Emerging from the Deathly Hallows

Like millions of children, I have been spending some of my weekend with my nose poked firmly in the final Harry Potter outing. Having loved the first couple (yup, I'm a sucker for summer simplicity in the book stakes), I plodded somewhat through the next batch, and wailed that someone at Bloomsbury should have the wit and the nerve to tackle the job of editor, and not be frit of tarnishing the golden egg by irritating the goose. The wailing was loudest at the 5th book, the longest and most repetitive of the lot. But you know what it's like...you still want to know how it all comes out in the wash. And either the editor has hopped off the pot, or JK has learned how to self edit. In any case, I romped through The Deathly Hallows at a gallop, quite breathless in places to know what happens next. It probably ties up loose ends for those who have the memory or an interest that can be sustained in detail over a decade of book releases, but for me, it was a fun way to spend chunks of the weekend.
Other things happened too though. A thatcher came to assess the size of the roundhouse roof attached to the threshing barn. There is very little to see apart from heaps of stone rubble and monstrous rotten timbers, but with the drawings in hand, he said that there didn't seem to be any measurements. When it was explained that the drawings were to a scale as shown, he didn't look much enlightened, and took out his measuring stick. Whatever keeps him happy. And then the wool receipt arrived for 2007; 53 kilos of fleece have now been received by the British Wool Marketing Board. When the cheque arrives it may or may not pay for a drink at the pub. Last year a cheque for £0.00 had been solemnly produced and sent.

Couldn't resist - Dormouse life in Devon

Grand designs

Once or twice I've hinted at the dereliction of the farm buildings surrounding the farmyard. That the decay is the first thing I see as I fling open the curtains. That the sound of crashing timbers and slates wakes you up on a stormy night. That the cob melts after the rain as surely as if it were gingerbread.
The process of restoration is more than slow; it creeps unwillingly in some kind of direction, often backwards. Two years on and we are still at the planning stages. Listed building permission is being sought and there are just a few days left before builders have to put in their tenders. They have swarmed over the site, detailed work specifications in hand, gingerly poking at the realities, hard hatted and serious. They all love the site - it's peaceful, it has adequate access, and there are large dogs to play with. It's a proper job too. There will have to be a site hut, a shipping container for equipment, a new electrical circuit to feed their whizzy bits and a portaloo or two. Big machinery and scaffolding en masse will sit heavily on the ground and change my morning view. There will be brickies (making cob blocks), sparks, thatchers, roofers, chippies, plumbers. There will be all kinds of folks doing all kinds of noisy things.
None of this is for B&B or holiday homes or new houses. The barns are to be restored back to agricultural use: a proper farm workshop; somewhere to keep convalescing livestock; a place to rear poultry; somewhere enclosed to keep feedstuffs and more; a stable for a big, slow horse; a cow pen for milking the dreamed of Dexters and a farrowing pen for a Berkshire sow and a litter of piglets.
When the quotes come in I will close my eyes and be as nervous as a teenager with A-level results in hand.

The photo is of the west side of the courtyard, one of the two larger barns....I truly hope this is a "before" shot that will have a future "after" shot for comparison.

Reading the meter

Vanity requires one to check how the few but cherished people visiting and reading actually find this blog, and the fascinating site meter has a tale of its own to tell. There are the lovely old faithfuls who keep you snugly in their sidebar (for which, much thanks) and so signpost new readers to Mopsa's offerings. But I really enjoy unearthing the info that folks have found me via some totally personal and possibly bonkers Google search.

If you google “soaking filthy feet”, as one hopeful clean soul (sole?) had, Ramblings is currently first in line. Then there was “Chagford & tango”, “the magic faraway tree” (thrice), “mariana lambing”, “Mrs Malaprop”(twice), “funday fairies daisy meadows order online”, “drop em blossom”, “chim chiminey”, “location of sloes, Warwickshire”, "abscess on gordon ramsay turkeys foot", "guinea pig runny bum", "langan family theatre royal stratford east" and “wet wellies”.
I doubt that I have provided either relief or information on any of these topics, but it's good to know that if you have concerns about pet rodent diarrhoea or how to dry your wellingtons, that an utterly useless piece of Mopsa whimsy or whingeing can distract you momentarily from your research.

But back to the old faithfuls. I hadn't dared contemplate that this blog contains "nature meets art"; The Thinker is a generous soul. The Thinker, she of various articulate and thoughtful blogs (and also blogging from Devon) has shipped a Blogging Community Involvement Award my way, which sounds highly do-gooderish until you realise it is an award for being a schmoozer. Schmooze I can do - sometimes I think that's what I'm paid for. I grew up with words like schmooze, many of them less than polite. And how many people do you know who can speak Yiddish? As a language that no-one round my way is familiar with, it could be said to encourage dissembling, but these days I have to rack my brain to remember just a handful of words. Kvetch, chutzpah, mensch, messhuganer, nebbish, schlemiel, schlong, schmutter, schnoz, shtick, tush, yenta.....what fabulously expressive words - a whole phrase and intention in each.

And now I must nominate 5 awards of my own:

1. Chip Dale, the master thonglateer
2. Yorkshire Pudding, in exchange for his mature blogger award
   
3. Kaz, the busy idler
4. Drunk Mummy - just as it says on the tin
5. Mountainear, for schmoozing from great heights and to great effect.
   

Old lady award

The hearty Yorkshire Pudding (delicious with your Sunday roast) has handed me a mature blogger.
Apparently, this new and by definition currently rare award goes to those "who have blogged with mature dignity, saying wise and mature things" Worryingly, the associated traits are drinking in moderation, praying each night and beginning every other sentence with either "When I was young..." or "In my day...".
This award is therefore causing me concern me on numerous counts:

1. I am not ready to grasp the baton of middle age, no matter what it says on my passport
2. Neither am I ready to relinquish the inner child
3. Mr Pudding called me Mr Mopsa...he thinks I'm a man. Do I sound like a man? Should I worry that I sound like a man? I'm not a man. Honest. Didn't you read my blog on bras? I think I've written two of them. Don't they count for anything??
   
4. My drinking is in such moderation that the Bloody Mary I had on Friday night was the first bit of alcohol to pass my lips since I chomped on a chocolate cherry brandy liqueur some months back, but that doesn't make me mature, does it? Just sad.
5. What's praying?
6. But yes, I must admit to penning phrases such as "aeons ago" or similar when relating past experiences, and have shared the actuality of my grey streaked hair, so I probably only have myself to blame.

