Lots of gardening and an 'epic' journey!

Before ...

... and after

Gardening seems to have been a major player in September, and I picked up a new client, who was given my name by the plant guy, Adrian, at Shepton Market. Barbara had an herbaceous border that needed sorting as it had got a bit out of hand over the summer but, when I went to see it, it was not as ‘jungley’ as she had led me to believe. After four 3-hour sessions it was restored to some sort of order and there were several clear areas just waiting to be filled with new plants!

At another client, we finally managed to finish emptying the old, leaking pond, renewed the liner and refilled with water. The new liner needed to be 16 feet by 18 feet and was incredibly heavy, but it’s amazing what two determined women, of a certain age, can achieve when we put our minds to it! I’m really looking forward to watching this new pond take shape and mature in the coming months, as it all looks a bit raw at the moment.

Stall at Castle Cary Market

In between the gardening jobs, I have continued running my weekly market stall at both Castle Cary and Shepton Mallet, with varied success. I have discovered that there is absolutely no way to predict which markets will do well and which won’t – it’s not even weather-dependent as I have had some of my best sales on days when it has been grey, wet and miserable! I do now have my ‘regulars’ at both markets, who return again and again to buy marmalade, shortbread and jams. Oddly, I don’t often seem to sell chutneys and pickles – perhaps as we get nearer to Christmas this will change?

Mr Fox

Towards the end of September, I attended East Pennard Open Day, which is a village a couple of miles away. I only took my spinning wheel and my needle-felted sculptures, as jams were being sold by a local organic producer, but I had a very successful day and sold several small sculptures. It helped that it was a lovely, sunny Saturday and the local cheesemakers, in whose farmyard the event mainly took place, were open to the public with tours showing the process.

Mr Badger

At the beginning of September, my lovely Light Sussex cockerel, Aubrey, died and Mary and I decided that we wouldn’t get another one … unless someone came with one under their arm saying that it would be despatched if we didn’t rehome it! Cue my 3-day farmsit back at Dundry, where there were several young cockerels, whose fate was going to be just that! After several text messages back and forth to Mary, I duly left on the Friday evening with a cardboard box containing a Copper Blue Maran cockerel! He looked very similar to one of the Maran hens that I’d bought from Sally previously and, as she is called Smokey, he just had to be Bandit (only people of a certain age will understand the reference!) He seems to have settled in well and the girls don’t seem to mind him at all. His crow was still very ‘new’ when he first arrived but he’s been practising hard and it is beginning to sound better now.

Back in March, I had planned to go to London to stay with my brother and family but, on the very day I was due to go, it snowed heavily and the coach to London was cancelled! Richard was coming to the end of his Master’s Degree and had his final dissertation to write, so we put off re-organising my visit until that was safely out of the way. The first weekend in October was when we finally got to re-book! I had decided that, at the age of 65, I really should be able to travel across London on my own without panicking or getting irretrievably lost in the Underground, but it was a huge ‘thing’ for me, as I have never been great about travelling on public transport – airports (not the actual flying) are the worst, closely followed by train stations, large coach stations and the Underground. On previous visits my brother had met me at Victoria Coach Station and chaperoned me across London, but I was determined to do it alone this time!

The adventure started at 7.50am in Shepton Mallet, when I boarded the Berrys coach bound for Hammersmith Bus Station by way of Frome, Warminster and a layby somewhere on the A36 near Codford! During the journey our hostess came round with drinks and snacks, which I thought was very civilised, especially as she had shortbread biscuits. We arrived at Hammersmith at about 11.45 and I descended into the Underground. I had worked out my route beforehand and printed myself a cribsheet, which I now grasped in my pocket like a talisman. On it I had written down each tube line I needed, it’s end destination, the stop at which I needed to alight and how many stops that was from my starting point. So, it was onto the Piccadilly Line at Hammersmith, off at Green Park; onto the Jubilee Line, off at Canning Town; onto the Docklands Light Railway, off at Woolwich Arsenal; catch a bus from near the station and get off at Plumstead Common. Phew! It all went incredibly well and I was on an adrenaline high when I finally reached my destination – no panicking, no getting lost and it had only taken me one and a half hours!

A Thames barge nears the Barrier

Lesnes Abbey ruins

It was lovely to see Rich, Jo and Rosa again – we don’t see each other more than twice a year and it is at least six years since I last went to London. We had a lovely weekend – we walked along the Thames Path, past the Thames Barrier on Saturday, and then, on Sunday, my bro and I went on an 8-mile walk to Lesnes Abbey and back via Thamesmead along another part of the Thames Path, stopping at a pub in Plumstead to have some Nepalese snacks – I love the fact that you can try so many different foods in London! On Saturday evening we all went up to the Criterion Theatre in the West End to see a play called The Comedy About a Bank Robbery performed by the Mischief Theatre, which was highly entertaining and very cleverly done.

