Room 101

I'm not an original. My life is full of clichés, being, as I am, only human. My Room 101 is also rat-filled. Over the years of country living I have shifted from being a bit of an ex-London milk-sop to quite a brave beasty. Not just brave as in "aren't you brave to wear that hat", but brave as in "move over, I'll squeeze the pus out of that massive abscess on the sheep's bum". I'm a little sensitive about touching some things directly and I do keep a supply of latex gloves handy for the yuckier moments. Still, I'm not as fazed by stuff as was my younger self. But we all have our limits, and mine is Rattus norvegicus. They might, scientifically speaking, be called medium sized rodents. In my book, every rat is HUGE, there are MILLIONS of them in every corner and they will RUN UP MY LEG. I even feel a chill up the spine when I turn to the rat pages in my Reader's Digest Field Guide to the Animals of Britain and am confronted with pictures of said rodent.
So, you could say farming as a life choice is rather daft. You might say that rats are inevitable on farms. You should also say that poultry and their associated feedstuffs will guarantee rats. You'd be right on all counts. But I know that mostly they keep themselves to themselves and if I don't see them, they aren't really there. Self delusion. I can see the holes in the barn cob walls where rats have nested and probably are nesting right now. I see the rat droppings (urgghhhh) in the duck house. They dispatch young poultry lovingly nurtured, unless you completely rodent-proof their area (I cried when a rat killed and dragged a four week old gosling under the goose-hut door). I look up into the rafters of the decaying stable and catch a view of a long pink tail switching out of sight. I move a piece of corrugated tin and the earth seems to heave and swarm with previously cosy rats. I yell and yell and yell. The neighbours come running to make sure I haven't cut off my own head with the chainsaw or anything equally dramatic. The dogs run to my rescue. But those who know me best recognise the quality of the squealing and start to laugh. It's just rats after all.

What does it mean to be British?

I get a really uncomfortable itchy under the scalp feeling when politicians try and define Britishness. Their oddly naive faith that having a specific understanding will make any kind of difference to the way people behave, or view themselves and each other, is pitiable. Their apparent belief that a statement from on high on Britishness actually means anything beyond provision of dinner table fodder confuses me. " We have to be clearer about what it means to be British" was Jack Straw's comment at the end of last week. Why? How does that help? What will it do? The man just can't keep his hands off this unresolvable debate. He keeps pecking and poking at it as if the answer is lying somewhere just outside his grasp. As long as there is clarity about the bounds within which you can or cannot get a passport, does a political stance on Britishness actually matter?
Being first generation British, I have a particularly wary view of the underlying rationale for the persistence in picking at this political, religious, cultural and racial scab. Straw talked about "core democratic values of freedom, fairness, tolerance and plurality" as if they were somehow uniquely British and by inference that British people were somehow superior. The man is jousting with wind, wrestling with clouds, and jingoism is but a trot around the corner.
Flag courtesy of Vivienne Westwood.

An adoration of the lime

I remember 1993. It was the time of Delia pontificating on summer, in print and on TV. It was all limes. How I chortled at her dedication to the wee green fruit; it was verging on the obsessional. There was fried Halloumi cheese with lime and caper vinaigrette; squirted lime in the Caesar salad; zested and juiced citrus in the fresh crab salad; added to the fish cakes, crab cakes, hot and sour pickled prawns, fried skate wings, thai curry paste, the salmon filo parcels, the grilled fish, the coriander and lime tartare sauce, the relishes, chutneys and the salsas, Debbie Owen's iced tea, cous cous salad, frijolemole (what you might ask is that - it's a chickpea purée - ain't that houmous?), the terrine of summer fruits (I thought that was sooo beautiful), coconut lime cake, ad nauseam, ad nauseam. But you know (as does Delia and all good grocers) how repetition can browbeat a girl into submission. So you swap the odd lime where you'd usually put lemon. You squeeze the juice into mayonnaise, sprinkle it with lime zest and serve with cold salmon. You put a slice with ice into your drink. It looks better than its yellow cousin cuddled up with the fresh mint and cucumber garnishing the Pimm's. It brings verve to the fruit bowl and somehow connives through autosuggestion in ensuring a healthier meal than was perhaps planned. A fry-up of sausage, black pudding and beans with lime just doesn't do it somehow.

Murder and retribution

I am the Snow Queen. Or perhaps the Snow Goose. My hair and clothes are covered in flecks of white down, a mark of Cain. For I have done murder and the youngest goose is now plucked and swinging by its feet, from a beam in the workshop. It was due to be dispatched for Easter, but somehow busy-ness prevailed and it continued its reign of terror in the orchard, charging the dogs, nipping the sheep and cadging the odd ride. It was the most feisty gosling I've ever raised, often scorning the protection of the flock to venture alone to seek new mischief and create noisy mayhem. But as it reached maturity, and started to fulfil its Oedipal destiny, with mother and sister having their head feathers aggressively plucked off during incestuous encounters, the pot called ever louder. A spare two hours (it takes me that long to pluck a goose, not having any fancy waxing, boiling or other medieval sounding kit) meant his time was nigh. I caught him by the neck, he was tucked under an arm and taken away to be swiftly dealt with, but as I turned my back his father pecked me by the knee, hard and sharp. The nip broke the skin through my jeans and has left a dark blood-blister and a mark the size of a ten pence piece. It seems only fair.

Reasons to be cheerful - part 3

Girly undies

In a week of global despair, murder, grief and bloody madness, the fripperies of life can save you from entering a permanent gloom. When the weather is as gorgeous as this you can feel guilty for not being part of the Virginian mourning, but I refuse. Some love their thongs, but I love my bras and it's time to renew the stock. I will browse at length through my Bravissimo and Rigby and Peller catalogues and pick something perky, something lacey and something pink so that it's spring on the inside as well as the outside. It may all be covered up by my best holey farm clobber, but underneath I'm a paeon to womanhood and girly self-indulgence. The pigs can't see it, but they'll know from the (nattily controlled) bounce in my step that things are fine for the time being. It might even take their minds off the state of my feet.

