten inches deep as it sits on top of the concrete of the farm yard, but at least the nettle roots can't go down too deep! I then moved the soil out of the way while I put in a thick layer of well-rotted horse manure, and then put the soil back on top – my shoulders objected to that exercise but I have only been doing a couple of hours a day so that I don't seize up through inactivity (a definite possibility at this time of the year). I now have to construct some rabbit-proof fencing and then I should be more or less ready for when Spring arrives in earnest.

At the end of February I start my WWOOFing/farm sitting year and will be quite busy then until the end of May, although I hope to have a couple of short stays at 'home' between fixtures, so that I can actually plant some seeds of my own.

The Cornish bed complete with crochet blanket!