I will try and write like a youthful snippet, a flibberty gibbet with no cares in the world, an ageless soul. And then perhaps someone will, in all innocence, send me an award for blogging juvenilia. I can only hope.

Pulling the pernicious

Something unexpected has happened in the wake of last winter's banking and fencing. Diggers danced along the hedgelines recreating the medieval Devon banks, and tractors followed behind erecting livestock proof fencing to ensure the beautifully laid hedges and ramparts were not trampled into oblivion by the sheep and cattle. The work left a surprisingly gentle scar on the earth, and I hoped that docks and nettles wouldn't rush in to colonise what was an inviting seedbed.
What wasn't expected was that wildflowers would spring up along the hedges, cheekily grabbing survival from the insidious grasp of the nettle. Yes, there are some stinging nettle patches, but mostly there is a riot of colour. Mauve self-heal seems to have come from nowhere. Vetch is so abundant it rampages with its curly pea-like tendrils and purple flowers over anything that stands still long enough. Yellow meadow-vetchling has made a welcome appearance, and there is yarrow, buttercup, sneezewort and more.
But among the newcomers is something more pernicious. Ragwort, previously a rarity on the farm, has marched onto the land not so much as an invasion, but certainly creating a little local difficulty. Armed with thick gloves and empty feed sacks, the intruders have been pulled and safely removed. Having spent time with horses in the past, the dangers of ragwort have been fair dinned into the brain, but there are other natural nasties that are less familiar, and there will be a second trip around the hedges shortly to double check if that pretty pink thing that looks oh so innocent, also requires urgent action.

The Green Room

Chugging up the A30 in the dark, back from another working trip to London, and having spent the day thinking and talking about theatre, I had a sudden flashback. Aeons ago I worked for a year or so in the Green Room at the RSC in Stratford upon Avon. It was an exciting time. The Swan Theatre had its Royal opening - I was there to see the surprisingly titchy Queen sweep to her seat - with the magical performance of The Fair Maid of the West, and I have been a mega fan of Imelda Staunton ever since.
There are dozens of stories to tell about that era in my life, making and serving breakfast, lunch and supper to the cast, crew and staff while truly extraordinary plays were being made and delivered simultaneously in three auditoria. Gossip flowed with the cans of lager and the mugs of tea. Young, beautiful faces, many of them now middle aged stage, television and film stars and stalwarts, flirted with the already famous and the older backbone of skilled performers and directors.
You couldn't afford to be star-struck; pouring hot tea over Roman sandal clad feet, or burning the longed-for toast after a trying rehearsal would not have been popular, and Jeremy Irons was very particular about his poached eggs. But one day a mother came to see her daughter and they chatted and snacked before curtain up. I cannot even begin to tell you how nervous I was saying my lines: "your cauliflower cheese is ready, Vanessa".

If you offer peanuts, you get monkeys

And if you give chocolate, what do you get then? Recruitment; it's a difficult task and I used to think that interviewing was a two way process, with the candidate sussing out what is on offer every bit as much as the prospective employer. Was I wrong? Are employers struggling so hard to find good staff that they feel the need to give away goody bags, or are they actively seeking out endorphin chasing post-adolescents as task-focussed automatons, manipulated through sweet cravings rather than managed to achieve job satisfaction?
Master Drage caused me to chortle - I thought he was joking about the appeal of the company website and the chocs as a real incentive to join the company, but I'm not so sure. Perhaps I'm just a killjoy and miffed that I was never offered a literal sweetener by a prospective employer. Perhaps that's where Sir Alan goes wrong; he offers such a sugar rush (sorry!) what with his name, the media attention and instant TV notoriety that he gets planks rather than people to choose from.
Very shortly I will be chairing an interview panel to fill the most senior post in a third sector organisation. They will need to lead a great team, achieve a complex set of objectives and give all stakeholders more than a warm, fuzzy, post-choc feeling. Am I bonkers to take it all so seriously or should I be offering a year's supply of jelly beans and give the job to the person who successfully negotiates the addition of Smarties?

(The Beatles insert is entirely gratuitous; any excuse for a good tune and a giggle).

Reasons to be cheerful - part 5

I could put my hand out and touch them - but I won't. I think there are six of them, but can't be sure. When the parent swallow goes off to find food they all rest their chins (do birds have chins?) on the rim of the nest. When mum arrives back they open wide their yellow maws. She goes off to seek further refreshment and the wide-mouths shut, Zippy fashion.

Bogged down

The basics of life can be quite demanding at times. The very helpful Mr Cream Teas (aka the Environmental Health Officer) tells me that what is required are three women's loos, one unisex loo and a urinal. This clutch of temporary smelly habitats will satisfy the council for the charity (&) sheep shearing marathon and fun day I am helping to plan. What with the cream teas, hog and lamb roasts and alcohol on offer, plus the physical jiggling created by the pony rides, bucking bronco and bouncy castle, adequate facilities will be required.
Discussing bogs can be a bit of a downer when folks want to concentrate on how donations and fun quotient can be maximised. Then there is the formality of the Temporary Event Notice and contacting the police, getting insurance and all that jazz.
There will be lots of helpers. The local Young Farmers will be clearing out our friend's huge sheep shed so that all jollities will continue whether it continues to pour with rain or not; a local rugger team will be putting their muscular thighs and other bits to good use in one way or another; local companies are being asked to donate items for auction, and people will be flogging entry tickets and asking for sponsorship over the next few weeks leading up to The Big Day. There is a clay pigeon shoot to be coordinated and a marquee to be erected. The shearer is busy shearing across Devon and will be well warmed up by then. He is not in the first flush of youth, and has two artificial hips and a metal plate holding his thigh together. He aims to de-fleece 500 sheep in 24 hours, whilst all around him merriment and good humoured daftness urge him on.
Even with allowed breaks I suspect he will have a posture like Prince Charles at the stroke of midnight.

