Hedging

Hedging is a complicated business. There are many opinions on it; to cut or not to cut, and if you cut, then how much and when. There are numerous styles of laying a hedge depending on the locality, and certain approaches favour particular species of wildlife. It is verboten to neatly cut, mechanically flail, or chop indiscriminately at your hedge during the months of March through July as you would certainly disturb nesting birds, and January and February are the preferred lopping times if possible.
As the land here is, as the optimistic estate agent put it "drought resistant", it has to be done before waterlogging sets in and the tractor with its heavy flail makes irredeemable grooves in the ground, so this is the week for the cutting of selected hedges.
The hedges that were so beautifully laid last winter get a gentle trim. Those to be laid this winter are sided up to enable the hedgelayer reasonable access to his target, and across the farm about half of the hedges will get a haircut this year, allowing the rest to grow tall before it's their turn next year. Not cutting everything in one year is important for retaining diversity of habitat and to make sure I have enough blackberries for jam-making and such (no, that's not included in cross compliance but it's important to me and anyone who visits in the expectation of chomping on scones and jam). And then there are the three hedges that have very high environmental value status - they have dormice - which won't be touched until January or February to ensure hibernation is not curtailed. There are also a few good hedges that will be left for the foreseeable future, and are being allowed to grow big and bushy and dense.
The process of preparing for all this is not easy. All the hedgerow trees carefully planted last winter have had their high visibility orange markers checked so that they don't fall prey to the flail. Trying to do this in early autumn was a complete waste of time as leaves obscured all new planting from view, and the late leaf drop has only just revealed the young saplings. Heated debates have been had about which 50% of hedges to cut and which to leave. Even those fields that are to be left need to have their gateways trimmed so that tractors and trailers can move across the farm and I don't knock myself out as I daydream whilst walking the dogs through what my memory rather than my eyes anticipates as a gap.
Devon hedges are bizarre things, most of them being laid on top of earthbanks. I cannot get a definitive answer as to why this is, unless Devon farms used to house particularly tall beasts that would not be contained by hedge alone. I have absurd visions of giraffe and elephant roaming these parts in medieval times when the field patterns and boundaries were determined. Someone must have the answer.

In awe of the tv artist

For those of us who deeply admire Stephen Poliakoff the BBC have laid out a banquet - not so much a taster menu as a complete blowout. Last week those seeking out rare television drama gems had to juggle whether to record the new adaptation of A Room With A View whilst getting a Poliakoff hit with the exquisite Joe's Palace or vice versa. If your DVD was up the spout you were quite possibly in tears. If you'd watched the reruns of the first two parts of Shooting the Past a couple of days before, I doubt you headed for the Forster.
I remember the impact Poliakoff's Shooting the Past had on its first showing in 1999 - the best evocation of how pictures tell stories that I can recount. A collection being so much more than the sum of its parts; that storytelling is one of the most important attributes of the human race; how the brain is exponentially superior in every way to a computer no matter how large the electronic database; that business schools may be money making machines for churning out mini mes but they do not develop the soul: all these concepts were set out for the viewer. When something is so near perfect, any minor irritant galls, and my ointment's flea was Emilia Fox playing the redheaded leather trousered Spig who lopes and stares to minor effect. Up against Lindsay Duncan, Timothy he can do no wrong Spall and Billie Whitelaw, she didn't stand a chance; eight years on she's still not really fit for purpose.

Next up was Joe's Palace, bringing together worlds so disparate you expect the dissonance to be greater than it is. Unlike some interpretations, I didn't believe that any of the people Joe met thought he was wise, brilliant or clever. He was a young, lonely, inexperienced soul, a quiet boy neither overly naive or worldly. He was easy to befriend, mildly exploited, but saw things as they really were. He was simply the least complicated of the people around him, a cipher with little personal baggage. Chippyness was reserved for all the remaining characters, their baggage slowly unpacked for the viewer.
Holocaust references can jar - like child abuse, its horror can be misused to create undeserved dramatic tension. In Joe's Palace the revelations of the source of the billions that had bought the 'palace' and its contents were portrayed with frightening originality. Jewish men in Berlin forced to crawl naked through the park whilst the women perched in trees chirruping like birds were extraordinary harbingers of ultimate degradation.

