Another farm sit and an anniversary!

 

On Easter Saturday Jeni and her workmate, Lou, threw themselves out of a perfectly good plane at 15,000 feet! This was the delayed parachute jump in aid of their firm’s adopted charity of last year, BIBIC. I couldn’t bring myself to watch live so waited at home for a text message to say that she had landed safely. She jumped in tandem with an instructor, and he had an automatic camera on his wrist that took many photos of Jeni on the way down! They were in free fall for over a minute before deploying the parachute and, apparently, it was wonderful, and exhilarating and she wants to do it again!! Where does she get this daredevil attitude from? The most I've ever done is ride pillion on a motorbike at 100mph (twice!) and flown in a glider!

Jeni and Lou back on the ground

Freefall!

Parachute safely deployed - Phew!

We were due to go to Mum’s for Easter, so later that same day I picked Jeni up and we drove to Cheltenham. I’d been gardening in the morning (to distract myself from worrying about the above!) and felt a bit snuffley on the drive, but thought it was just the effects of tree pollen or something. It was due to be a lovely weekend as my brother and my son were both there, too. However, when I woke on Sunday morning I had a sore throat and felt a bit dizzy, so decided to take a Covid test, never thinking that it would actually be positive, as I hadn’t really been anywhere or met anyone, apart from gardening clients, and that was always outdoors. It was positive! By 10.30 Jeni and I were back on the road home, our Easter plans wrecked. Inevitably, Jeni also tested positive a few days later but nobody else got it, so I’m glad we acted so fast and went home. I kept myself to myself for the rest of the week, even though, officially, we don’t have to isolate anymore, and spent a couple of days curled up on the sofa, continually wiping my nose whilst watching all the latest Bond films on catch-up!

Ten days after contracting Covid I had another farm sit booked, so was very glad that I felt almost normal again by then. I did take the precaution of wearing my mask while Sally did the handover, as the last thing she and Geoff wanted was a dose of Covid while on holiday in the Scilly Isles! There were a few less adult chickens than in previous years, but there were two brooders (boxes with heat lights over) with several chicks in each and a tray of eggs due to hatch while they were away, plus two more trays in another incubator, and a random few more in another incubator! There were also three or four pens with broody bantams in, all sitting on clutches of eggs, and these I marked with a piece of red baler twine, as several other bantams were trying to go broody and had to be persuaded off the newly-laid eggs each evening.

I soon got back into the swing of morning let out – checking food and water levels, and lifting the broodies to see if anything had hatched overnight; and evening shut-in – closing all feed hoppers (against the ubiquitous rats and squirrels), picking up eggs and checking that everyone was inside before shutting the hatches. In between, I did a bit of gardening, fed cats, tortoises and dogs, topped up the bird feeders and did a bit of knitting. There are numerous bird feeders hung in an apple tree just outside the kitchen window, so I had a really good view of the birds that came to feed – there were two pairs of bull finches, chaffinches and even a greenfinch, as well as blue and great tits, robins and dunnocks. Sadly, the camera nest box has remained empty this year, even though there seem to be plenty of blue tits around – that was always fascinating to watch at this time of year.

Tortoise picnic

Four days after my arrival, the eggs in the incubator started to hatch and by the end of the second day I had an extra 13 mouths to feed! I set up another brooder box in the barn and carefully transferred the chicks in a straw-lined bucket from one building to the other, where I introduced them to their new home and made sure they knew where the water and food containers were, before leaving them to settle in. It’s very difficult to get a good photo when the chicks are under an infra-red heat lamp, but I tried:

Newbie chicks - so cute!

 

On my last day there, I was checking all the broody bantams when I realised that one, who had only been sitting on four eggs, was now only sitting on three. As I was wondering what could possibly have happened to the fourth egg, and moving the hen around to check every corner, a small black chick suddenly dropped out from under her wing! As she was in a run with a bantam cockerel and they can sometimes kill the chicks, I carefully removed her, the chick and the remaining eggs, to a different house and run, where she soon settled down to look after Junior! All-in-all, I managed to hand back more lives than I was entrusted with at the beginning of the sit, but I did have two hen deaths during the week. When I first started doing farm sits for Sally, which is nearly 11 years ago(!), a sudden hen death would have panicked me, but I’m much more pragmatic these days!