Canary Wharf from the Thames Clipper

I was travelling back on Monday evening and Rich had to travel to Leeds on Monday evening, too, so we went up to London in the morning, travelling up the Thames on a boat from North Greenwich and alighting at The Globe Theatre, before spending the rest of the day at Tate Modern. I’d never been there before, and I’m not a great lover of modern art, but there was an interesting exhibition by Olafur Eliasson, who uses complex mathematical shapes in his architecture and is also fascinated by Iceland and the melting of the Polar ice, so quite a mixed exhibition.

The view from Tate Modern

Rich saw me across town on the tube and we parted company at Green Park Station as he was getting on the Piccadilly Line going in one direction and I was going in the opposite direction, back to Hammersmith and the Berrys Coach home. It had been the start of the Extinction Rebellion protests in London that day and two or three of the passengers returning to Somerset had been at Lambeth Bridge all day. I do wonder if they will have an impact on Government and its decisions regarding climate change – I know my fourteen-year old niece, Rosa, is very concerned about the future and took part in the school strikes recently.

Where did August go?

Beautiful hydrangea at Cilrhiw

I’ve finally got around to writing the August blog!

August on the Cotswolds

August started in typically manic mode, as I started the month still in South Somerset, where I finished my dog/house sit on the Saturday morning, before driving back to Shepton Mallet, unpacking, repacking and going straight off to Cheltenham on the Saturday afternoon! The weather was lovely and I decided that, as I had never actually stopped in Tetbury on my many journeyings through it, if I could find a parking place I would finally break my journey and have a wander. I drove into the car park near the centre of the town, only to see the car in front of me take the final parking place! Doh! I’ll stop there one of these days! I carried on across the Cotswolds rejoicing in the golden stone walls, the abundance of wild flowers in the verges and the barley ripening in the fields – all the things I love best about my native hills.

The Golden couple and family!

On Sunday morning, Mum and I donned our glad rags and set off for Oxford to attend Mum’s cousin’s Golden Wedding Celebrations. The venue was the Oxford University Rugby Club pavilion and, although I’d found it on Google maps, it all looked very different on the ground on a very busy and very hot Sunday! It was at this point that, just for a short time, I wished I had Satnav. However, following my nose, and having a vague idea of the area I needed to be in, we actually found it and were only half-an-hour later than I’d intended. It was a great afternoon and I got to see my two cousins, one of whom lives in New Zealand, who I have rarely seen since they were children.

I stayed at Mum’s overnight but left soon after breakfast as I had a gardening job to do on Monday afternoon, followed by baking for Tuesday’s market. As you can imagine, by Wednesday, I wasn’t sure who I was, where I was or what day it was!

The following weekend I did a short farm sit for my friends at Dundry, so that they could attend a birthday party in Cornwall – I was amazed to see the size of the chicks that I’d looked after a few months ago, and the ducklings that had hatched just after I’d left, were now indistinguishable from the adults. As I drove home across the Mendips on Sunday evening I suddenly realised that I’d left my wellingtons behind! For a gardener/farm sitter this is a bit of a disaster but, I also realised that I would be almost driving past the door again the following day so could stop and collect them then.

Monday morning saw Jeni and me heading north (via Dundry) up the M5. However, there was so much traffic on the motorway, that I decided to get off just north of Bristol and head up the A38 to Gloucester and beyond. We were going to Oswestry, so went up the border, stopping at the wonderfully-named Trumpet Tea Rooms to have some lunch, break the journey and look around their lovely little art gallery. Dawn was working in a shop called Rowanthorn on Monday, so Jeni and I dropped in to see her and ended up buying things – although the contents are similar to those on offer in Glastonbury, Mike prices everything so reasonably (and gives such lovely hugs – a very important factor as far as I’m concerned) that it seems wrong not to indulge!

Fish and chip supper at Barmouth

This may well be our last visit to the lovely Cilrhiw, as they have received two offers on the property, and we were there for a short break to do some gardening and also spend time with Dawn. Tuesday was a dry day, so we worked most of the day in the garden, weeding paths and flower beds and cutting back the triffid-like hardy geraniums. On Wednesday it rained, so we turned our attention indoors and painted the bathroom, shower room and conservatory – once we get started there’s no stopping us! The weather on Thursday could have gone either way, so we all took the day off, put Jasper (the Miniature Schnauzer) into the car and drove across North Wales to Harlech, where we spent quite a long time on the beach. Dawn and Jeni wanted a paddle so left me sitting on a rug on the sand. There had obviously been quite fierce storms in the days before we arrived as the high tide line was marked by great swathes of seaweed, and there were numerous dead jellyfish littering the sand – poor things, although they do look very much like aliens! From Harlech we drove  a little bit further south to Barmouth and ended the day sitting on the promenade, eating fish and chips and keeping a wary eye on the seagulls!