What a big lot of about

Alan Bennett encapsulated it beautifully when he described his mother referring to the vista as "a big lot of about". The phrase has entered my life and gets used often. I think of myself as articulate but (and this is not something that has developed over the years - it has always been with me) frequently struggle to wrap my tongue around the word I want. Is this premature senility, a sign that I am headed for Alzheimer's, or do some brains just have odd synaptic arrangements? Flowerpot brought this tussling with words to mind, but it is a daily dance and probably as infuriating for others as it is for me. I don't even know if many people have noticed it, and if they have, I'm not at all sure I want verification.
It has, as most things, a positive side. I conjure nicknames and phrases for people and things easily, many of them bordering on the absurd. The words sit fatly in the air for a few moments of enjoyment and then burst into temporary oblivion until the object or place or person comes back to mind complete with new tag. It's like having a compendium of word games inside my head; I never know which rules will apply at any given moment, but at least I'm the gamemaster.

Beasties of the culm

Today was culm survey day, and we also surveyed the wood and the four most interesting fields on the farm. Interesting from a species point of view rather than because they might contain a leprechaun, a pot of gold or the missing hammer. It has been a very wet day. Wellies up to the armpits would have been a boon. As it is, my knees are wet, having been exposed between cagoule hem and wellington boot top. The knees were not naked, but might as well have been for all the good my trousers did.
I say "we" but actually I just trailed the professional, asking daft questions and trying not to squash anything rarer than a rarebit. For today (but possibly not by next week) I know the difference between Meadowsweet and Common marsh-bedstraw, and that having a flock of ewes barge their way unasked into the woodland even for an hour or two means that the 24 orchids previously counted will dwindle for this season at least to about half a dozen, even though there is no permanent damage. It is possible that some of the areas will become County Wildlife Sites, but I don't think a visit from Bill Oddie is implied in this designation.
Next job of the day is to measure the pigs to see if they are ready for the butcher. You use a piece of twine to measure them from neck to tail and round the chest and then do some magic formula thingy. Wrapping string round a pig is not easy at any time. It is very difficult when the ground is liquid chocolate. I may report back. On the other hand I might just need a bath.

P.S. For those who liked my woodpecker post, you'll be pleased to know that three red-capped juveniles have been raised and are now fully fledged, pecking each other in their eagerness to dominate the peanuts. The cats are on notice.

The photo is of a Six-spot Burnet Moth.

Killing me softly

I was going to let it pass without mention, but I find that I can't. I am just so pleased that the smoking ban has finally come into force.
I spent my life until my late teenage years living in a house with a father who smoked almost incessantly. It was before the grave warnings on the side of fag packets and the messages of ill health and worse were only starting to be heard and believed by most folk. Smokers were in the majority, or so it seemed.
I always hated smoking. Not in a mild fashion, but with a searing vengeance. I hated that the smoke made me choke, that it stank out the whole house, that the ceiling in the sitting room was yellow and that my father had chronic bronchitis. I would avoid spending time downstairs in a room that when you entered, your head would be above the swirling clouds of smoke, and your neck below. I couldn't understand the addiction to something so unpleasant, or that the father I loved dearly was causing himself and our home to be in thrall to the fag.
I never thought kids at school who smoked surreptitiously behind the bike sheds or the gym were cool - they had breath that stank, yellow fingernails and ash on their clothes - what was cool about that? Pubs and parties were great until the fug got overwhelming, and I shuddered at the way my clothes reeked when I got home, particularly as we didn't have a washing machine and I'd have to lug them to the laundry or splosh them about in the sink.
I don't think I ever kissed anyone who smoked, and when I finally did, it was on the understanding that the ciggies were history.
At work for a local authority I was agog when an idiotic councillor with a love for the weed, insisted on rearranging the already inadequate office space to allow staff to have a smoking room. I don't recall her asking for a room where drug addicts could shoot up, or for a row of optics to hang from the wall in case an alcoholic needed a fix between their liquid lunch and the end of the working day.
I have an over sensitive snout and throat; it was part of the imprint created by my father's ultimately deadly habit. I find it difficult to walk behind someone smoking on the street if the wind blows the smoke my way. I can't wait at a bus stop with smokers, or be near anyone desperate to light up as they step from a train. I don't despise them for their habit, I just can't stand the physical assault it makes unknowingly or not, directly on me. And I hope for all our sakes that the ban will help more people give up the noxious weed.

London town

I was up in The Smoke yesterday. There and back in one day, a thirteen hour round trip. I drove to the station. I waited for the train and after a short delay rolled along inexorably through ruralness and suburbia towards urbania. I headed down into the depths of the underground. My head rang with ratcheting decibels on the tube, whilst my body scorched in the heat and twanged internally to the palsied rhythm. My eyeballs and eardrums threatened to close down. Before meltdown I left the screeching metal intestinal transport system behind and gratefully walked across a park to get to my meeting.
Heading homeward I was talking on the phone, lost my concentration and took a wrong turning in the park, the Thames and Tower Bridge stretching before me. I asked a man which way to the underground and he shrugged. I asked another man, this time walking a dog (usually a good sign) and he told me the way. It was quite clear that he was heading in the same direction, but unlike the casual and relaxed familiarity of home, I forgot that Londoners have an innate suspicion and self-preservation thing going on (I had it too, but my Londoner status has obviously long rubbed off) and he was most uncomfortable when I fell in step alongside him. He quickened his pace, tugging at the dog's lead and marched swiftly ahead, either mildly in fear of my safety or his.
I am a bad traveller. I am probably an angry traveller. I resent the enforced claustrophobia, inactivity and almost inevitable migraine. I feel myself bristle, and that isn't good for bloodpressure or the stranger sitting opposite, with whom you have to do the tired leg tango, avoiding any touch each time you stretch and reposition yourself less uncomfortably.
And then, more tired than a tired thing, I hobble out of the car and open the farm gate. The dogs hurl themselves up the track into my arms and I drive them down to the house, sanity restored.
I take off my London clobber, and curl into fleece and leggings (yeah, right unfashionable slut) ready for a sofa snooze before bed. My mistake. A loud shout has me joining the fray to evict 102 Suffolk ewes from the wood - they should be in the adjoining fields but have opened the narrow pedestrian gate and filed through, munching on things they shouldn't be munching on. It only takes ten minutes to sort them out. The gates are secured with baler twine and I slope back to the comfort of the sofa.

Censorship

Rachel has made me chortle most mightily, and one is obliged to share a good thing. Apparently I am damned and forbidden reading for the under eighteens. I am officially an adult blog. This is determined based on the presence of the following words:

• sex (8x)
• murder (5x)
• death (4x)
• dyke (3x)
• rape (2x)
• cocks (1x)

I didn't recall discussing dykes, so I did a blog search. The references are to Dick van and Greg. I'll leave you to search for my comments on cocks. Go on, have a laugh...get your rating here.