Feet in the sink

Yes! It may only be April but it's bound about in sandals time (no socks - the British do know this, notwithstanding examples on the tube suggesting otherwise). When I say sandals I don't mean high heeled Louboutin beauties, but sturdy made for trekking over rough terrain jobs that work well on the farm once wellies are no longer required and the toes are asking for an airing. The sandals mean that when your feet start to tan, they have a permanent wide white band across the arch - not madly attractive, but there you are. Worse, the heels of my feet turn into evil before-shots for cracked skin treatments; they aspire to elephant's kneecaps. The sandal wearing means a new evening ritual kicks in. The feet get truly filthy - mud, sheep shit, grass stains, you name it, all find their determined way onto the feet and get pretty well ingrained by the end of the day. So it's into the bathroom, fill the basin with warm soapy water, find your coarsest and most hardy nail brush and one foot at a time, get scrubbing. There is something intrinsically comic about standing on one leg with a foot in the sink; plenty of potential for painful slapstick type accidents. Nothing worth repeating has happened yet, but summer stretches before us.

The inner costermonger

Lambing is finally over. All mums and offspring are out in the orchard and no longer require two-hourly visits to check on well-being: no small heads stuck in low branches/fencing/gorse; nothing in trouble whilst lambing; no problems with suckling; no ewes nicking another's lambs etc). So now the attention has turned to vegetables - lamb needs an accompaniment after all - and my inner costermonger is being fed by sprinkling seeds onto trays of compost, weeding the polytunnel, splooshing the water around and generally thinking of the glut to come. A decade of ambition has been realised by the planting of the first asparagus bed (Pacific Purple) and I want to pat the bed, sit by it and share encouraging words. Perhaps a song or two might help? But after what was three weeks of frantic sheep-centred activity, the peace and quiet of the veg patch is very welcome, so silent contemplation may be best after all.

Journalistic pomposity

Blimey. I didn't expect to be having a whinge about journalists twice in two weeks (I really don't make a habit of it you know) but my Spiked email just arrived and the mini editorial has made me growl. Brendan O'Neill says:
"blogs aren’t the place to go if you want erudite debate; they’re the online equivalent of a loud’n’rowdy student bar... Bloggers often don’t have much to say of note, but I’ll defend to the death their right to say it to their three readers."
I would never suggest that this blog is either erudite or has much of note to offer the world. I wouldn't even propose that the majority of blogs are other than an opportunity for 21st century folks to keep a diary or write a regular letter to friends. Some are clearly a creative outlet, others a virtual space to park technological geekery. Nothing wrong with any of that. But there are blogs that have much to say, and say it both wisely and well. And some of them find a significant readership. Brendan O'Neill can go fight some other cause on his own blog. I doubt bloggers need his approbation.

Drop'em blossom

Bored now! Lambing has been going on for 19 days and I need to get back to normal sleeping patterns soon before everyone I know and love deserts me due to (my) irritation and shortness of temper. Can't say I've got the sweetest of tempers at any time but alarm clocks set at unseemly times of the night and early hours don't exactly sooth the jagged soul. It's true that once you are up and feeding the sheep, the lambs now old enough to leave mum and congregate in gangs, you get to see their wild toddler antics which in another week will become decidedly adolescent; lots of riding each other like wheelbarrows. With lovely long evenings I should be out there being vigorous in the polytunnel, wrestling with veg, spades and trowels, but I'm too tired to have more than a token poke in the soil.

Daisee, Daisee....

Waxing rhapsodic over a weed may be a bit much for some, but I really do adore the daisy. Not the posh developed specially for gardeners daisy but the common old lawn invader. What child hasn't draped themselves with daisy chains and crowns, dreaming of playing with the fairies at the bottom of the garden? For me they are as eggy as the poached egg flower, and don't have any of the yucky milky sap of the dandelion, even though there are no clocks to puff at. The cobbles in front of the house collect just enough dirt and earth to trap seeds and they are now sprouting daisies with a vengeance. Daisies tell me that I will soon be able to sit on the grass without getting soaked knickers. They remind me to look down and see what else is growing amongst the grass. They are potently cheerful and the fields will soon be full of them. They go as well with the lambs now as mint sauce will later. And for the boys of my era, Daisy will always mean the joys of the Dukes of Hazzard - you just can't go wrong with a daisy.

I'm a fire starter

Twisted or otherwise, I'm a fire starter. Huge piles of willow, oak and blackthorn branches and twigs too small to save for winter use have been torched before the grass has had a chance to grow through and turn yellow from lack of light. The size of the piles were worthy of a public fireworks display (minus the guy), although these days with livestock and one wussy dog, noisy fireworks no longer turn me on. I'm a sparkler fan though, and love playing with a bundle of them fizzing in a mittened hand. When the flames leap as high as these did you really have to treat them with respect - no turning your back or being distracted. The mounds of ash are whopping too and will still be hot for a couple of days. Scoopy the digger comes into his own and moves each benign heap of timber to its neighbouring shimmering circle of lava; it catches instantaneously and the volcanic action continues. There's nothing like being elemental on a bank holiday. And it gave me an excuse to hunt down Prodigy on You Tube - that video stopped me in my blase tracks when it came out more than ten years ago - it still has the woweeeee factor. And how do you get the accent on the e in blase anyway??

I feel bad

I just knew that James Brown feeling couldn't last. When you feel good you should keep it to yourself and not tell all and sundry that they should be feeling jealous. Pride comes before a fall and all that. Perhaps today it's a man's world; it sure ain't mine. My best friend is a bucket. And I feel bad.

I feel good

In the luscious lead-up to a four day weekend, it's amazing to sit outside and feel the hot sun do its worst on the crow's feet. The dogs lie on the cobbles avoiding the sharp loose stones, chins on their paws and eyes closed in pleasure. So much of the to-do list has to go on hold until lambing is finished; I plan to take a book and a straw bale into the orchard and do my shepherding in comfort. A leisurely kip might be nice; perhaps a divan of bales would be better? M&M can provide horsehair mattress stuffing for added luxury. I could doze, iodine a few navels and trim a few feet, and avoid the great brashings burn-up taking place elsewhere on the farm. I could take the dogs down when the fires are mellowing at the end of the day and they can chase around where piles of hedge-laying detritus had blocked our path. I doubt I can avoid loading logs onto the trailer for next year's firewood, the first of multiple handlings (field to trailer, trailer to woodpile, chopped and moved to second woodpile, chucked in wheelbarrow and brought into the house, stacked by fire, into fire....combustion) before it gets to the woodburner. But it's a t-shirt task and it's going to be t-shirt weather, and I feel good.