On 7^th May, I celebrated an anniversary – one year since I picked up the keys to my new home! I looked back over the estate agent’s photos and the ones that I have taken during the year and realised that I have actually achieved quite a bit, even though, at times, it felt as if I was running through treacle! Of course, there are still quite a few things that need doing but then, I’d be pretty bored if everything was up together and completed! The garden is gradually taking shape, as I uncover more of the original hard landscaping that had been buried beneath all the weeds, and put my own mark on it, too, although it would be nice to be able to plant more things rather than building raised beds, stabilising banks, repairing fences and sifting gravel! I have just completed a raised bed where I have planted my soon-to-be-espaliered fruit trees - an apple tree from a WWOOF host near Oswestry and a greengage. I have another apple still to plant against the bit of fence I haven't repaired yet, and this one was grafted by a WWOOF host in Cornwall. 

My new raised bed

Fruit trees

I chanced a look on Rightmove the other day to see what was about in the area, in my price range. There isn’t a lot and, I understand, what there is, is selling like hot cakes, but I did notice a bungalow with a good-sized garden ‘in need of cosmetic improvement’, in a village near my best friend …….

The garden in May 2021

The garden in May 2022

Spring farm sit and other shenanigans!

 

Spring flowers on my decking

Yet again, it’s been quite a while since I last wrote a blog!

At the end of February we experienced Storm Eunice, which was very scary perched on Windmill Hill in Glastonbury as the winds shrieked around the house, took out the electricity and threatened my new fence! I was very glad that I’d had the log burner installed as, if the power was off for too long, I’d at least be warm and able to cook toast and heat soup! In the event, all was well, although one part of the old, rickety fence on the other side of the garden succumbed to the inevitable. As the house on that side of me is empty at the moment, I have decided to instigate repair works myself, to save any further problems. The next morning, as I packed and prepared to go off to farm sit the alpacas near Bristol, I noticed a strange film on all of the rear windows of the house. Upon further investigation (I ran my finger over the film and then licked it!) I discovered that it was salt spray, brought over 15 miles from the coast at Highbridge by the wind!

The following day was a lot calmer weather-wise and I made it to the village of Woollard in good time, and was duly taken around the farm to see where everything was, prior to Chris’s and Sarah’s departure. Everything was going smoothly with the hand over until we came to the boy alpaca field. Sarah had suggested that she show me how to catch the alpacas, in case I ever needed to as, in fact, I had needed to back in November when I was last here, when one of the boys got a noose of baler twine, from a hay bale, caught around his neck and I had had to catch him and then cut the noose with my pen knife. Luckily for me (and for him) he was one of the calmer, more amenable boys and used to being handled so, although nerve-racking, had not been impossible to do single-handedly. To demonstrate the catching technique we first gathered all the boys into a large pen and it was then that we noticed one of the boys had a weepy eye. On closer inspection we could see that he must have got something in his eye and the cornea was quite ulcerated and obviously very sore – cue urgent phone call to the vet who, unfortunately was nearly 20 miles away doing a tricky lambing, and couldn’t get to us for at least two hours. Poor Sarah and family, their anticipated departure time got later and later, but at least when the vet came, she could give eye drops and pain relief and a long-acting antibiotic so no further treatment should be needed, as long as I checked each day that it was healing OK.

My duck patients!

 I also had, in my care, and housed temporarily in the large cellar larder in a dog-whelping crate, two poorly ducks. They both had ‘bumblefoot’ which sounds rather cute and slightly amusing but is anything but! It is caused by a virus entering a wound on the foot, caused by stones, a foreign object, such as glass, or a thorn. The virus creates a painful swelling and overgrowth of tissue and the bird struggles to walk and is more common in chickens – it is also more easily treated in chickens as, once the swelling has been cut away, it is relatively easy to bandage a chicken foot. It is not easy to bandage a duck’s foot, as you have to be careful not to bind the webs between the toes too tightly, as the circulation is then compromised! As the wounds had to be dressed, at the very least every other day, it was decided that I should take the ducks to the vet, a round trip of about 20 miles, to enable the feet to be checked, assessed and re-bandaged. I popped the two girls into a cat basket for the trip and they seemed to quite enjoy the ride and Classic FM on the radio, they weren’t so keen on the vet procedure but we were soon on our way back. All was going well until the car in front of me decided to brake suddenly coming up to Bristol Airport, necessitating a bit of an emergency stop on my part. Imagine my horror when I heard behind me the sound of the cat basket shooting forward and obviously rolling over! As soon as I could I pulled into a field gateway and leapt out, expecting the ducks to be very distressed and/or hurt, but they seemed fine, a little confused as to why their world had suddenly turned upside down, but no worse for their adventure. Phew!

The rest of the farm sit proceeded in a fairly straightforward manner with no more animal emergencies, and I managed to hand back the same number of living creatures as had been entrusted to my care – always a good thing I’ve found!