Old Testament toad

The rivers are not running with blood, but they are bursting their banks and cruelly taking life. The news is grim and Gordon Brown will be taking over a country not so much cleansed as deluged. As for the personal being political, the largest toad I have ever seen in this country took refuge from the watery onslaught in the dog's room last night and as it is still dark I have yet to check outside whether this is a single visitation or a veritable plague, and if I should therefore be checking for lice (might be a tick or two on the sheep), flies (check), dying cattle (my heart starts to sink), boils (so far, so smooth), hail of devastating effect (not yet...but the grass intended for hay has nonetheless been flattened by the downpours), locusts (just butterflies at the moment), and far worse.
The toad was the size of my fist - I do not have large hands, but even so, that is a big Bufo bufo. It was carried carefully into some lush green undergrowth out of dog harm.
There is something hugely appealing about a toad. They live a quiet life, rarely intruding on your thoughts or vision, and then they appear apparently out of nowhere to remind you of their existence and helpful destruction of veg patch pests. Digging up spuds a few years ago, a knot of toads emerged blinking from the soil and incredible care had to be taken as more of them were revealed at each now tentative forkful of earth.
But the biggest toad I have ever seen anywhere was Italian. The Toad of Fontemelaia as it was thereafter named, was the size of a football and I nearly squashed it, driving down the unmade treacherous track after an evening at the local pizzeria. There was this big round lump in the road. Thinking it was a rock that had newly fallen on the path I screeched to a halt. As we went to move the rock, the headlights showed it to be mega toad. We gawped in awe. It hauled itself away from the light never to be seen again. I still wonder if it was a figment of too much chianti, but there were four of us and we still recall that night and the wonderful cherries and fireflies that flourished below the flea-ridden but oh so romantic farmhouse.
If my biblical toad is still around in the morning light I will try and take a photo of the man himself.

Creature feature

Bats are a part of life here, and with the young podding, the odd one or two fall from the rafters or get left behind by mum, hopefully (doubtfully) temporarily. They drop from the gap above the Aga into the kitchen where the warmth lulls them stupid, or their mothers fly into the bedroom, just missing the bat entrance to the roof by inches. I have seen three youngsters in varying stages of development in the past fortnight. They are strange creatures, truly prehistoric in their ugliness and fascinating in their otherness. I think this is a young pipistrelle, no more than an inch long, completely bald and clinging to the green oak cladding of the outdoor stairs, awaiting mammary satisfaction and a furry back to climb on. I hope this bat baby finds what it's looking for.

The meme game

Thanks to le Chippy, followed swiftly by Jan Tregeagle, I have yet another meme (or more appropriately meme) to send on its merry way. If this carries on, I will have no secrets left.

What was I doing ten years ago?
It was a Sunday, and according to my diary the day was blank - but I was no doubt recovering from the previous day's surfeit of stunning outdoor international theatre at its very best - and all a decade before The Sultan's Elephant was a twinkle in a Parisians eye.

What was I doing one year ago?
I was working in London for the day, with a view of Tate Modern, and meeting more than 40 of the most interesting artists and arts managers in the capital. I was also celebrating my first year living in Devon.

Five snacks I enjoy (only five?)
Halloumi, fried in olive oil and served with rocket and raspberry vinegar - it's posh cheese for adults, and it squeaks!
Ready brek
Raspberries with clotted cream
Sausages - homemade, with friends and an old Kenwood
Chocolate puds - any luscious kind will do.

Five songs to which I know all the lyrics
If I were a rich man
I've farted
She was poor but she was honest
Every last word of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat (feel free to wipe that memory any time you like)
I'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter (or perhaps a blog)

Five things I would do if I were a millionaire
I'd build a big tall house with rooms by the dozen... (actually no, I'd restore the old barns on the farm)
I'd fill my yard with chicks and turkeys and geese and ducks (and lots of art)
I wouldn't have to work hard (in reality I would probably work harder, but on the land, using muscles and no less brain)
I'd buy my sister a house with garden in central London - make that if I were a multi-millionaire
I'd have a party!

Five bad habits
Picking my feet
Snapping and snarling
Forgetting important things, remembering the minutiae
Innate laziness
Writing other people's to do lists

Five things I like doing
Walking the dogs
Eating with friends
Dibbling my toes in the sea
Lambing successfully
Reading in the sun

Five things I would never wear again
Zigzag orange and purple psychedelic flares
Yellow crocheted dress
A suit
Red stilettos....then again
Polo necks

Five favourite toys
Binker the bear
Twister
Newspaper fish
iPod
My Canon iXus

Phew. The baton is now passed to: Eurodog, Flowerpot Days, Keir Royale, Around My Kitchen Table and And Who Cares? Feel free to pick it up, to ignore it or to pity my revelations.

Midsummer madness

On midsummer night you should do something fabulous, and as the stuff on the box is positively appalling tonight, you are going to have to make your own entertainment. The suggestions made to me so far include "sprangling our mangelwurzels" and "spurtling our furtleberries". If you have any idea what these might be, please feel free to share. Alternative activities include: looking mournfully at the drenched hay field; having to water the veg in the polytunnel, because no matter how hard it rains, the rods can't penetrate plastic; hunkering down with a good plate of nosh and the DVD of Casino Royale. Daniel Craig wins hands down. Also hands up, behind his back, etc.

The culm

I have mentioned culm a few times, and mountainear has asked me to explain what I mean by the term. I will try my best; just remember that I am no ecologist and had no idea what it was myself two years ago.