On Friday morning we said a sad farewell to Dawn, Jasper and Cilrhiw – both Jeni and I have done a lot of work in that garden over the last nine years! I can’t quite believe that I will never experience the solitude and quiet in that valley setting again.

My son, Dave, came down to Somerset on the Saturday, to help me celebrate my birthday and, as he was on ‘Factory Fortnight’ he stayed in my caravan for a few days and we were able to have a much-needed catch up, plus he got to see some Bristol-based friends, too.

And then, suddenly, we were at the Bank Holiday weekend and I was off to the farm near Pensford, on the way to Bristol, to farm sit for the alpacas! At least, I thought, I won’t have to worry about the imminent arrival of baby alpacas, as they must all have been born by now. However, Sarah had another nerve-racking task for me – one of the baby alpacas (cria) needed to have a top-up bottle twice a day, as his mum didn’t seem to be producing sufficient milk for him. First, catch your cria as, unlike most bottle-fed lambs, he didn’t come galloping towards you whenever you appeared. Sarah found the easiest way to feed him was to scoop him up, sit down in a camping chair, with the bottle in the drinks holder, fold his legs under him, so that he was sitting on her lap and then, keeping a firm pressure across his back with one arm (to prevent him scrambling off) hold the bottle in the other hand. It all looked quite easy, but I knew that was just an illusion! 

Dougal xx

On Friday afternoon I had my first solo experience. Dougal did not want to be caught, particularly by a complete stranger, but I carefully and quietly walked him into a group of adults and, hoping that they wouldn’t kick me, managed to catch him. When I scooped him up I was really surprised at how light he was – they are all long legs and fleece! We managed to sit down quite comfortably and it was rather pleasant, cuddling a baby alpaca on a warm, sunny afternoon, whilst watching the other alpacas and the sheep in the further field, whilst large dragonflies hunted for insects beneath the trees bordering the River Chew. He was not a fast feeder, in fact each feed took about half-an-hour and he was only having 5 fluid ounces of goat’s milk at a time. He also hummed most of the time, too. I thought they only hummed if they were nervous, but Sarah assured me that it is just their way of communicating. They all hum to a certain extent but Dougal seemed to do it far more and I found myself humming back, which he didn't seem to mind! I think I am now fluent in alpaca-speak!

I’m pretty sure that the other animals recognised me from my last visit as, apart from two additional goslings that hadn’t met me, they all behaved very well – I even think I got most of the chickens into the right runs this time! As it was such lovely weather, I spent quite a bit of each day in the garden weeding, first the herbaceous border and then an area, overgrown with weeds, that had fruit bushes in it. Bonnie, the lovely Labrador tried to help by tearing up mouthfuls of couch grass!

Before the day got too hot and again, in the cool of the evening, Bonnie and I would go for a walk along the river, up through the wood, stopping to check and feed the male alpacas, and then back through the meadow to the house. A couple of times we went a bit further, up the Public Footpath that runs through the meadow, across the next field and then back down the green lane that borders their land. This green lane is, very obviously, an ancient trackway connecting two villages as it lies sunken between two banks and with a rough stone track bed, but it is now only used by the occasional horse rider and boys on scramble bikes, and even they must struggle to get through in places as the brambles virtually meet in the middle. I often wish that I could go back in time to see what these places looked like in the past.

And there we are – August in a nutshell, and here we are already into September and the seasons are turning again with brambles laden with fruit, sloes ripening on the blackthorn, tomatoes and courgettes in the garden and me, with a slight sense of panic as I feel I have to somehow pick and preserve all this bounty!

The fruit bed - before ...

... and after!

Fun-packed July!

Well, July has been and gone, and it’s time for another blog! I cannot believe how fast this year is whizzing by!

The Wedding Gazebo

Assembling on the terrace

At the beginning of July, our local choir was asked to sing at one of our member’s daughter’s wedding. We usually sing at a couple of local weddings during the year and have quite a selection of suitable songs in our repertoire, but this was a coach outing to Portland on the south coast near Weymouth! The venue was a stunning, castellated house overlooking the sea, set in beautiful grounds. The weather was perfect for the outdoor wedding, with blue sky, blue sea and a gentle breeze that kept the temperature at an acceptable level. Our job was to sing a medley of songs for half an hour whilst all the guests assembled and then move to another part of the terrace, overlooking the wedding gazebo, to sing for the bride’s entrance (The Rose), the signing of the register (Songbird) and the walk back up the ‘aisle’. The couple had requested Elbow’s ‘One Day Like This’ as the final piece and we had been practising it for a couple of months. The altos (including me) were very excited as we, finally, got to sing the tune, instead of being the support underneath the sopranos! As the bride and groom processed up the aisle, followed by their guests, we burst into song and, when we got to the final chorus, everyone joined in, so we just kept on going, repeating the final phrases over and over, as the wedding party came up onto the terrace and walked past us singing their hearts out. What a wonderful experience!