How do you feel?

Of all the inanities loved by the lazy reporter, the question "how do you feel?" must rank at the top. Your brother is held hostage in Iran - how does that make you feel? Your baby is dying from some appalling disease - how does THAT make you feel? Your employer has moved its manufacturing base to China - so, how do you feel? Your friends have just been in a major car crash - tell me, how does that feel?

The art of intelligent interviewing is far from dead - it goes on every day in all parts of the media - but regional TV continues to be of a lower order, stuffing cameras and microphones in the faces of people clearly feeling bereft, dazed, at their lowest ebb. It's amazing that folks laid low by circumstance don't turn viciously on their interviewer with a blue-blasted version of "how do you think I feel?". If someone agrees to be on camera at a difficult time, at least give them the courtesy of framing a question that can bring an answer that offers some enlightenment to the viewers.

Parallel existences

Shall I share the message from the charming, helpful but clearly affected by strain, civil servant sorting out the farm's environmental stewardship grant, or would you prefer to hear about the part of my life that recognises (even Devon gets - non-digital - TV) a household name comedian at the next table at the restaurant in Islington? Perhaps we can find a way to segueway from one to t'other. And perhaps we can't.

Word for word, verbatim and exactly as given (can't have you thinking I made this up), I emailed one of the growing number of friendly civil servants that I have begun to know quite well since dealing with the plethora of TLA organisations that are simultaneously the bane and helpmeet of the farmer. "You said get in touch", I said, "if the payment wasn't here by Friday, and it's not". At an hour that you expect only the freelance and homeworker to be at their computer, I received the following: "I am in the process of chasing anyone that phone me at the moment I am servely disappointed with the state of play and apologise."

This poor geezer has to deal with the horrendous fallout at the Rural Payments Agency presided over by the now promoted Margaret Beckett and is, quite possibly, going mad under the strain. I'm tempted to call his boss and suggest they send the chap to the seaside for a few days for a break, but if I do it might be taken the wrong way and selfishly, there will be no-one to fight my corner. Perhaps he could go to a swank eatery instead and eavesdrop on folks apparently more in control of their own destiny, discussing their latest project or planning their outfit for the weekend. He could take a very pretty girl and gaze into her eyes; a true distraction from the horrors of his daily grind. I hope he has an interest that lights his lamp and oils his wheels. I hope he has a talent for something he finds rewarding, from which he can earn a living in future days. But I hope he doesn't resign and leave me in the lurch quite yet.

Posh luggage

Up first thing in old trackie bottoms, thick socks, heavenly neoprene wellies and fleece, all covering nightie which is too cosy to take off, for early morning lamb check. Weather glorious but ominous rainbow and grey clouds with streaks joining the sky to the land on the next hill. Shove on battered leather hat that sheds rain beyond the back of my neck unless I bend forward, and feed the animal troupes. An hour later I'm done and hoik out luggage for packing my gear for London. The contrast between my smelly farming clobber and the smartness of my year-old trolley bag stops me in my tracks. The contrary lifestyles are now inches apart and clashing madly in colour and content. High heeled boots and clothes without barbed wire tears that rarely get worn here go into the bag. I'm off to my parallel existence.

The phenomenon of the to do list

My life is ruled by to-do lists; for work, for the domestic stuff of life, and the mother of all lists (in fact a list of lists) for the farm. I am intimately acquainted with the pleasure of crossing off an item that has been completed. I write lists for myself and eagerly (and undoubtedly irritatingly) for other people. Everyone knows my life is a list of to dos and I am content to be the butt of their jokes. So it was with real pleasure that I complied with the request to produce a list of crucial info for when I leave for London. And just in case that paper copy gets lost.....

• Please check incubator temperature daily (37.4 - 37.6 degrees) and fill one side with water on Saturday if needed
• If piglet with runny bum is off feed/poorly, inject with Engemycin (in vet cupboard) subcutaneously. For a piglet of 25kg it’s 2ml for a 24 hour dose or 5ml for 72 hours
• If preggers sheep need antibiotics they want 4ml for 24 hour dose or 10ml for 72 hours. Also subcut injection.
• If you get any bubbly/poorly lambs they have an Oxytet tablet (1 daily up to 3 days) – on shelf in lambing shed
• Before you turn ewes out they need 12mls of wormer
• Check/empty mouse traps in polytunnel
• Water vegetable seeds and seedlings
  
• Walk dogs
• Count sheep
• Eat
• Sleep

Bugs and gruesome tales

Last night off to the local farmer's group held monthly at the pub. Set up during foot and mouth by the local vicar to cheer things up, there is a speaker and Q+A followed by a carb blowout of ferociously hot chips, sarnies and potato croquettes. The speaker was a hospital microbiologist, a farmer's daughter with a knowledge and love of all things bug. You want ringworm? We saw the pictures. You prefer Listeriosis or MRSA? We had the lowdown. You like swollen digits and pots of sample poo? We had those too. You want to hear that farmers only go to hospital when they are really ill? She flattered us. The beer glasses didn't move, the pool table was empty, the darts board unused. We were riveted. We went home and threw away old dishcloths, got in the antibacterial soap and stuffed grimy towels in the washing machine. It didn't stop me from having very vivid dreams of pus and worse. All this for £1. Bargain? You betcha.