A view from the Tor

My ‘intention’ to climb the Tor regularly got off to a great start with a climb at the end of February that took me 27 minutes ‘Door to Tor’ with three stops on the climb up the steep side to catch my breath, and another climb the following week that took 25 minutes with no stops! However, if there had been anyone at the top of the Tor that morning, I would have been completely incapable of speaking to them for at least 5 minutes! Since then I’ve only been up the Tor once more and that was more of an amble with Jeni, stopping to admire strange tree roots, wild flowers and a small vole who poked his nose out of his burrow jus as we wandered past. Needless to say, it took us 45 minutes with countless stops along the way!

In the middle of March, Jeni and Hutch went off to Egypt for a much-delayed holiday, and I de-camped to their house in Shepton Mallet to look after the cats. I was still able to get to my gardening clients, so life was almost normal, apart from the fact that the cats insisted on sleeping on the bed with me, which is something I wouldn’t normally tolerate, but the alternative was them scratching at the bedroom door all night. At least they were fairly well-behaved and didn’t wake me in the middle of the night.

The day after they came home, I drove to Cheltenham to stay with Mum for a couple of nights as it was Mother’s Day on the Sunday and, on the Monday, we had a funeral to attend in Gloucester. This was the funeral of a lady who featured a lot in my younger years, as we all used to go on holiday together; five in our family and five in theirs, with the three children in each family being of a similar age. My older sister drew the short straw there as her ‘corresponding’ child was a boy! In a way, I was doubly lucky as my corresponding child was a girl, a year younger than me, and we got on really well but I also got to hang out with the older brother as we both liked to go rock-pooling. We had some amazing holidays, staying in self-catering cottages or bed-and-breakfast on farms in both Cornwall and Wales, where lots of childhood memories were made. It was seven years since Carol’s father had died, which was when I had last seen the majority of the family, and it was a bitter-sweet day as we said ‘Farewell’ to Audrey and then exchanged memories and chat at the ‘wake’, held in the same hotel as before. I was a bit unsettled by it, to be honest, as it brings home the passing of time and that we are all now ‘old’!! I can’t imagine that Kevin and I would be much good at rock-pooling any more, or that Carol and I could get so enthusiastic about getting up in the middle of the night, to go and see a calf being born! (Actually, I can still imagine us doing that!)

I don’t have many photos to share this time – I’m not sure photos of old bits of fence prior to refurbishment are that inspiring. Perhaps there will be more next time!

My camellia in full flower 

February 2022

 

Snowdrops and hellebores at North Cerney House

It’s been a couple of months since I last wrote a blog and, in the worsening situation in the world, I have found it increasingly difficult to put pen to paper, figuratively speaking. The minutiae of my daily life seem so incredibly pointless in a world beset by a continuing global pandemic and the machinations of a Russian despot. However, I find, at times like these, sometimes the only thing we can do is to concentrate on our small sphere of influence and try to make a difference where we can.

Since the New Year I have spent quite a lot of time staying with my Mum in Cheltenham, as I have done for the last couple of years. Mum really dislikes the months of January and February and in this she is not alone, and I have no gardening jobs to do at this quiet time of year, so it makes sense to keep each other company. Of course, this year has been slightly different in as much as I now have my own home that needs some input from me, even if it is just to check that the place is still secure and still standing!

The fence nearing completion

My fencers were due to start erecting my new fence on Monday, 10^th January, but Mum was not at all well over the weekend with a heavy cold that reduced her to bed rest, an unheard of event, and I didn’t like to leave her, so Jeni swung into action, organising a key, fresh milk for tea and coffee and checking with my neighbours that their side gate would be unlocked for Russell and his mate to gain access. My sister and brother-in-law, who had been due to come and see Mum on the Wednesday, hastily rearranged their week and arrived on Monday afternoon, allowing me to drive home that evening. It was dark when I got home so it was not until Tuesday morning that I got to look out of the window and see what progress had been made. Well, what a surprise, the bulk of the fence was already up! Russell and Kevin duly turned up at 8.30 and had pretty much completed the job by lunchtime – we’d even found time to drive over to Pylle and retrieve my four fruit trees that we loaded into the back of Russell’s pick up. I am so pleased that the job is complete, and my neighbours are delighted with it, too.

New shelves

Finally unpacked my books!