Last night we had Mark Kermode head to head with Poliakoff, who openly shared his absolutism; his vision, his script, his work. It's a rare artist that can command control. I could rabbit on about A Real Summer or the fact that I loved The Lost Prince and Gideon's Daughter. I don't care that all the pieces are set in luscious surroundings; there is more than enough cold reality available on every channel every day (and for some good reality stuff see The Street where you can have your Spall and eat it too). All I know is there is more brilliance to come.

Birthday pleasures

Yesterday I became just seven weeks away from half my Mother's age; she will be ninety before the year is out. I sit here goggling at the thought, as has everyone before me who has reached their middle years and realised that their school mates are probably older now than their teachers were then. I feel the reality of it drift and sink in my head like sand.
I woke up to a gratifying heap of cards, knowing that today was not my turn to do the animals. I could do a bit of duvet wallowing, just enough to savour the cosiness. Then my ears pricked; there were sounds. Voices. A bit of Led Zeppelin. John Humphrys. Yes. YES! Radio 4. In stereo. Loud. Clear. All mine. I scooted downstairs, and saw it - a new, discreet cable headed south from the ceiling attaching the tuner to the chimney mounted radio aerial. Two and a half years I have waited, patiently and not so patiently for this moment. I go away for a couple of days and miracles have been worked, the floorboards lifted and replaced, connections made. I can now listen to The Archers and get a handle on how to farm for real. I know how much effort went into this. I am thrilled, I am moved, I am jigging about with pleasure.
There are books, wrapped in pink princesses and white ponies. As intended, I drop forty years in as many seconds and feel the pleasures of pulling off paper from unknown goodies. I stroke the book on owls, their incredible faces captured for me to look at again and again. And last of all, a wooden boot jack, again made in my brief absence, from oak board removed and saved from the dilapidated calf pens. It is beautiful, it is waxed and sealed, and will be used every day. Underneath, the carpenters mark of the maker and giver is stamped clear. I stroke that too.
I chat on the phone to say thank you for the book tokens as the finishing touches are made to my birthday cake. Adult chocolate, raspberries picked fresh from the garden, cream, heaven. It is proudly secured in the fridge away from tongue wielding pets, as I pack the car for a day out.
Back to Northcott Mouth for a taste of paradise. There are just two other cars parked. The tide is out, the dogs romp off the lead by our sides, and we leave first footprints on virgin sand. The sea is vigorous, the breeze brisk, the sun generous for November. I wear warm wellies, a jacket and a wide smile. There are black fish in the rock pools, thick as a finger and twice as long. Mussels are picked; Mopsa tries some straight from the rocks, cracking the shells with her teeth. The rocks and stones are beautiful, ancient as time. Moments don't get any better than this.
Back at the farm the builders are starting to take control of the site. Two containers arrive as site hut and store. A small and ugly breeze block gatepost has to be removed so that the lorry delivering the containers can reach its destination. For a change someone else is doing the work; it is a very strange feeling.
A bunch of flowers has been left, no note, by the front door. There are more cards in the day's post. Friends drop by and we eat ambrosial slabs of chocolate and raspberry cake and drink tea until it's pitch black outside. The fire is lit, Scrabble is played, but I don't concentrate, turning over as I am the pleasures of the day. I listen to The Archers and Front Row for the first time in this house. I drink champagne and eat some fabulous kedgeree with a generous addition of tiger prawns and mussels c/o the National Trust. Would forty-five more birthdays just like this one be too much to ask?

Heading north

OK, apart from Cornwall, everywhere you can get to by car is north of Devon. I've walked the dogs, washed off their beloved fox shit and am sorting out papers and stuff for my trip to the Midlands. Just a couple of days away, to see friends, and as a welcome change be on the receiving end of some training. I'm looking forward to it, but even before leaving am eager to return. This place has got its hooks deeply embedded in me. I thought that would take a lifetime but it seems not.
The rapid churning of the season just emphasises what I will miss by averting my eyes for 48 hours. Yesterday the small non-fruiting fruit tree in the garden planted by predecessors (cherry I think - the tree that is, not the previous owners) was aflame. Today the flames are snuffed out, every last flicker dropped to the ground. The hedge cutter will have topped and tailed a carefully selected range of the hedges whilst I'm gone. I hope he can make out my multi-coloured markings on the map of the farm, the paper tucked behind the steering wheel of the tractor or balanced on his knee as he traces his path, shaping and trimming the boundaries. I think I might also come back to a front door freshly painted if it doesn't rain.
Although the dogs will be walked, it won't be me that takes them. I won't see them flush out the incredible number of pheasants about at the moment or pursue a scent trail at speed, or stand with one paw raised as they stuff their snouts deep into a bank, inhaling the shadows of secretive creatures.
I will be visiting three old stamping grounds. I will notice major changes - houses built, children grown, alterations and improvements to my old home, Birmingham bustling. There will be puppies and toddlers and good conversation. I will learn things (I hope) and will have seven hours on the road all told, there and back, to think, to listen to the radio and just be. And then there will be the lane with the grass growing down the middle, and I will be home.