Reasons to be cheerful - part 2

Reasons to be cheerful - part 1

Day in the life

7.15 am feed cats and dogs. Let out ducks and sort their feed and water. Pipes frozen. Feed piglets. Hear a woodpecker. Feed the geese and let them into the orchard. Feed the pregnant ewes and the llama. Carry 20kg sacks of feed up the hill to fill sheep and llama feed bins. Jack and Jill nowhere in sight. Extract nine goose eggs from their nest and set up incubator. Clean out duck house. 9am head into village for the papers with the dogs. Back for breakfast. Fill up wild bird feeders outside kitchen window. Muck out goose hut. Cut a dozen tree stakes from some rough sawn 2x2. Admire fancy new draught-proofing in lambing pen. Put bare-rooted trees (hazel and field maple) , stakes, ties, tree guards, sledgehammer, graft and stuff into back of ancient Landrover and drive round planting up some of the remaining tree gaps in the hedges. 3pm late lunch. Check temperature in incubator. Walk dogs and sort out a gate latch the sheep have worked out how to undo. 5pm notice one of the ewes has a water bag hanging out - she's two days early. Leave her to get on with it for half an hour and move feed troughs and hay rack into the orchard. Bring the ewe and her very new twin ram lambs into the lambing shed, iodine their navels and give the ewe water and sheep nuts - although she's a first-timer she seems to know what to do and the lambs look fine. Move the rest of the sheep into the orchard so they are closer to the house for lambing - they aren't keen to change fields. 6.30pm Ducks and geese to bed, check the new mother. 7pm feed cats and dogs and put supper in the oven. Shower, eat and fall in knackered heap. Lambing has started and the clocks go back tonight. Have to go to London this week - I won't be popular.

Ramblings, Mutterings and Meanderings

She takes a bow, she smacks her lips at the prospect of champagne and truffles, and then gets real as she sucks on her glass of water and looks longingly at the heap of dogs wanting to be walked and the smaller heap of second hand paperbacks bought from Oxfam this morning - they'll just have to wait. The lovely M&M has awarded her Thoggers (Thinking Blogger Awards) and I must show grace. And now my obligation is to award five Thoggers of my own. And then their obligation is to award etc etc and so on and on and on. I will try not to be too incestuous in my choices and bring a bit of fresh blood into the process, but don't count on that. So, with greatest respect, my nominations are:

1. Peter D Cox
2. Random Acts of Reality
3. mamajules
4. Grumpy Old Bookman
5. Strife in the North ( I know, I know, but perhaps incest is allowable on occasion?)

I doubt it'll change your life or even your afternoon, but it's always nice to be appreciated. Hugs to all. Keep making us think.

Lambing prep

So you sort through the household veterinary supplies, and look for castration rings (check), soft rope (check), iodine (check), syringes and needles (check), lube (check), armpit length gloves (nope), and make a short list of goodies to buy before the off. Only trouble is the checklist on the kitchen table looks like a shopping list for a sex-shop spree rather than the more mundane agricultural store and you wonder if you should put it somewhere a little less prominent to avoid shocking the visitors. Then you get to the farm shop and start to chortle at the drawings on the side of the insemination gloves - accompanied by wording normally restricted to other latex products, reminding you that they are for single use. And then it adds (they can't be serious) that if the product proves defective you should return it to the retailer..... do they mean the used ones or those left in the packet??

Blair - the art lover in hiding

I know I'm a little late on this one, but sometimes you need to let things fester a while, just like Tony Blair. Ten years and no significant speech about the arts from the Prime Minister (I think we can ignore that Cool Britannia shenanigans early on in the premiership for the self-congratulatory spin it was). Just months away from his departure he claims the past decade as a golden era for culture. Media pundits all over the place are remarking on Blair's legacy speeches. There is, it is true, something potentially rather pathetic about an ex-leader of a country and it must be all but impossible to discuss your future plans whilst still in the hot seat, with commentators ready to accuse you of taking your eye off the ball. So why has the speech at the Tate had as much impact on the arts sector as cold porridge slapped onto a cold plate? It's true that courtesy of the Lottery and increased allocations to the Arts Council, the arts has had a genuinely significant financial boost since 1997, but whether it is government prudence at work or the huge Olympics deficit, the Arts Council is having to satisfy a Treasury looking for 5% year on year cuts over the next three years. Even looking at the arts from a purely fiscal point of view, considering the huge payback it makes into the economy (£13 billion in 2004 according to Blair), the £420 million subsidy it receives would win five gold stars simply in value for money terms. Perhaps this speech might turn this unfortunate tide, but then again, Brown wasn't the speaker....

Scent of a pig

Okay, okay. It's not everyone's idea of a heavenly scent, but when you don't have pigs around all the time you really do miss that pungent sweet smell. Pigs are only on the farm during the spring and summer to fatten for pork and bacon, so during the winter months you miss their presence and their unique pong. Last night six beautiful 8-week old Berkshire weaners were trundled back from South Hams (yup, you couldn't make it up). When they are this small you carry them in your arms like a baby, holding one front leg and the opposite back leg. Held firmly, they lay happily and quietly. As soon as you loosen your grip or they feel less than secure, the squealing is dramatic. When I picked up the first one to move it into the trailer, the smell hit me - I had temporarily forgotten the particular perfume of a porker - it was lovely; warm, porcine, healthy. Not Apres L'Ondee perhaps, but joyous all the same. Now the six wiglets are chomping fresh grass and burying themselves in deep straw, none the worse for their journey. Undoubtedly, there will be updates on their progress.

Spring is in the air?

There's no denying it. The lanes are full of primroses, the goose has started laying, there is blossom on one brave plum tree, there should be six Berkshire weaners (eight week old piglets) in the pig ark by tonight, and the lambing pens are awaiting occupancy. All this fecundity calls for calm, warm days to nurture the animal and vegetable growth, but instead the blossom is about to get hail-stormed into oblivion, straw bales are insulating the lambing area, further great works need to be undertaken to improve the draught-proofing, and it's lucky that the pig ark is protected by a Devon bank.

You lie in bed at night listening to the wind and hail battering the ruined barns and hide your head under the duvet using the same trick as you did as a child - if I can't see it, it isn't really there. Only in this case it's "if I can't hear it, the roof isn't really falling in". Looking out of the window in the morning requires you to collect your courage after a windy night. If the roof and walls would only stay put until all the planning and preparation can be put in place, perhaps there may be more than just a heap of cobby rubble, rotten timbers and slate to work with.