Having spent a week at home, in which I finally got around to making my bookshelves for the alcove in the sitting room, I headed back to Cheltenham, where the first stirrings of Spring were beginning to be felt. Mum had pots of violas and miniature daffodils on her patio and there were aconites and snowdrops emerging under the weeping silver birch in the front garden. On a bright, sunny day we drove over to Rendcomb, a small hamlet on the way to Cirencester, where there is a streamside house with a profusion of snowdrops and crocus spilling out across the lawns and down the banks of the tumbling brook. They are the first real show of snowdrops in the area, and they really lift the spirits. Later on in my stay we carried on further along the road to Cirencester to North Cerney House. This is a private residence, but the gardens are open to the public all year round for a £5 entry fee. At this time of year their snowdrop walk is popular, but Mum and I love the walled garden where there are snowdrops, pulmonaria and a huge collection of different hellebores. Later in the season the beds are full of different coloured tulips, and there are roses and espaliered fruit trees, as well. To complete the perfect morning out, they have a self-service café in the garden bothy, with the most amazing cakes! We came home cross-country and were amazed to see a large flock of what appeared to be chaffinches, feeding on a stubble field. I had never seen so many at one time so Googled it on my return home, to discover that large flocks of visiting chaffinch fly in from the continent to overwinter in our countryside.

Snowdrops at North Cerney House

Because the weather was, on the whole, pretty murky and miserable, we spent quite a lot of time indoors watching the birds on the bird feeders and became aware of the same birds visiting regularly. There were the ubiquitous jackdaws, who have learned within a couple of years, how to perch on the fat ball feeder without having to flap their wings to balance all the time. They are quite messy feeders, so we have at least two wood pigeons who take up station under the bird feeders, as soon as the jackdaws appear, and clear up the mess like a couple of grumbling housekeepers! We also noticed several blackbirds, but they were already getting territorial and spent a lot of time chasing each other out of the garden. However, we did notice a rather odd ‘friendship’ - whenever a certain female blackbird arrived under the feeders, she would invariably be joined by a dunnock, who seemed to find her presence reassuring. They would peck around quite happily together but, if any other bird arrived, the blackbird would chase them off and the dunnock would dive for cover in the border! Our greatest pleasure was when a jay visited the garden – they are normally very shy birds and stay near wooded areas, but this one came regularly, especially when I started putting a few peanuts out on the lawn each morning. If I was a bit tardy with my breakfast offering, he would come closer to the house and sit in the magnolia, peering in through the patio window as if to ask what I thought I was doing!

Our visiting Jay

If you remember, from my last blog, I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions but have ‘intentions’! Two of my intentions for this year are to keep in better contact with friends and relatives, and to climb Glastonbury Tor once a week to improve my aerobic fitness! I am not doing too badly on either, at the moment:

I went to see my old school friend, Mads, whilst I was staying at Mum’s, as she lives at Royal Wootton Bassett which is only a 40-minute drive from Cheltenham. I arrived in time for coffee, and we never stopped talking the whole day! I have no idea how we find so much to chat about, but then we never had any problems nattering when we were in our teens, either! I eventually left in the early evening and drove back through a dark and rainy evening to Cheltenham, tired, a little hoarse, but incredibly happy that we had made contact again.

Towards the end of my stay with Mum, I decided to take her to see my Welsh ‘aunt’, Jen, as they hadn’t been able to see each other for a long time and Jen had been quite poorly before Christmas with Covid and was still suffering the after effects. Jen lives in Cwmbran which is about a one-and-a-half-hour journey from Cheltenham. We set off in good time and, having negotiated various new road layouts around Gloucester, entered the lovely Forest of Dean. We’d hoped to see some wildlife on our journey, but it was a damp and drizzly day and they were obviously all sheltering somewhere – I thought we might have seen some wild boar, as there is quite a population in the Forest. Again, we had a lovely day chatting about this and that, and Jen cooked us a delightful roast dinner with a wonderful summer pudding for dessert. All too soon, it was time to head home through the dark and the drizzle, which was quite trying as the windscreen wipers on ‘intermittent’ were not quite enough to clear the screen, but screeched horribly on full wipe, so that I couldn’t decide between being barely able to see between wipes or deafened by the banshee screeching! We were both very glad to get home!

Finally, on my way back to Somerset, I called on another childhood friend, Carol, and her husband, Pete, who live in a village near Stroud. It’s at least a couple of years since I saw them so, again, it was great to catch up and meet their new dog, Dexter, who is a cross between a Labrador and a Bernese Mountain Dog! Carol walks him twice a day and reckons she covers about 8 miles, which made me realise how unfit I am – hence the intention to climb the Tor.

The view from the Tor

So far I have managed to climb the Tor twice, both times from the steep side and having to stop a couple of times to catch my breath. It takes me 25 minutes from ‘door to Tor’ but I am hoping to improve on that over time. The views from the top are magnificent on a clear day and there is usually someone at the top playing guitar, digeridoo or drumming! The first time I went back down the gentle side, into the town, and found a collection of painted pebbles for sale at the bottom – it’s all ‘normal for Glastonbury’. Dave reckons I’ll fit it in with all the weirdness really well!

Well, that just about wraps up my meanderings for now, I hope they have made you smile. Stay safe and positive until next time x

Painted pebbles for sale 

New Year, New Blog!