Spinal treat

I wasn't planning on doing a post tonight; the lamb korma needs my attention. But the lovely man at The Spine (Guardian accredited dontcha know) has obliged and produced a collided and elided Janet and John that absolutely proves my point that Mr Depp and Ms Street-Porter are Russell Brand's parents. The Sun will carry the full story tomorrow.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life

I have never been one for calendars with daily homilies; intemperate reactions to that kind of stuff would mean expensive bills or hours of my life spent with polyfilla or linseed oil putty. I would never subscribe to services that send you a new word a day, or otherwise attempt to improve your vocabulary and by inference, your life. But there are some days that are momentous not for themselves but for what they will bring, and today is probably one of those days.
This morning there should be signatures added to much discussed contracts. I will take a good look at the derelict barns and hold my breath and try and make the major mental adjustment needed for when a troupe of people previously unfamiliar, are about to enter one's daily life for 18 months.
As excited as I am about the outcome, I cannot say I am looking forward to the constant round of noise, dirt, and sheer physicality of the whole process. I like a quiet life.
The farmyard already looks like a building site: much in-house activity has been taking place in preparation for the arrival of the pros, with electricity cabling trenched underground, a site hut area levelled, tin lean-tos demolished, elm boarding taken down and stored for re-use, self seeded ash saplings torn up to enable access to walls. The digger has come into its own. I have splinters from sifting the rubbish for fire-wood. My boots are constantly muddy as the scalpings that kept feet dry in the yard have been pressed more deeply into clay with the comings and goings of heavy machinery.
Things will look much worse before they start to look better; dodgy walls will be taken down, rotten timbers removed, last suggestions of roofs removed. But then the craftsmanship will kick in and my admiration will bloom.
Restoring cob buildings takes time - the material requires it and it is truly manual labour. I suspect much of the good works will be hidden behind scaffolding for many months, and I must be patient.

Spawned by Janet Street Porter

Johnny Depp and Janet Street-Porter must have been intimate a trio of decades ago and Russell Brand is the result.
Brand's face has peered out at me from the back page of my Saturday Guardian sport section for some while, and although I normally bin the sport pages or use them for firelighting, I would rather read the back of a cereal packet than stare into space whilst visiting the bog.
Trapped with the sweaty muscular thigh pages or perforated 2-ply to choose from, Brand's column was digested. He has good style I thought - wish he was writing about something other than goals, balls and footie players.
And then last week (yes, I am dreadfully behind the times, he is probably already passée), there was Janet Street Porter's voice and character whanging out of Johnny Depp's face and body. A strange cross Atlantic fusion that had me unhover my finger from the remote.
I think I'll ask the clever chap at The Spine to do a melding of Janet and John and see if my suspicions can be validated.

(Mopsa desperately needed to think about something other than MEAT. Seven lambs and two hoggets picked up from the butcher today and distributed, alongside the offal which the butcher smilingly gave me in a huge bag with all the lights so I had to do my Hannibal Lecter bit and remove the livers and hearts from the rest of the innards. Then I plucked pheasants. Don't fancy tonight's dreams at all at all.

The Toy-boy and the harem

A morning of crutching, worming and toe-trimming. All the ewes should be at their best as they will be checked but preferably left untouched and unstressed for the next 21 weeks. Post pedicure and coiffure they moved into Long Lands, heads straight down into the green stuff.
I stank of wet sheep. The gates were opened, a feed bucket was waved encouragingly in front of the tup. It was raining, it was grey, I could hardly see across the field but Toy-boy didn't notice. He was a ram on a mission. Head held high, nostrils flaring, ignoring the feed but momentarily interested in my Eau de Ewe trousers, he sneered and headed for the real thing. He made his entrance. The sheep raised their heads from their breakfast. The crowd swallowed the star of the show. Sniff. Paw. Mount. Sorted.