Masterchef final - on tenterhooks

Like most folks I have my television passions. This year the Beeb's Masterchef has had me downing work tools and heading for the box for my 6.30pm half hour fix. When the credits roll it's time to get up and feed the dogs and make supper for the humans. But for those thirty minutes I am transfixed, and as we entered the semi-finals and now the finals, I have been hiding my head inside my t-shirt. T-shirt head-hiding moments included: faffing around as if there was all the time in the world to feed hordes of over-exercised squaddies; food delivered late to Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern; hoping that Hannah could produce chocolate wonders for some of the best chefs in the world (she did - it was amazing); gasping at the pompousness of Ben (it's all me, me, me and nothing for the person doing the eating, even if they are those afore-mentioned chefs); and shouting at Steven to think about TIMING!!! If Ben-I-know-techniques-but-can't-do-flavours wins it tonight I will throw pots and pans at the telly. Go Steven, and go, go, go Hannah!

Stop Press! Brilliant, Steven - congrats. The TV is safe from flying kitchen equipment.

Persephone books - almost as good as finding a decent bookshop in Devon

'Oh, the bliss of Persephone Books!' says India Knight in her own treat of a book, The Shops. I picked up Knight's book in my local Oxfam shop and although it's not universally admired, I roared my way through it, and "pants of steel", "ooh, dirt!" and other choice phrases have stuck with me. I won't bore you with my shopping habits and peccadilloes (ones inspired by Knight or otherwise) but her recommendation of Persephone Books' collection of forgotten twentieth century classics is something I truly thank her for. Because they arrive so fast (next day), if you are up to pointing feebly at the catalogue, it's worth asking a friend to order something for you on-line if you are in bed with a dose of flu, as the books will arrive by the time you are feeling up to reading but can't yet face pottering about. And these are very much recovering-from-flu books - a certain surface sweetness containing considerable depth. But I also want to read them any evening wrapped in my fleece rug with the dogs at my feet - learning from the masters (mainly female) how to avoid cliché if nothing else (too late for that). The only problem is that you might find yourself galloping through them and they are not the cheapest of paperbacks, and there are 70 of them. That might sound like plenty, but if you get through two or three a month, it won't take more than a couple of years (and a wodge of dosh) to devour the lot. I have just finished Dorothy Whipple's They Were Sisters. Utterly compelling with more bite than Eastenders on a VERY good day, with rogues, a truly evil villain, sweet souls, despair, studies of fecklessness and empty vanities. Unfortunately, the last few pages fell out of the covers as I reached the end; I emailed Persephone and they have promised me a replacement - amazing service.
If anyone can recommend any decent bookshops in Devon that have piles of good fiction, I'd be eternally grateful. Waterstones in Exeter and elsewhere have managed to turn what were idiosyncratic spaces to spend hours choosing and discarding into antiseptic lines of bestseller fodder. I yearn for the fab but tiny bookshop in Ashbourne in Derbyshire where the owner would ask you what you had last enjoyed and then heap you up with recommendations for further delight. Having hunted for it on-line it seems to have disappeared! I only visited once a year but came away with 10 or 20 books at a time.

The drive to blog

In March 2005 the BBC said there were 14.2 million blogs. By July 2005 the Blog Herald estimated 70 million blogs worldwide; that's 1% of the world population blogging away. I suspect the statistics - and why can't I find any current data? - are pretty poor; can blogs have increased by nearly 500% in just 4 months? But the message still stands - there are millions of folks blogging and I suspect far more are written than are read. Does this matter? What drives people to blog in the first place?
Do we talk less often face to face than we used to? Yes. Do we spend too much time by our computers and mobile phones (YES!) and still yearn for discussion, debate and thought even if there is no-one around or if people are there, they are also engaged with a flat screen and keyboard?
But there is also something very pleasing about the blog as a writing form. It forces you to shape your thoughts into some semblance of cogency. It makes you question your ideas before you commit them to screen. It makes you realise that some days demand whimsy and others require more serious cogitation. It has to be brief, which is a useful discipline. It also releases some of those juices for those who think they want to write but will never commit themselves to the full monty experience of a novel or other lengthy text. And its a fabulous way of sharing real stuff with friends that avoids those horrendous round robin Christmas letters.

The elephant in the room

I loved that one - "the elephant in the room". It was so expressive, so daft, so visually pleasing as a concept, so completely full of trunks, tusks, hairy-ended tails and flapping wrinkly ears. Why do folks have to demean a perfectly good metaphor and turn it into cliché so that you then feel like a mug or a ham for using it? I can't count the number of times I have sat in a room with others and visualised the elephant rolling its eyes as everyone manages to avoid noticing its presence.

Agatha Christie needs charity?

I hugely admire the National Trust. Most of the time. The audacity of taking on properties and places in perpetuity for the benefit of us all. Who else would do it? Who could even face the budgeting for supplying dusters to a stately home for ten years let alone for ministering to its every need forever? It puts the concept of long term planning into perspective. This whole 'til the end of time thing does mean you have to make your decisions on what to take on and what to put aside very carefully indeed. As an ex National Trust regional committee member (an interesting but strange experience that made me feel very odd-one-out) I have appreciated what making these decisions mean and how rigorously endowments need to be considered before taking on new holdings of land or property.
Last month I received a letter from the Trust asking for a contribution towards the major restoration of Greenway, the only surviving home of Agatha Christie. Given to the Trust by Christie's family in 2000 its gardens have been open to the public for the last 6 years and now Christie's daughter and son-in-law have died, the house also belongs to the Trust. The repairs are estimated at £3.5million, with cataloguing and conserving adding a further £600,000.
If you were to ask me for a bit of dosh to save a piece of coast, or for an ancient forest I would cough up and be glad that the Trust can be counted on to do a job that no-one else will. But Agatha Christie's house? When Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot are household icons and murder mysteries are everyone's favourite bank holiday fare? Perhaps a commercial company such as Tussauds, owners of Warwick Castle, Alton Towers and the London Eye to name a few attractions, would be better placed to take on a project like this. But as it sits with the Trust, I would suggest that the commercial exploitation potential for the property must be huge; shouldn't the Trust be generating funding for this from the private sector and creating a surplus to contribute to other less immediately attractive projects? Humphh.