A burst of sunlight on winter trees

Firstly, I would like to say a very Happy New Year to all my loyal readers! I’d intended to write another blog in December, but you know what they say about good intentions! When asked if I make New Year Resolutions, my inevitable reply is that I have ‘intentions’, not resolutions, as it doesn’t seem such a heinous crime when I, very quickly, fail to keep them!  

The long-anticipated fence erection is due to go ahead within the next week, which will help me massively in the planning of my garden. I finally fought my way down the other fence line to the bottom of the garden and discovered the filled-in remains of an old pond and associated water course, which is going to cause me a few issues as the ground level drops away at that point. I’m now wondering whether to try and construct some form of bank/terrace to separate the ‘utility’ area of the garden from the ‘pleasure’ area. The utility area, with no-dig raised beds, really needs to be the next thing under construction, as I have pots of sea kale and rhubarb from one of my gardening clients, that need to be planted out; a pot of rescued raspberry canes; a potted gooseberry bush; yacon tubers and four fruit trees, and that’s just for starters! Once the fence is completed everything to and from the garden will have to come through the house, so I am hoping to get at least the four fruit trees brought over from my old address before that happens.

Before pruning

After pruning

Last week Jeni and her partner came over and pruned the large Bramley apple tree that takes up a lot of space at the bottom of the garden. It was heavily festooned with brambles, as well as having been left unpruned for several years, I would guess, so it looks a lot more open now. More pruning, to reduce the height, will be required next year to bring it back to a good shape and size and, hopefully, I will be able to control the brambles so that it doesn’t get choked again.

At the beginning of December, I also acquired a small shed, through Facebook Marketplace, and am hoping to find a suitable place to put it once the new fence is finished. It was delivered, disassembled, and Jeni and I managed to woman-handle it into the garden, via my next door neighbour’s side gate, where it is now lying on top of the large pile of uprooted sedge grass that I’ve created. All of the components for the fence were also delivered in December and left in my front garden, so I had to carry all of those around to the back in the same way – 7 x 2m fence posts, 130 x 1.5m feather-edge boards, 18 x 3m lengths of rails and the capping pieces! I was exhausted at the end of that mission! I’m just very glad that the fencer is bringing the Postcrete to set the posts in the ground!

3D felted vessels

The full display of vessels

Also, at the beginning of December, I tried to kick start my creative mojo, which has been dormant for far too long, by going on a day’s felting course with Jeni. I’d been to a couple of courses with the tutor before and am really lucky that she holds them at the community hall just up the road from me, so we could walk there. We were making 3-D decorative vessels and could choose between small ‘pods’ or a Christmas stocking – needless to say, I chose a pod shape, as did most of the attendees. She only has 8 people on each course, so that she can give individual attention, and this works really well. We had great fun and were completely absorbed in what we were doing and are hoping to replicate the day at my house sometime soon – after all, I have got most of the materials required!

I felt very old on December 17th when my 'baby' turned 40! I felt the occasion should be marked in some way, so made the first birthday cake that I've done for about 30 years! It was a triple-layer chocolate sponge with chocolate butter icing, a mascarpone cream filling and a dark chocolate ganache with piped decorations - that got the seal of approval! Dave and I had clubbed together and bought Jeni a second-hand ceramics kiln so that she can get creative again with her pottery, and we had a lovely weekend celebrating.

Work on the interior of the house has slowed to a virtual stop although, after complaints from Dave, I have now put up a couple of mirrors in the bathroom, so that he can see to shave when he comes to stay – gotta keep the boy happy! He has been to stay with me a couple of times which is lovely, after so many years of living in a one-bedroom home and unable to accommodate him comfortably. I cooked a roast dinner for us the other day and we then realised that it is probably upwards of ten years since I last did that! It feels so wonderful to have the potential for family (and friends) to come and stay.