What are you reading? Is it good?

My birthday is in November and then it's Christmas, so it is present time (yes, presents, and plenty of fuss please). But I don't get to bookstores that often these days - fairly thin on the ground in rural Devon, and Waterstones in Exeter lacks inspiration (I think it's the layout and the too neatly proffered stock), so browsing for delights is a very rare thing indeed. Amazon is amazing but you can't pick stuff up and see if page 22 will have you giggling or groaning.
So, I am after your book recommendations - what should I be sticking on my wish list?
I don't have a love affair with short stories - all too wham bam thank you mam. I don't much care for biography or history unless wrapped in a fictional format. Sci fi and crime don't hit the spot.
I want novels: contemporary and classic; pithy and rambling; elegant and coarse; witty and woeful; poetic and prosy.
There are a heap of authors I despise, but otherwise I am open to all suggestions. Oh, and hardbacks aren't great - I like to read in bed and the corners poke uncomfortably into my chest - but I can always wait til next birthday when they are out in paperback.

It's noisy round here

A big part of moving to Devon from urban encroached Warwickshire was getting away from the noise. Peaceful as a tomb on some mornings, a torturous switch would be flicked and road and air boomed its burden.
Here, the occasional plane comes past, the red Devon Air Ambulance hovers, and the RAF have been known to lean out of their Harriers and Chinooks and wave at the dogs (well, no, but they get so low you think they might). But these are rare intrusions. The regular noises are of the rural and agricultural kind.
There is the the regular clunk clunk of the chains hitting the sides of an empty muck spreader, accompanied by the rich whiff of future plenty. In autumn the terrifying flails are out trimming the hedgerows. The milk lorry rattles down the lane late at night taking its lactose load to be cartoned for your breakfast. Here on the farm there are angle grinders and bandsaws and chainsaws and cement mixers and diggers and all kinds of tools and machinery moaning, groaning and whirring at their task.
And then there are the animals. Each morning this week a stag has been roaring that his testosterone is high and that he's ready to party. In response, confused cows have bellowed back inviting him over to their place. Next doors' cockerels join the wild bird's dawn chorus. The Barnevelder cocks I'm rearing for meat are not yet mature so their muffled adolescent crowing isn't a cause for disturbance yet. The owls screech and call at night. The ram is bashing on the gate in his eagerness for the 1st of November when he will be allowed to visit the harem. The dogs growl and bark if something so much as deigns to pass the farm gate. The cat wheezes and squawks to be fed. The sheep munch rhythmically on haylage and the geese honk and shout. The cluster flies just buzz.
It's an old house so the sash windows rattle in their frames, the Aga snores as it gulps its oil, and with a distinct lack of carpeting the floorboards bend and creak as animal and human feet tap across the floor.
Soon, the builders should be arriving to start work on restoring the barns adding their sounds to the mix. I may invest in a packet of ear plugs.

Yesterday was Apple Day

I didn't celebrate it other than reading my Apple Source book and patting my fabulous home-made tree labels, but just knowing it was a festival in honour of the glorious fruit gave a glow to the day. This year the orchard is justifiably in hibernation mode. It is taking care of itself, regenerating after a year of goodly pruning and planting and identifying and cidermaking and apple juicing and crab apple jelly making. It was introduced to sheep and geese, had guards stamped around each tree and was generally poked about and played with. It deserves its time of rest after all this intrusion and the amazing fruit glut of 2006.
There is just one thing I want to do with the few fruit that have doggedly grown and ripened. I want to experiment with dried apple rings, dehydrated in the bottom oven of the Aga. I promise not to bother the trees too much. I'll remove a few samples, walk quietly away, and they won't be the wiser.
The hedgebanks round the orchard will be laid and restored this winter and so let more light in which will benefit the young plantings. By the time blossom arrives, the hedgelaying will be complete, and the banks will be fenced. Yes, the sheep love lying on top of the banks but their sharp feet erodes them terribly and this in turn kills off the plant life. Instead, they will have to lie under the trees and scratch their arses against the guards.

PS: the apple is an unknown dessert/culinary type; the pomologist was unable to identify it.

Friday fungus

An hour's walk in Moor Wood with Fenn on a hunt for the mass of fly agarics that appeared last year was unsuccessful; perhaps they'll emerge later in the season. But there was no shortage of life among the mould and the damp.