Farm subsidy - and all that jazz

From time to time Farmers Weekly has skulked on the kitchen table, with headlines like "the cloud behind the silver lining" telling you all you need to know about this pessimistic publication. To suggest it is a chronicle of whingeing, carping and hand-wringing would do most editions justice. I may, however, have gained an insight that might temper my view a little. These days, farm subsidy (now the Single Farm Payment or SFP) is no longer for production. The days of supporting, indeed encouraging, butter mountains and milk lakes are long gone, and to qualify for subsidy you need to be farming in an environmentally friendly way that conserves the countryside for all. Not popular with all farmers, it will contribute in a small way to improving the environment for flora, fauna and traditional landscape features on our farm. At least it would, if the process of communicating with the body that handles the SFP left me enough energy to get on with the farming. The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) has got to be one of the most infuriatingly bloodpressure raising organisations I have ever had the misfortune to deal with. When they get your reference number, address and all other details apart from your name wrong, you write and expect it to be sorted. When, nearly two years and countless email, telephone and snail-mail communications later you are still trying to get all of this most basic of information corrected, patience wears desperately thin. When you get letters (to your ex-address) containing profuse apologies and helpful souls on the phone saying it's all been sorted, you dance about the place like a loon thanking your lucky stars (in that cloudless sky) that you might have finally secured a few hours back in your week. When you find yourself swearing at the poor messenger on the end of the phone because you just can't believe the incompetence of the system has ballsed up yet again, you know that something has got to give - now it's your sanity versus theirs .
As contributors to Farmers Weekly are highly likely to be dealing with the RPA regularly, it's not surprising that the tone of the magazine can leave you checking every gift horses mouth and poking at the silver linings for grey, claggy misfortune.

Oops.....

There is a forbidden word. It became forbidden when the 6 tonne digger arrived. When the person most likely to use it was a novice. When there was lots of opportunity for mistaken demolition. And where the excitement of a full size Tonka toy could overcome spatial awareness. It was agreed that "oops" was entirely disallowed, binned, banned and canned. As in "Oops, I've just knocked down the side of the barn", or "Oops, do you remember where that wall used to be?", and "Oops, I was just using the digger when.....". So wary are we of the previously beloved "oops" that it has vanished from normal conversation as if the saying of it might result in rubble, ruin and wrecking.

Tomato and Chilli Relish and the wonder of Google archives

Last week we opened the first jar of tomato and chilli relish that I'd made last September from the polytunnel-grown glut of beefsteak tomatoes, and that first small pot has all been snaffled (mostly by me) before the week was out. It was utterly fantastic - sweet, warming, no vinegary sourness at all. I hunted around the cookery books for the recipe to mark it up for repeating this year, and then remembered that it has been an on-line find. Googling to find it again didnt work at first - none of the recipes that popped up sounded familiar - and then I started to look at my Google desktop history for "tomato relish" and there it was, posted by Libby on the Delia on-line messageboard, secured from a distant New Zealander. So here is the posting, and here is the recipe:

6 lbs ripe tomatoes, skinned and chopped
4 oz salt
4 apples, peeled and chopped
8 large onions, chopped
3 lbs sugar
4 small tablespoons mustard powder
1 pint cider vinegar
5 small fresh chillies
2 tablespoons cornflour and a little vinegar to mix it

Mix the mustard powder with a little of the cold vinegar. Add to other ingredients in a large pot and boil for at least an hour. Thicken with 2 tablespoons of cornflour in a little vinegar and bottle in sterilized jars.

Chopped liver

4 chicken livers
2 hard-boiled eggs
1 medium onion
chicken schmaltz (or duck/goose fat)

When I was a child, more than thirty years ago, my mother usually did a chicken for Sunday lunch. If it was a boiling fowl we had the neck skin stuffed with dumpling ingredients, stitched at both ends into a large sausage shape and boiled alongside the fowl to eat greedily in slices with the chicken soup first course.

More usually my mother roasted the chicken and would save every scrap of chicken fat (schmaltz) from the roasting pan to make chopped liver for supper. The butcher was always happy to throw in a few extra chicken livers; most of his customers didn’t seem to want the giblets.

Once lunch things were put away I had the job of chopping the onion and boiling the eggs. My mother fried the onion in plenty of schmaltz until it softened and then added the livers. When the livers were cooked they were left to cool a little in the pan. She then tipped the pan on to a board and chopped the mix with the hard-boiled eggs until she had a coarse pate–like texture. Every little bit was scraped carefully into a bowl, including any fat still lingering in the pan.

Eaten slightly warm with toast turned Sunday evenings into something more than the lull before Monday morning school. I still make chopped liver occasionally and each time I wonder why I don’t make it every week; it tastes of childhood and is simply delicious.

Squirrel for tea

The workshop looked like something out of a game cookbook photoshoot; 2 brace of pheasant, 4 partridge, a solitary wild duck and a couple of pigeons swung by their feet, tied to the beam with baler twine awaiting an orgy of plucking. The feathers flew, the innards, heads and feet went in the rubbish and the freezer contents swelled. Something of this sort happens nearly every other weekend in the autumn and winter as the local farmer's Saturday shoot surplus finds its way to our door. Fantastically tasty and free meat - what more could you ask? Our stalwart providers said they took their hats off to us - that we were seemingly prepared to eat anything. Some distant memory of Hugh Fearnley-Wotsit eating squirrel resurrected itself - we've not tried squirrel yet we said. Two weeks later a very smiley face appeared carrying a very fat example of the breed; I suspect it had been their particular challenge that week to find us something new to tackle. A chubby grey squirrel that looked more like a stuffed toy than a food source sat on the chopping board and soon looked like a small skinned rabbit. We casseroled it in the luscious apple and calvados gravy left over from the previous night's pheasant. It smelled nice. It tasted fine. But it had the texture of an unreconstructed rubber tyre/wellie boot. The fact that the shotgun pellets had all collected under the skin and not penetrated into the muscle should have been more than a hint; the wee beastie was not so much fat as mature, I suspect.

Ethics, morals and confusion

I rarely read any newspaper article with a man in a dog-collar featured at its head, but something about John Sentamu's piece, "Ethics must shape our global economy" made me press on. The Archbishop of York describes how feeble is the typical guess as to the meaning of ethics: a feeling of what is right or wrong; linking ethics to one's religious beliefs; thinking that being consistent with the law of the land will make your actions ethical. We can all think of examples when taking those as our ethical standards would have meant condoning or carrying out terrifyingly unjust actions.