The Culm is an area of North and West Devon. It is characterised by "an undulating, open, remote rural landscape, sparsely wooded and dominated by livestock farming. Intricate steep valley systems form rolling ridges feeding into wider major river valleys. Steep rugged coastline, much of which falls within the North Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty."
So that's The Culm. Which is not the same as culm grassland. Culm grassland is found in The Culm area and is Purple Moor-grass and rush pasture that is home to many interesting and rare species of plant and animal life. You find Purple Moor-grass on poorly drained, usually acid soils with high rainfall, which explains its ubiquity in Ireland, and until recent years in Devon before much of it had been drained and ploughed. Because there is considerably less of it now than there used to be, Defra and Natural England are trying to encourage its maintenance, re-creation and restoration. Why do they want to maintain this shrinking landscape? There are a huge number of plant species in addition to the Purple-Moor grass in these patches of land, including wonderfully named plants such as Bog asphodel, Bugle, Devil's-bit scabious, Hemp-agrimony, Lesser water-parsnip, Ragged-robin, Southern Marsh and Heath Spotted Orchids, Sneezewort and Whorled caraway, to name a few. These plants support some of the loveliest and increasingly rarest of critters. Curlews and Reed Bunting love this type of landscape, Kestrels and Barn Owls hunt over culm where voles are to be found, Marbled White and Marsh Fritillary butterflies thrive here as does the Narrow-bordered Bee Hawk-moth.
To maintain the grassland for these diminishing species you need to have the grass grazed by cattle at the right time of year - summer and autumn, or in January careful swaling of the dry thatch that is formed by the Purple Moor-grass, to encourage new growth in spring.
On the farm there is a patch of culm grassland that is just over an acre, a large bow-tie (or as I prefer to think of it, dog-bone) shaped glade surrounded by woodland. It has been fenced so that access to it by sheep and cattle can be controlled, and in summer it is incredibly difficult to walk through. It is thigh-high and tussocky and you have to wade through it and be very careful where you place your foot to avoid twisted ankles and squashing the orchids. Deer hide in the long grass and I long to come across a fawn.
The Devon Wildlife Trust think this small patch is bursting with interesting species and want to do a full survey. I can't wait.
Here endeth the lesson.

Walking the dogs

Mightily peeved at nature since scooping the remains of the baby nuthatch off the grass this morning. Need a walk to get the brain back on forward motion. We head across the farm to the wood. There is a full size roe deer, bouncing through the long grass. The dogs pretend to pursue but turn back at my call, and we plunge into the thigh high purple moor grass in the patch of culm. I count 24 orchids, a fluttering of butterflies, Bird's Foot Trefoil that will soon show its flowers, in fact all kinds of everything. I feel the stress drain out of me, literally through my feet into the boggy patches of watermint. Perhaps it will make the plants grow even more lush.

R.I.P young nuthatch

Sometimes I hate my cats. I know they only do what comes naturally, and they are fabulous rodent catchers. But today I found the newly fledged nuthatch dead and bedraggled from a mumbling in the cat's mouth. I suspect the only reason it hadn't been eaten was a surfeit of mouse earlier in the day. If the young great spotted woodpecker goes the same way I might not be held responsible for my actions.

Going, going.......gone

Devon is full of auctions. In a random week you could pit your wits and auction technique against the pros and hustlers for: antique furniture; crap furniture; granite adornments of massive tonnage; farm implements; cattle, sheep, lambs and other livestock; horses; jewellery; arts and crafts of all kinds; houses, farms, clumps of woodland; miscellaneous objects of every kind; and poultry and poultry paraphenalia.
You may not think that bidding for a clutch of laying eggs, a group of sorry-for-themselves goslings, or a pair of majestic Silver Appleyard ducks is much of a thrill, but you would be wrong. First there is the viewing. You push your way past the hordes of folk eyeing up the cages of squawking birds. You see a mother hen with a half dozen chicks, one perched on her back as she struts and clucks, checking all are present and correct. There are examples that just about pass the vet's muster, that you would not risk introducing to your own flock; runny nose, dull eyes, feathers lacklustre, scaly legged or just sitting dejected in a corner. You spot a fabulous cockerel - black, polished, mature, shiny-eyed, probably done his bit for the breeder and now surplus to requirements. You don't need a cockerel, but he looks at you and you decide to take him if he's going at the right price. Then there are the examples you are really keen on: the trio of Khaki Campbells, just coming up to laying age; the Cayugas, with their effervescent plumage or a set of fine comical Indian Runner Ducks that should have their own primetime cartoon show.
You decide to bid. You get your auction number from the tiny booth, and even though you've only bid twice before, they know who you are and you don't need to repeat your address. The auctioneer and his sidekick push the wheeled auctioneer's stand into position. His hand does a quick check for auction notes, handkerchief and the two guinea pigs sewn together that sit on his head and impersonate a toupee. People cluster round the cages of birds they want to bid for, the numbers of the lots scrawled on the back of their auction number. They then try to act nonchalant, and mostly fail. The auctioneer's patter clatters on, barely intelligible; you have to deliberately tune in to his wavelength and it's a lost cause if you were intending to bid on the first few lots.
Your first lot comes up, you are now tuned in, you wait til the bidding slows and raise your hand quietly. You win or you lose. Sometimes there are no or few rival bids and you get your desire for pennies; you see something others don't, or they see something you can't. At other times a simple lot goes for bigger bucks than you can fathom. Concentration is total, even though you may be about to part with nothing more than a blue beer voucher. It's over quickly, but the initial adrenalin rush is as great for a duck as for a house, although the buzz lasts for a great deal longer if property or a new throughbred showjumper is the outcome. Done. Dusted. You do not control the pace of purchase.
When you emerge from the auction shed you feel the same as when you come out of the cinema and it's still daylight; disoriented, unreal, but with an experience and a story whirling in your head. The difference is that you may well have a trio of ducks in a container in your hands. You smile at them and take them home.

Summer fiction

Each year as the weather warms, my brain cells atrophy and go all teenage girly. In the autumn, the grey matter rehydrates and becomes more discerning. But those summer months of utter non-intellectuality are to be enjoyed, because that is when the bad fiction gets stacked by the bedside and devoured in steaming heaps. There is always a two-inch thick bonkbuster special or chicklit surprise on the kitchen table or by the bog to be munched through in 'spare' moments. Picking through the Oxfam book stock becomes a fortnightly addiction, and the local market provides 3 for £2 if you have time to browse between securing the week's cheese and veg supply and haring back to the desk.
It often starts with a re-read of a Jilly Cooper, although this year's temptation was freshly printed and bought cheap cheap at Paddington station. At the moment I am chewing through (why? shoot me now with a stone-age weapon, she is dire) Jean M Auel's Earth Children series. There is a heap of Georgette Heyers (first time for me) that I failed to wade through in adolescence. I do have some limited standards though. Jean Plaidy, Danielle Steel, Dan Brown, Jeffrey Archer (arggghhh!) and Terry Pratchett are permanently OUT. The distinctly classier Barbara Pym, Paul Auster and Philip Roth do rub shoulders with my current trashy stuff.
Many years ago, at a house warming party, the woman I showed round first gasped at the Jilly Coopers piled next to the complete, unmatching sets of James Joyce and Henry James. She spent the next hour commenting on and showing other people my apparently bizarre (and I must admit alphabetized) book collection. What she saw was my summer stock put to bed with the rest of the library - and at what I think is over 3000 books, I suspect it is becoming something of a mini library. My catholic reading is something I see reflected on friends' bookshelves. The more rigorously informally educated they are the more eclectic their collections and the more I want to prise their gems out of the vertical. In my head I am a book snob. In my heart I am a book slut.