The following week my daughter and her partner went on holiday to Crete and asked me to cat sit for their two feline friends. As they only live in Shepton, it was easier for me to move into their house, rather than drive a couple of miles twice a day to feed them. It was a real pleasure to be able to leave the car parked on the driveway and walk into town to do a few bits of shopping or meet up with a friend for coffee, without having to worry whether I had overstayed my time in the car park! If I had a large enough garden, I think I could be happy living in a small town. The weather was lovely, for the most part, during my 10-day stay, so I did a few weeding jobs in the garden, repaired the water butt tap and mended the bird bath. I had an epic fail when I tried to repair the outside tap but, armed with the correct tools and with the benefit of a YouTube video about the correct way to install plastic push-fit connectors, I will return!

The rest of the month has been the usual round of gardening jobs and market days, but I had two particularly good days at Castle Cary market (It was actually a bit profitable!) and I found that my stocks of jams and marmalade were perilously low so, on some of the hottest days this year, I was to be found, in the afternoons, stirring pans of raspberry jam, summer fruits jam, rhubarb & ginger jam, and marmalade! In the mornings of those really hot days, I went to my gardening clients at 7.00 am and worked for 4 hours to avoid the worst (best?) of the heat. Then it was drive home, lunch, fall asleep (it’s an age thing, I think) then wake up and do the preserves.

Tug-o-War in the kitchen

I was only home for a week before I drove to South Somerset, to a new client, where I have been looking after 2 dogs for the last week. One of the dogs, Bella, is a stone-deaf, 12-year old chocolate Labrador and the other is a 20-week old Cava-Cocka-Poo (Cavalier King Charles Spaniel – Cocker Spaniel -Poodle)! As you can imagine, the pup is a real live wire and continually wants Bella to play. Sometimes Bella will indulge her with a game of tug-o-war but, more often than not, she just wants some peace and quiet, so keeping Pebble entertained and distracted has been my major job.

I am always surprised at how different the topography of South Somerset is, compared with the more northern area that I live in. Here, the hills are more rolling with lots of beautiful and majestic, mature oak trees and big, open vistas of sky. The air seems to be particularly clear so that each tree on each hillside stands out in crisp relief. Our nearest walk is just across the lane, in a large field (8-10 acres, I would guess) that has recently been cut for silage. It is very popular with dog owners in the village, but we usually have it to ourselves. Here I can safely let the dogs off the lead and, while Bella and I stroll round the perimeter at Old Lady Speed, Pebble aka The Black Streak, whizzes around and covers at least six times the distance that we do! This suits us all very well, and also gives me the chance to really observe my surroundings. 

The majority of the hedges around the field seem quite old with hawthorn, blackthorn, hazel, elm, oak and crab apple in the mix. There seem to be a lot of sloes this year, and the hazel nuts will ripen soon. There also seem to be a lot of haws forming and many apples on the crab apple, so a lot of food for the animals and birds come autumn. Although the field is mainly meadow grass, around the edges, where the mower couldn’t reach, there are clumps of campion, mayweed, meadowsweet and yarrow as well as the ubiquitous thistle, so there is an abundance of insect life. There are Large White butterflies and Meadow Brown butterflies and, this morning, I spotted a beautiful Brimstone butterfly and, as I walk, I send up clouds of small, pale diurnal moths that flutter away and land again amongst the grass stalks.

In the mornings, when it is still relatively cool, the Swallows and House Martins are hunting insects high up above us but, come the evening and they are skimming over the grasses as the insects fly closer to the ground. Pebble thinks they are there just for her entertainment and rushes around the field trying to catch the darting shapes, but they easily fly out of her reach!

And now it is the beginning of August - I wonder what adventures the month will bring? 

Pebble (aka The Black Streak)!

Alpacas!

Angelina and friends

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Baby Albert

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

Spring wildlife

Early morning reflections in Moelfre Lake

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

Snow!

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

Exhausted juvenile otter

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

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

Needle-felted nuthatch

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

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

March Sunday Market

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

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

Springtime Creativity

Potted snowdrops and snowdrop pouches

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

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

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

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

Vinyl wallpaper stripping!

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

Needle-felted snowdrops

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

Needle-felted primroses

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

Needle-felted violets

Festivities and Fun on the Farm!

Sunset over East Penrest farmhouse

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

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

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

My Sunday Market stall

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

Stream in spate

Normal winter stream level

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

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

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

The Christmas branch

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

Quad biking!

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

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

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

Dave with Jess, Pickle and stick