Bathroom mirror #1

Bathroom #2

As a family, we had planned to spend Christmas at my sister’s house in Sheffield. I was to travel to Cheltenham on the Tuesday, stay overnight and then travel onwards the next day, with Mum, so that she could have a couple of days to rest after the journey and prepare herself for the onslaught of the rest of the family; Jeni was going to travel up by train on Christmas Eve and Dave was going to drive up early on Christmas Day as he had to work on Christmas Eve. However, things nearly got completely scuppered, and not by Covid: I’d noticed increased ‘road noise’ from my car over the last few months and had asked for the wheel bearings to be checked when the car was MOT’d back at the end of September, but nothing was found, so I put it down to a change in my hearing and turned up the radio (like you do!), but then I gave Dave a lift to Shepton and, out of the blue, he said, ‘You might want to get your wheel bearings checked, Mum’. Of course, this was on the Friday evening before I was due to travel on the Tuesday, so I had a bit of a meltdown and spent the weekend stressing about how I could still make Christmas in Sheffield happen. First thing Monday morning I rang my local garage and explained the problem, but they couldn’t even look at it until the next morning. However, on Tuesday they looked at the car, took it for a test drive, diagnosed a wheel bearing problem and agreed to try and fix it that afternoon, even though I could see that they were insanely busy. By the end of the day I had a supremely quiet car and the confidence to drive it to Sheffield and back. My brother-in-law drove down to Cheltenham and collected Mum and Jeni cancelled her train ticket so that the two of us could drive up together on Christmas Eve. It was more than a five hour journey but made so much better by having company and when we weren’t chatting away we were singing carols along with the radio.

Max!

Christmas was lovely – I got to see my great-nephew, Leo, and finally meet his little brother, Max, who was born back in April and, even though I’m not that keen on small children (give me a lamb, calf or piglet any day!) I had to admit that they were both real sweeties – I even had a cuddle with Max, but no-one got photographic evidence. All too soon we were dividing up the Christmas leftovers, packing our presents into the car and heading South. Jeni and I took Mum home and stayed overnight in Cheltenham before returning to Somerset, where I got to see the New Year in with both of my offspring, for the first time in many years.

Dave (revisiting his childhood) and Leo

I am now embarking on my winter stay in Cheltenham, although it will be slightly different this year as I will be travelling home more frequently than in previous years, so that I can do some more jobs, supervise the fencers and have some ‘me time’ with friends and family.

Until next time, stay safe, stay healthy and look after yourselves x

A Catch-up Blog

The Brecon Fox by Carly Quinton

I know you've all been missing my regular blog posts so, as it was August when I last wrote, I thought I'd better write a new one!

I really don’t know where the time goes, and I know that quite a few people I’ve spoken to about it, admit that time seems to have acquired an elastic quality since the Covid-19 pandemic overturned all our previous experiences – some things seem to have happened only a short while ago, whilst others appear to be much further back in time. I do wonder whether life will ever return to pre-pandemic days, as I find myself making excuses to myself for not going out and about: “Oh, there’ll be lots of people in the supermarket/walking that route/going to that gathering – I’ll go another day, when there are less folk about!”

August was quite busy with gardening jobs, another two farm sits for the alpacas and a three-day dog sit for one of my gardening clients, too. The dog sit coincided with my birthday and also a visit from Dave as he was on his two-week factory shut down, so I got to spend time with both him and Jeni and on the Friday evening we went out for a meal at a local restaurant, which was superb. I’d asked for practical things for my birthday presents – a log basket and a companion set, so was quite surprised to be given a very lightweight parcel from Jeni and Dave that looked nothing like either of those two things! Imagine my delight when I unwrapped a beautiful picture, painted by one of Jeni’s friends, entitled ‘The Brecon Fox’. The colours are so vibrant, and it will look stunning above my fireplace in the sitting room! I also treated myself to a mantelshelf, which is made from a recycled scaffold board by a place in Frome, appropriately called The Scaff Shop. I feel very ‘on trend’ as it is flame finished and then oiled, otherwise known as shou sugi ban and is very popular at the moment – I just like the way it shows up the grain of the wood!

My painting and my new mantel shelf

My time at the alpaca farm was quite tiring, but still great fun, as it is such a lovely setting next to the River Chew in a small hamlet. The reason that it was more tiring than previously was because they had decided to keep not one, but two, pups from the litter that Bonnie, the Labrador, had had back at the end of last year. They were absolutely adorable, but full of energy and mischief, and had to be walked at least twice a day. Before, when I had gone to stay, I’d incorporated Bonnie’s walks with checking and feeding the stock, leaving her tied up next to the field shelters whilst I fed and topped up water and poo-picked the two groups of alpacas and checked on the sheep. However, I couldn’t safely do this with three dogs (especially as the pups had chewed through their leads the previous week, when Chris had done just that!) so I was taking them out for a romp in the fields at both ends of the day, as well as doing the circuit to see to the stock! I also think I was already tired when I got there from all of the gardening jobs I was doing and the continued painting and decorating of the house. There is still quite a bit to do in the house, but it all slowed down considerably once I’d had the new carpet fitted, as that effectively got rid of my ‘workshop’ and each job had to be thought out carefully.

Would you believe that this is Dougal, the alpaca I bottle fed with him sitting on my lap!

The 'pups' in a rare, quiet moment!