Hair

Thinking about my eventual long white pigtail got me in a hair frame of mind. The previously referred to wild barnet is just that. Long; when wet it is below the waist, when dry it waves about between my shoulder blades like a remonstrating ferret on a windy day. It won't stay behind my ears and it won't stay tidy. I doubt if it has it ever been tidy. Twenty years ago it was deeper brown, glossier, fuller and curlier. I was Shirley Temple on speed. Or if you are feeling unkind, Bonnie Langford on prozac. Now it is my thatch, with a fabulously Cruella De Vil silver streak on the left. I thought I'd hate it but actually, I'm rather fond of it and wonder when the finger-thick streak will extend to the rest of the still dark ringleted mess. In my twenties it was my mane, my pride and joy, my mark of femininity (important for someone who eschews make-up and only recently owned perfume and high heels), but now it is probably more appropriately characterised as middle-aged hair. The hairdressers are itching to cut it off to some respectable length - but I refuse to look like somebody's mother from a previous generation. But perhaps I'll give the pigtail a blue rinse. When I'm eighty.

Des res for otters

Some days you do something that you suspect will be an absolute one-off. Yesterday was one of those. It was beautifully sunny, with the sound of bale wrapping coming at you from all sides, with neighbouring farms taking note of the dreadful forecast for the following day, and getting in their hay and haylage as fast as mechanically possible. But most of my day was spent in shadow, on a slope, underneath ash and oak, building a log cabin. Not any old log cabin but an otter holt with four internal chambers; bedroom, nursery, and two reception rooms (or perhaps kitchen, bathroom, office and conservatory). The holt was built with mega logs three and four layers high, kept back from the mighty hedgelaying last winter. You have to be careful that the internal rooms interlink - no panic chambers here - or you get a space with no way in (also no way out). The holt was covered in long poles of ash and willow, and the whole covered in twiggy branches and wired down to keep it stable. There were chainsaws, sledge hammers, pruning saws and loppers, logs, poles, stakes and brashings, midges, red ants, hornets; the usual macho outdoor stuff.
There are otters locally; this is Tarka country and I have had their spraint crumbled educationally beneath my nostrils to release the pungent fishy odour. The prospect of otters mating and producing young on the farm is in the category of "one of the most exciting things I can imagine". Turning away from the new housing plot, it was good to imagine that sanctuary might have been provided for a pair of first time buyers. I only apologise for having taken so long to build the off-plan dream.

My Crufts champs

OK, no. They aren't champs. They have various "not quite perfect" traits. But I love 'em. To bits. And not for the world would I hold their tails out, raise their heads unnaturally or flick at them with a brush like a demented game show contestant (not in public anyway). No Crufts for us. But all the same, they have been prepared for a hot summer by having their coats stripped and the thick under layer of matted fluff removed. Their toes have been trimmed to perfection and they look and smell cleaner now than they will in five minutes time. They won't stand for more than a cursory weekly grooming from me, so off to the professionals they go and my, don't they look a picture?
Both dogs have collar tags with mobile number, home number and vet's number - that way they can make the phone call they need to, as long as they have the requisite change in their pockets. I have a different kind of tag. Keir Royale has bummed one of these my way. Eight things you don't know about me?

1. I have an EVIL temper. Snap, snap, snap, snarl.
2. My parents owned a joke shop in Soho, but I can never remember the punch line.
   
3. I can lift heavy weights when there is no-one else around; somehow that talent disappears when there is help at hand.
4. I'm scared of having my hair cut short; when I am older I will have a long white pigtail down my back and look like some freaky eccentric. Which means I can act like a freaky eccentric. And that sounds good to me. Win/win.
5. I like to be in new places but I hate to travel. I want a magic carpet.
6. You only cry in the theatre three times in your life. I wish it was more.
7. Unlike M&M I have one earring in my left ear. But none in my right. This is to keep one earlobe utterly perfect - an earlobe is so nice to twiddle and a hole mars the pleasure factor. Thirty years after having my ear pierced my Mother still asks me when I am going to have the other one done.
   
8. I'm not telling.

Anyone who reads this, consider yourself tagged. And if I'd read this first, I could have got away with just five things.

Blair and Hirst and crass farewells

Enough has been written, and more will pour, on the extended Blair exit. Damien Hirst on the other hand has not announced a farewell, but his truly bizarre diamond skull unveiled yesterday to the art world must surely be a nail in the coffin of his parallel era. Since Sensation in 1998, a year into Blair's reign, Hirst has grabbed the public imagination and the art buyer's wallet contents like no other artist. Sceptical, I finally saw his work at the Saatchi gallery in County Hall and was unexpectedly blown away by his sliced cow - otherwise known as Some Comfort Gained From The Acceptance Of The Inherent Lies In Everything - I couldn't tear myself away from it. But this Tiffany special he has created has got to be one of the more crass statements made by an artist. Turning a human skull into a disco ball and charging £50million for it is either a horrendously apposite comment on humanity, greed, the worth and worthlessness of human life (the price of everything and the value of nothing), or Hirst's two-fingered diamond wave to the rest of us.