The Archbishop describes ethics as referring to "well-based standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, justice, or specific virtues - such as decency... ethical standards also include ... honesty, compassion, and loyalty... rights to life, freedom from injury, and privacy. Secondly, ethics refers to the study and development of one's standards... it is necessary to constantly examine one's standards to ensure they are reasonable and well-founded. Ethics...means...studying our moral beliefs and conduct, and striving to ensure we, and the institutions we help to shape, live up to reasonable, solidly based standards. We must always allow our standards to be open to question and judgement."

And that's when I moved from agreement to confusion. For me, the term morality or moral beliefs means something that someone somewhere is going to get het up about in order to restrict my or someone elses personal freedom and probably our personal rights. Rather than feel comfortable with the idea of morals, I get very nervous that some dubious moral code is being used to justify entirely unethical actions, or at the very least make it difficult for individuals to assert their rights.

I suspect many of my concerns are linked to what others would call sexual "moralities". That a religion can dictate that couples refrain from using contraception because it deems it intrinsically evil; that condoms are the work of the devil and are useless anyway; that couples should either refrain from sex altogether or keep pushing out a child every year and compromise the woman's health, their sanity and their family, seems to me utterly unethical. That anyone other than the woman involved can ultimately decide whether or not she can or cannot have an abortion is likewise unacceptable in my ethical terms. Just as untenable to me are: denying young people sex education and easy access to contraception; that those with a "moral code" are refusing women the morning after pill; that gay couples should be treated differently in law from heterosexual married couples etc etc etc.....

The prurience of the tabloids when dealing with sexual affairs also sickens; they trawl unendingly for what they see as "dirt", splash it happily all over the front pages to sell their papers (and we buy them!) and condemn those targetted as if we were in the middle ages and stoning and the stocks had just been banned so public ridicule must be ensured in other ways. It's just sex, folks; stop getting so worked up about it.

But away from personal life, what about those business ethics issues? Green or ecological policies seems to be a confusion with ethical policies; if we are ecologically sound, surely we cannot be unethical at the same time? I don't know the answer; I only pose the question, but I guess that it's a matter of perception, knowledge and understanding the longest of long term effects of the actions we take today and tomorrow.

Playing with apples

For the first time ever, in October 2006 there were enough apples to make it a genuine crime not to use them properly. Hiring an apple crusher and press from the local commercial makers was simple, and the apple picking was a joy - filling barrels in the tractor link box making sure that each different variety was kept separate and labelled on a cold but sunny autumn day was a novelty. They got a quick bobbing in clean water and then were put through the electric crusher before putting the pulp into the press. The smell of the crushed apples was heavenly. The pulp is put into a kind of stocking (very high denier!) bag, wooden blocks hold down the lid and then you turn the press until the juice flows. It comes surprisingly quickly and clean food-safe buckets have to be at the ready. We made over 100 litres of apple juice and 4 barrels of cider. The cider was a mix of bittersweet and sweet cider apples with some Bramleys for extra flavour. The juice was a combination of blends and single juices and now, some months on you can determine which ones should be incorporated into blends when juicing next years load and which are best kept as single varieties. The orchard has a lot of Blenheim Orange apples - very sweet, in fact too sweet as a single variety juice - but just fantastic when blended with Egremont Russet and Bramley (ratio of 1:2:1). The best single varieties were Allington Pippin and Ellisons Orange. I didnt want to pasteurise so had to freeze the juice - in new 1 litre plastic milk bottles that a goat-keeper in Milton Abbot had surplus to requirements. The cider has been racked once and now needs to be bottled, ready for tasting in the summer. Cider making and apple juicing has been happening in and around Dartmoor for hundreds of years - it's nice to know that you are part of a tradition and that there is a lot of advice around for novices.

Beenleigh Blue

I'm still mid-lunch but this is just so yummy I have to share! I have blogged on cheeses before but I'm increasingly knocked over by the quality of Devon cheeses. The fab cheese shop in Hatherleigh Market, only open on market day (Tuesdays) has a small but perfectly formed collection in a space that can accommodate 3 shoppers, tops, and two if they have bags of market veg with them. Having a particular love of ewe's milk cheese I went for a slice of the Roquefort-looking Beenleigh Blue, made by Ticklemore Cheese in Totnes. It is crumbly, perfectly salty, and mouth-fillingly delicious as the tiny taster I was offered, proved. The taste lingers and although it is distinctively eweish in nature, not so pungent as to put off the more conservative cheese eater. You can buy it on-line from the Teddington Cheese Company or from their own Ticklemore Cheese Shop in Totnes. Even Nigel Slater and Gordon Ramsay sing its praises. This is a real find; perhaps cheesemaking can be my last career change.

Pork brings pleasure

"We have started on the pork- it's better than any I've had before! ". When you get comments like that you know you are doing something right. Those 6 Berkshire pigs are being feted in kitchens from Cardiff to Bristol and Devon to Warwickshire. The grass in the pig paddock is making a swift return, following the fabulous ploughing that six unringed noses made throughout the summer. They unearthed mounds of sizeable stone which I am slowly picking up and chucking in the link box, carting it off to use as much needed hard core in gateways. The absence of the pigs is quite tangible - they made plenty of affable noises, pungent smells and being so many of them, spent most of their time playing in a sizeable space, learning how to hoist themselves into the water trough and create wallows to cool themselves off on hot days. Sentimentality bows out though, when the freezer needs filling and it is months since you were offered a decent bit of pork.