I have lived in Somerset for more than 35 years now and, until recently, I had only climbed Glastonbury Tor once. However, when my brother and his family were staying in the area at the beginning of the summer, we spent a day together and ended up climbing the Tor from the town side, which is slightly less steep, but still quite a climb. The view from the top was spectacular and I felt that I should do this more often. Roll forward a few weeks and I was in the middle of doing a spot of decorating, when I realised that I was short of milk for a cuppa. I decided to walk along to my local shop and buy some but then, realising what a beautiful day it was, I just carried on going and ended up walking along a lane and climbing the Tor from the other side! Goodness knows what people thought, as I was dressed in an ancient hoodie and paint-spattered work trousers, but then you see all sorts of clothes in Glastonbury so, probably, no-one even noticed!

The Tor from a distance

Looking back at St Michael's Tower

The end of September saw me back at Dundry, looking after the poultry and other assorted livestock, whilst Geoff and Sally made their second visit of the year to Tresco. Sally had felt that her collection of cats was dwindling (down from 6 to 4, with two of them being very elderly) so had acquired a kitten! She has one of those wooden plaques in her kitchen which says, ‘One cat short of crazy!’ – I beg to differ!! He is just a farm moggy, but very affectionate, with an enormous purr and a very quiet miaow. He wasn’t allowed outside as he hadn’t had his second injection and some of the other cats had been quite poorly earlier on in the summer with cat flu that they had picked up from somewhere. This added another dimension to the task of looking after the cats, which is getting quite complex with dietary and medicinal requirements being factored in. He is also a one-kitten destruction team, as he leaps onto any surface scattering everything in his wake – I ended up gathering all of the photos in the family room and putting them away as he was knocking them over like a domino run, in his efforts to catch flies! Whilst I was there, I managed to bring a bit of order to the loganberries and blackberries in the fruit cage, but the gooseberries and red and black currants will have to wait for a later date, as I couldn’t see what needed pruning with the huge growth that they had put on this year. I have noticed that a lot of shrubs have put on amazing growth this year and my Mum’s Magnolia Stellata, which has been quite a small tree for about 30 years, suddenly had a huge growth spurt.

Teo, the new kitten

The weeds in my garden have continued to flourish, but I am gradually working my way through to the bottom of the plot. The most challenging thing has been the sedge grass, which makes huge root clumps and is quite difficult to dig out and is everywhere! At the beginning of October the Leylandii hedge was removed, and all the stumps ground out, and the new fence will be going up shortly which will give me a better idea of the space I have to play with. The team did an amazing job cutting down the hedge, untangling it from an old wire fence, dragging it through my neighbour’s side entrance and then chipping it all. I was pleased to know that all of the chippings go to a local farm for animal bedding and will eventually rot down on the dung heap and be returned to the soil.

Now you see it,

now you don't!

In the middle of October I saw that Fairport Convention were going to be in concert in Wells Cathedral and asked Jeni if she’d like to go with me. She wasn’t very keen, as it’s not her sort of music at all, so I gave myself a stern talking to, and went by myself. It felt very odd to be at a venue after all this time, especially as all of the seating was socially distanced, and I found myself sitting behind one of the enormous stone pillars (I should have booked earlier and bought a more expensive ticket!), so I couldn’t see the band at all, but I could hear them very well. The whole event was made more magical by the fact that it coincided with a huge sculpture of the moon being displayed in the chancel, and this glowed ethereally throughout the concert, as it was lit from within.

The moon in Wells Cathedral

My view of Fairport Convention!

Well, I think that more or less brings me up-to-date on my goings on in the last few months. As the nights draw in and my log burner gets lit every evening, I feel myself hunkering down for winter. The deer, that I have spotted in the field below my garden, are becoming more regular in their appearances, grazing on the grass and browsing the hedgerows, and I have seen a pair of jays eating the apples still clinging to the old trees, and a fox moving boldly across from a possible den at the base of one tree to the far hedgerow, where he slipped through a gap and disappeared. The leaves are turning golden and gently fluttering to the ground and soon there will just be bare branches reaching to the sky. I feel very privileged to be able to watch the seasons changing from the comfort of my bedroom and dining room windows! Most mornings I wake before dawn and prop myself up in bed so that I can watch the sky lighten and colour gradually return to the landscape – a very special and magical way to start the day!

The view from the top of the Tor

Summer Shenanigans

A lovely house-warming gift!

I hadn’t realised that it was such a long time since I last posted a blog – doesn’t time fly when you’re enjoying yourself!