The Magic Faraway Tree

Noddy never really did it for me, even though I read all the books with pleasure. But when Enid Blyton turned her hand to The Magic Faraway Tree, something clicked. There was a whole different world to be had in exchange for a simple turning of pages. Massive, ancient and gnarled trees hold many mysteries and myths. The true veterans suggest pre-history. When you lean your back or place your hand against a huge tree trunk your mind tricks you into sensing it has knowledge and awareness. As a child growing up in a London suburb with a few fruit trees of no special merit in a rectangular garden, I longed for a magic faraway tree of my own set in a meandering, untamed patch of land. Me and a thousand others.
At the far end of the farm, perched on the very precipice of the steep river bank is an ancient oak. It is entirely hollow, so dendrochronology would be a wasted exercise. The base of the tree is scalloped - foxes and badgers can easily pass through to shelter in the core of the tree. The trunk is wrapped in fist-thick veiny cords of ivy. A rowan grows up through the middle of the tree, giving the oak a crown of orange berries at the end of summer; the tree no longer has a crown of its own. And yet, it is still living, producing leaves and acorns, sheltering insects, birds and mammals, providing a rubbing post for sheep and reminding me that its lifespan far, far exceeds that of any human Methuselah.

Reasons to be cheerful - part 4

Woody's back! (Photo taken through kitchen window so not crystal clear - he's a shy beastie).

Catching my breath

Not everyone has a strong sense of home. For some, home is where they grew up. For others, it's where they hang their hat. I have had several homes, but so far the one that has meant the most has been the one where I lived at that moment - my nostalgia for homes past is limited. Arriving in Devon two years ago felt like I was moving to a different country, not county. It was and is so utterly different from my previous surroundings. I have been used to having farms on my doorstep, but not where farming is the mainstay for nearly all local people. So considering how people who have lived here the majority of their lives still see themselves as incomers, how come I feel so quickly at home? I suspect that the situation of the farm has a lot to do with it. The house is sheltered in a children's storybook way, sitting in a dip, nestling. When I walk the dogs I rarely move out of the farm boundaries, but I still see something new each time - a flower, a dip in the land, the shape of a tree, a gap in a hedge, a ditch running with fresh rainwater, a clump of frog spawn.
As you walk or drive down the grassy lane to the house there are terrific views in all directions; it makes me catch my breath every time. You can place yourself firmly in the season, the landscape and the OS map. The sense of place is very strong. And then there is all the work that needs to be done on the land and on the buildings. Facing you every morning as you throw open the curtains are immense tasks that will take years and see me move through all my middle years. This roots you too; tasks to be undertaken, improvements and restorations to be started and to be completed. And when you steal an unexpected sunny day from a forecast of rain, and lie in a meadow of pignut, speedwell, bugle and bluebells for some respite from fencing, you catch your breath again.

Cerberus and me

Mopsa, my single headed Cerberus, has decided that the entrance to Hades has moved over the years. Originally, the gates of the underworld were otherwise known as the front door. Or at least the door that serves as such; the true front door is permanently locked with modern bolts and also the kind of ancient key that usually shuts a heavy oak church door and tears holes in your pocket due to its weight. It would probably snap the steering column off my car if I was to attach it to my keyring. Anyway, back to Mopsa. She slept in the dog/boot/laundry room with half-sister Fenn and guarded the entry to the home. After a considerable period of contentment, she suddenly decided that the passageway to Hades mysteriously shifted in the early hours and at 3am she would whine and scratch at the door, asking to be let into the rest of the house. After weeks of this I let her stand guard at night in my downstairs office - the kitchen gets too warm for such a hairy beast. Six months later, she determined that the portal to the other world was more likely to be the bedroom. So after seven years of absolutely not letting her come upstairs and keeping the bedrooms a dog-free zone, Cerberus now sleeps in the bedroom, her tail thumping happily on the floorboards, sending dust-bunnies scurrying for cover. Even so, I KNOW there is a mouse rootling about up there and my monstrous hound just puts her paws over her ears and goes to sleep. Fenn meanwhile, is convinced that the threshold to Hades is static, and she keeps eager ears alert that no living thing will enter whilst it's her shift.

Tomorrow is Mopsa's seventh birthday - perhaps she would like some honeycakes to celebrate.

Shearing of tegs

Tonight there was a warm-up shearing session. The eight Torwen tegs bought in from Wales last year as ewe lambs to add fresh blood to the breeding stock were the first to lose their coats. The shaggy fleece bleaches from black to brown in the sun over the year between shearings, but freshly done, they are as black as black, with their distinctive beige bellies, chins and eyebrows. There was the usual wriggling and squirming of young, inexperienced sheep, and a real sigh of relief when they were all found to be maggot free. This warm, wet weather provides the perfect conditions for flystrike, and maggot removal comes pretty close to as yucky as it gets. So, sometime over the bank holiday weekend the main flock will be barbered, as will Toyboy the ram. There will be swearing, there will be bruising and there will be sweating. The sheep will be fine.

A technical luddite chooses a camera

So much on the farm needs recording: the improvements to the hedges, Devon banks and fencing; the planting of new orchard trees; the creation of wildlife habitats; the bird, bat and dormouse boxes high and low in the trees; the restoration of grasslands and encouragement of wild flowers and its associated wildlife. I want to capture the changes, in particular making a permanent visual record of the wild flowers that are increasingly colonising the woodlands and meadows. I'd like to record the butterflies and barn owls but as I am cack-handed and noisy, a sort of human heffalump when it comes to tiptoeing across twig-strewn landscapes, that is unlikely. The one thing I'm not allowed to look at, never mind photograph, are any dormice inhabiting the hedgerows or any of the many nesting boxes we have placed for them close to hazel and honeysuckle, their favourite habitat. As they are a protected species, you need a Dormouse Handling licence to do anything other than dream about the soft russet critters. But in the wood, there is one dormouse box with a tuft of sheep's fleece dangling near the entrance hole - something is nesting in there and making a cosy bed to rear young.
So the mission is to find a digital camera that even a luddite like me can handle, small enough to keep in my pocket pretty permanently to capture the moment. I am in thrall to this little beauty (it's hugely cheaper elsewhere of course). And no, I'll resist the temptation to create an advertorial of desirable, blingy objects. Most posh stuff looks odd when teamed with filthy feet and a wild barnet.