The Olympic bandwagon

Absolutely NOT a sports fan (if you hadn't already guessed), my prime unpatriotic groans about the 2012 olympics are that they are: a) going to create havoc in London and jealousy in every other city in the UK; b) that huge amounts of public money is being chucked at a pipe dream; c) that sport will play an increased role on a world stage already saturated with the tedious stuff; d) that hosts of private finance initiatives and their top brass will retire to the Bahamas on the proceeds, having hugely over-charged a government apparently unable to get value for money from the private sector; and e) that funds will be diverted from real good causes and the arts. In the last year, the London Olympics has become a sexy hook for the widest possible variety of projects, schemes and organisations in the private, public and not for profit sectors. If they can just make a link, no matter how tentative, they might just cream off some of that lovely sloshing-about lolly. You can just hear the Chair or CEO coming in on a Monday morning, rubbing their hands together and shouting "olympics!", just like they shouted "Y2K" back in 1999; it makes them seem up to the minute, hot to trot, thinking outside the envelope or any other daft cliche you care to think of. Today however, I open my regular Involve newletter from the Sector Skills Development Agency to read that "The 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games in London represent a real and significant opportunity to drive up skills not only in London, but nationally". Apparently, "The Department for Education and Skills is responsible for maximising the benefits of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in the field of education and skills, so that 2012 has a long-term impact on the lives of learners, particularly young people of the 2012 Olympic generation." Is it uncharitable of me to say that this is a load of old guff, and if it takes the Olympics to get government to do its core work, then we truly have our priorities completely twisted? The Olympics is not a once in a lifetime opportunity - what is once in a lifetime is every individual's opportunity to develop and thrive. It makes me incandescent that this is linked to something so peripheral (yet so high profile) as sport in the noughties. Olympic and paralympic sport is elitist by definition - the best competing with the best. It is not about access, or that old saw about taking part, but about winning. To dangle this vision in front of Jo and Joe public and suggesting it will specifically enhance their skills in any way is bonkers. Jo and Joe need great schooling and education, great skills development opportunities and a real, interesting life, not lived vicariously through feted sports celebs viewed on the box.
(Sept 2006)

Little grey rabbit time

It's harvest time and as it's been throwing it down and the outdoor tasks put on hold, the preserving pan has been gurgling away all day. The two small plum trees were stripped of their bounty and the fruit turned into goodies for immediate and long term pleasures. Plum tart will go into the oven for a late supper, but for the months ahead 2 different sorts of plum jam - same recipe, different plums (fruit, sugar, nothing else) - are now on the shelves. A tray of halved and stoned plums have been frozen and bagged up to make a couple of winter crumbles. Kate's chutney gets made every 2 or 3 years as it gets better with age so I make enough to last that long, and this year is the first time it's been made in Devon. The recipe comes from a great grandmother from Norfolk (I think) and has been adapted this year as there weren't enough dates, so dried apricots and figs made up the lack. The apples and plums for the chutney came from the orchard, the tomatoes from the polytunnel, and the carrots were blagged from next door from the sack used to feed their breeding water voles. Tomorrow it's time for tomato relish and if the rain holds off, there are heaps of sloes and blackberries to pick for cheese and conserve. The shelves are starting to fill again, my hands are discoloured from stoning the fruit and socks are being worn for the first time in months. It must be heading for autumn.

Ornithology made easy

A casual conversation about bird feeders, £5.95 on a peanut feeder and £4 on one for suet balls spent in the local agricultural store, a length of ash cut from the firewood heap, feeders dangling in the breeze, and there was years worth of education and entertainment all set up less than a yard from the kitchen window. That was in March. Since then there have been: nuthatches (look, look, there's one that prefers to eat upside down...); a wren or two - a personal favourite; blue tits and great tits; house and tree sparrows; chaffinch, goldfinch, bullfinch; and a pair of great spotted woodpeckers. The woodpeckers were spectacular: large, dominant and shy with brilliant red patches under their tails and on the back of the (male) head, they successfully reared two young that later learned to feed themselves as juveniles after sitting on the iron railings getting their parents to loosen peanut after peanut from the feeder and pass them on like a parent doling out smarties to toddlers. Apparently woodpeckers also feed their young on baby blue tits and there are no shortage of those.
Fledglings of all kinds have hovered about looking fresh and fluffy and unsure, and the type and age of birds visiting have changed as the months have passed. The time of day also dictates who eats when. Early morning, before anyone is up, magpies take advantage. I really don't like these birds as they eat the duck eggs and have a raucous and insistent call. They have gone further down in my estimation by not only nicking the peanuts put out for the smaller birds, but tapping loudly on the windows hours before any sane person would consider setting their alarm clock. The vigour of their tapping initially made me rush out of bed wondering what someone could possibly want at that hour - sheep out on the road perhaps - but no, it's just the magpies having their fun. Their brothers, the rooks, are equally irritating as they build nests in the chimney pots causing great clumps of twigs and mummified birds to fall into the chimneys and woodburners, so I light small fires during the summer to dissuade them.
Some of the birds haven't eaten directly from the feeders but pecked instead at the suet and nut crumbs that dusted the grass below like hundreds and thousands. These crumbs also attracted mice, and inevitably, the cats, although surprisingly few birds have been caught. Until yesterday that is. At breakfast there was a whoosh of feathers as a cloud of sparrows dived under the broom bush for cover. A few seconds later a sparrowhawk emerged, sparrow secured in its yellow claws with black talons. He stood for a few moments, just 4 feet away, whilst I had a really good look, and then took off, leaving the remaining sparrows distinctly and understandably nervous for the rest of the day.
The yard has also seen a lot of other birds not attracted to the feeders. Wagtails bounce their way along the ground, or at least the constantly wagging tails make it look like that. House martins have built several of their muddy nests under the eaves around the house, stealing bits of cob from the crumbling barns and swooping in flocks of twenty or so in circles across the yard in the late afternoon. Some are more successful nest builders than others, having watched one make a feeble attempt whilst others were finishing their elaborate structures just inches away. Swallows and swifts are also frequent visitors, sitting on power cables and joining the house martins in their circular exercises. In the evenings you can hear and sometimes see the barn owl, a truly gorgeous creature, and the tawny owl too with its hooting call which if you mimic will get you a response. Then there are the robins which appear from late summer; the cuckoo, although you hear it close by I've never seen it; many buzzards who are incredibly bold round here and can land fairly close to you; the pheasants that shared the pig paddock, eating any rare leftovers; the grey partridge that hatched and reared its young in the middle of Mopsa's Meadow; the snipe that paddle about in the wet drainage ditches with their young. The list goes on, and on.