At Pitsford Water

At the end of June, Jeni and I finally managed to visit Dave in Northampton for a weekend. It was nice to have company on the drive as it is quite a long way and, occasionally, The Navigator had to re-emerge and guide me across country avoiding places like Swindon and Oxford! We had a lovely couple of days, culminating in quite a long walk around Pitsford Water, a man-made lake supplying water to Northampton. We saw lots of interesting flora and fauna, including Cormorants and a Little Tern on the water and lots of dragonflies, damsel flies and bees along the shoreline. It was a really hot day and we were all struggling with the last mile or so, but rewarded ourselves with a two-scoop ice cream each when we got back to the car park!

I officially moved into my new home on 12^th July – at least that’s when Dragonfly Removals (I had to book them with a name like that, didn’t I?) turned up and took my bed away, and the freezer, chest-of-drawers and large dining table. In fact, there is still quite a lot of my stuff still at my old home as the carpet couldn’t be delivered until 4^th August and they wanted as little furniture in the room as possible. Consequently, I do feel a bit as if I have been camping in a building site!

I had only slept in my new bedroom for 4 nights before I went off to do a 9 day farm sit at Dundry, so that added to the general feeling of impermanence. The farm sit took place during that incredibly hot weather, and I was really relieved that the majority of the work took place first thing in the morning and last thing in the evening – the rest of the time I spent indoors trying to keep cool. I even allowed the dogs to be indoors for most of the day, as they were struggling with the heat, too. I saw a post on Facebook from the local vets saying that guinea pigs and rabbits suffer badly from heatstroke and, as Sally has two guinea pigs, I was a bit concerned until I remembered that I had a big multi-coloured umbrella in the car which I managed to fix to the side of their run, so that they had shade for most of the day. Luckily, none of the animals succumbed to the ridiculous temperatures, although I was filling up the chickens’ water on a daily basis.

Before ...

... and after!

I couldn’t avoid the siren call of the garden/jungle for ever, so have made a start on trying to ‘find’ the garden. It’s a bit like a mini Lost Gardens of Heligan, as I clear back the blanketing cover of grass and bindweed to reveal the hard structure of the garden. So far I have discovered a gravel path, edged on one side by brick which, I think, edges a lawn. There seems to be an awful lot of gravel and not much in the way of flower beds, but time will tell. I am also going to have the Leylandii hedge professionally removed as it is not a thing of beauty or utility and therefore has to go! Luckily, the neighbours are really keen to see the back of it and have offered the use of their rear access to save everything having to go through the house (across the new carpet!!) or over the flat roof. Because of the restricted access it is going to be a 2-day, 3-man job so is not coming in cheap. However, I would have to pay someone several hundred pounds each year to keep it under control so the initial outlay will soon pay for itself. It will make a huge difference to the garden as I reckon I will gain an extra three feet in width all the way down the garden!

One of the slow-worms

There is a tiny pond in an area just below the decking which, I am led to believe, was part of a much larger water feature a few years ago. It obviously has a hole in the liner as, even with the amount of rain that we have had recently, it does not fill up. With a lovely house-warming gift from my aunty, which will go towards a new liner, and utilising bits of the old carpet from the sitting room, and a heap of sandy soil from the front garden (left by a lazy builder, at some point) I am going to create a larger wildlife pond to attract more beasties to my garden. I have already discovered at least two slow-worms – one was sunning itself on a flat stone and the other was lurking in the long grass.

There is still quite a bit of decorating to do, but upstairs is virtually finished now. My friends, Karen and Ade, offered huge dustsheets that virtually cover a room in one go, which made life a lot easier, and then Ade offered to come and paint the sitting and dining room ceilings for me with his long-pile roller to get into all the swirly bits of the Artex. I was so grateful as my wrists were not looking forward to doing that amount of work, and he made a great job of it in only a few hours – it would have taken me at least a couple of days to do. Before the carpet was delivered I managed to paint all the skirting boards and the walls in the sitting room, but the dining area still needs to have wallpaper put on the chimney breast and then the walls painted, so I will have to be very careful to avoid spilling stuff on the new carpet!

The dining room before ...

... and after

The sitting room before...

... and after

Somewhere in amongst all this activity, I have managed to take my stall to two village fetes! Jeni came to help me, as I had to use my old gazebo which is much more easily erected by two people than one. Unfortunately, both days turned out to be wet ones, but it was still lovely to see people out and about again, enjoying themselves, even if they were wearing waterproofs and wellies! The second outing was to the Draycott Strawberry Fayre where we were allowed to set up in the big marquee, which was a relief as, after the Middlezoy fete, I had to dry a lot of my stock and the gazebo cover. It felt strange to get out all my stock again after such a long break, and I was surprised how much I had! I felt that my sock-knitting efforts during the winter were rewarded as, at both venues, they were the woollen items that sold. At Draycott we also had the added bonus of seeing old friends and acquaintances that we hadn’t seen for several years.

All set up at Draycott

Well, what else do you do at a Strawberry Fayre?