Nope, I really must do some gardening

Tempting though it is to write about last night's visit to Lifton Farm, being taken round with a group of local farmers by a shiny new futuristic tractor on a trailer with straw bale seats, I really should be out weeding in the sunshine. But then again, it's a bit too hot inside the polytunnel at the moment, so perhaps I can spare a few moments and divulge.
If ever the word entrepreneurial was fitting, this was a shining example. I've never seen such diversity on one farm, and all being produced for sale in their own shop. First came the starters - the asparagus beds - I could have hopped off my slow-moving bale and cut enough for 100 people in minutes. They were gloriously phallic and abundant, winking at us in the evening sun. Next the main course; 5000 free range chickens producing eggs and about 100 wee goslings (same size and age as my 2 young 'uns) - and 500 turkey poults easing their way towards Christmas. I can't even remember all the vegetables being grown - but my sweetcorn is doing better than theirs and it's all organic at home! Then the sheep (a new tentative venture) and the firmly ensconced bullocks - two of which are slaughtered each week to supply the shop with beef. At this point we saw their quarry - incredible multicoloured slate that provided the poshest hardcore for a drive that I've ever seen - most of us would be pleased to use it for the kitchen floor. Then we went a bit bonkers and were taken through the woods and down a steep slope before crossing the River Lyd (I wasn't expecting or dressed for white water rafting) to admire another bunch of bullocks - more feisty this time but still unwilling to come across the river when we turned back for a second go at potential "man overboard" delights. Then it was the pudding course. The strawberries, two or three varieties that last from now 'til October, are grown outside and in polytunnels, the latter in grow bags that are suspended on posts and wires at chest height to deter slugs and make picking kinder on the back. Then to the orchards for dessert - bramleys and eating apples, pears, plums and damsons, raspberries, redcurrants , blackcurrants and gooseberries. The hedges were full of hazels but they didn't mention cropping the cobnuts. I felt exhausted just looking at everything they do - it's no mean feat producing so many different things from plot to plate. Back to the restaurant (yup, they have one of those too) for hot pasties, beef sarnies, cups of tea and strawberries and cream. If Rick Stein is king of Padstow, the Mounce Family are king, queen, prince and princess of Lifton.

Three little birds, pitch by my doorstep...

...singing sweet songs, and gathering beakfuls of mud. The House Martins are at it again, and scooping mud and fallen cob from the derelict barns, softened by regular applications by the humans with water from the watering can. They swoop, they scoop, they build. There are about a dozen House Martin clay nests clinging to the wall below the roofline of the house. If you are into design, you can arrange the colours of the nests by changing the type of mud clumps you put out for them, so you get striated nests in variable muddy colours. Haven't yet gone the whole hog and added cochineal or woad, but am tempted. The only thing that holds me back is that when it rains I am likely to find blue and red streaks running down the whitewash and the conservation officer might not approve of that kind of makeover.

Tufty's revenge

I have blogged about squirrel's before, and remarked on their potential for being as tough as Pirelli's best. I wasn't wrong. There is a Tufty (sadly of the grey variety) living in the saplings behind the wrecked milking parlour. It has regular tarzanic forays to hunt for nuts and who knows what else. It flirts with danger and flies through the air as if it was a winged beast. My young Bernese, Fenn, who weighs around 5.5 stones thinks they are monkeys. She is not far wrong. She stands at the base of a tree for hours wondering just how she might manage to scrantle up the trunk and do battle with the fluffy tailed rat. This morning the table was turned. Tufty decided to come aground. It sat in the long grass around the rotting buildings and must have exuded a scent that was the equivalent of Athena Pheromone 10:13 because Fenn was on the spot with her nose firmly pressed against Tufty's before you could shout "sit". There was an almighty screech and Fenn hurtled into the house. The squirrel had bitten her on the chin and drawn blood.

Two weeks later: "E's a stiff. Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace. If you hadn't nailed 'im to the perch 'e'd be pushing up the daisies. 'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory. 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!!" This is an ex-Tufty. I found the dog licking the corpse. I bagged him and binned him, but not before his remains gave the hound the most horrendous dose of the squits.

P.S. apologies for the previous Tufty picture - I hadn't noticed that its nether regions had been tampered with. Is nothing sacred?

Socialism - anyone remember what that is?

In today's Guardian "MPs vote to exempt themselves from anti-secrecy law" describes how MPs have just voted to keep themselves out of the clutches of the Freedom of Information Act so that they no longer have to disclose their expenses or correspondence. It may have been introduced by a Tory but it had a majority of 71.
Who do they think they are? Is someone feeding them puréed manna in their parliamentary lunches or ambrosia in their afternoon tea? They really do believe that rather than needing to set an example that others might be proud to follow, that in fact they are so much better than the rest of us, so much more able to make sound professional, personal and moral judgements, that they need not be as scrupulous in their behaviour as could reasonably be expected. Hardly surprising that so many of us have refused to renew our Labour Party subscriptions.
Quick update; it seems that Gordon Brown has had second thoughts - perhaps old Labour is alive and desperately trying to scratch its way from under a very large and heavy stone.

Mrs Malaprop

Yesterday's visit from the chimney chaps gave me the first malapropism I've heard for a little while, but they are one of my favourite things to overhear. And It's not unknown for me to spill one from my own lips, struggling as I often do to find the right word. I have a friend who is a rich source of putting the wrong word in the right place - or should it be the right word in the wrong place? No-one ever corrects them; the words hang in the air, haloed and buoyed by the communal effort of keeping a relaxed look on the face. You wonder if you misheard, and then realise not. And then a few minutes later it is repeated and you take every care to keep those face muscles still. This unintentional word juggling is part of the joy of talking to this friend, and you wouldn't want to hurt their feelings in any way. The twinkle in the eye of the listener is one of warmth and inner pleasures, and the tales themselves so enjoyable and unlikely but true, that I think we get away with it. I hope we do.

Chim chiminey, Chim chiminey, Chim chim cher-ee

Tomorrow I have a man coming to look at my chimney. I have strict instructions on what he should look at and quote for. It's all about smoke in the loft and said smoke emerging above the roof line, leaking into the void between the living room ceiling and the floor above. The pointing and mortar in the stack above the roof line is dodgy, we need a bird guard to keep out the jackdaws and the register plate is very rusty. Apparently. I think I know what all this means, but tomorrow I will pretend it is all clear as crystal rather than murky as soot. Personally I could do with a bit of Dick Van Dyke to help me out, or perhaps if I was Mary Poppins I could sort it out myself with a spoonful of sugar, or some supercalifragilistic expialidocious. As it is, I'll smile, nod, look intelligent and try and ask the right kind of questions.
Quick update. "Dick" and mate turned up to poke at the chimney in professional fashion. Less professionally they talked about the registration plate. I was very good. I didn't laugh until they left.