Guinea Foul

Spent lunchtime at a dispersal sale of a herd of organic pedigree Red Ruby Devons. They were being sold from the Fishleigh Estate where the much debated Springwatch is held. It's all part of my bovine acclimatisation process - cow speak being so very different from the more familiar pig and sheep lingo. I now know that a heifer becomes a cow on the birth of her second calf, that a steer is a castrated male, and a bullock still has his bits. I think.
I was supremely impressed by the auctioneer. Extremely knowledgeable about cattle, the breed, and the provenance of the specific animals and most of the purchasers, he positively hummed with the required wisdom. His introduction showed that he had been preparing for this event, and there were all his peers watching him perform, determining whether they would sell their stock through him at some future point.
The estate stockman brought each lot into the ring, some individually, others with a calf at foot, adding a few words of insider wisdom for the occasional animal. It must be heartbreaking for him to bring to sale a herd he has cared for and developed.
We stood on trailers, six deep, hopping from one foot to t'other to glimpse between bunched shoulders the particulars of each animal - its confirmation, the clearness of its eye, it's breeding potential. I couldn't see why one cow went for over £1600 when another the same age went under the hammer for less than £500. Perhaps her teats were compromised - I couldn't tell from where I stood.
The auctioneer was miked and clear-voiced, the bidders discreetly nodding their catalogues or touching the brims of their caps. I didn't take a photo - I was worried it would be mistaken for a bid. I couldn't stay long, but I swallowed the essence.
Events like this are supremely English. There is a shorthand, a modus operandi, a complete sense of familiarity for those in the club, and an utter confusion for those unacquainted. And a key part of this mystique is that of course the lots were sold in guineas.
What's that all about? You bid, say, a thousand of these babies and have to part with £1050 (and possibly a buyers premium depending on the auction). Where else outside the auction house does a non existent coin of the realm become the accepted currency? Why not shekels or zlotys, or to keep with the English theme, groats?
I like the idea of paying with gold ingots, topped up from leather bagged gold dust to reach the required weight. It goes with my idea of Wild West ranchers, and that's not too far a leap from West Country farmers; one of the chaps there WAS wearing a leather cowboy hat.

My old cat

I'm not one for cutesifying cats, like some, but I have two tabbies to keep the dogs in their place. The eldest is over 16 and not in good health. Eighteen months ago he was diagnosed with a hyperactive thyroid and once he made it clear that his life would be unbearable on a regime of permanent tableting or invasive treatments, was sent for an eyewateringly expensive stay at the Bristol University Veterinary Hospital to be made radioactive. Some huge percentage of cats (and people) are cured with this treatment - not so Smudge.
He is, by now, a pretty ill cat. He is skinny, demands food and is fed constantly, and can wheeze abominably. But he also enjoys most minutes of his day; he still hunts, he sleeps, he seeks out company and warm laps. He is clearly not in distress, and in most ways he is unchanged and relaxed. Best of all, he doesn't engage in avoidance tactics for fear of a pill.
This is the fourth house Smudge has shared with me. He was a brightly blue-eyed terror of a kitten, much taken to sleeping curled up in man-size tissue boxes after exhausting frequent dare-devil antics had him hanging by needle-like claws from the dining room ceiling (ghastly walls covered in hessian eased his vertical travels). He has taken to Devon and its many trees with gusto.
There is a dent in the cushion on the floor of my office where he usually sleeps. I can see him crossing the frosty garden in search of choice vole.

Raspberry Fool

If mornings have a mood, and I am sure they do, this one is feeling most chipper; the semi-torrential rain of yesterday has come to an abrupt halt and left a wet gloss on everything, the sun is doing its best, and the fruit bed is yielding its autumn raspberries. How glorious are they? Truly massive, sweetly sharp and the most luscious of breakfast treats.
These beauties grew from suckers taken last winter from our neighbour's canes and have grown from a few inches to towering plants of five foot. The book says I have to cut them down to ground level in February, and having proof that they really do grow like topsy in one year, I will not be too nervous of wielding the secateurs.
I appreciate that having berries posed on the ends of my pale fingers, assuming the likeness of fly agaric toadstools may put some off the fruit, but it minimises the need for spoons, and I'm not fussy.

Farm craft

I never realised that there were so many art/farm projects 'til moving to Devon. I thought my two worlds were at a permanent distance one from the other, until landing in this agricultural and cultural stronghold showed me otherwise. If it hasn't yet been done, someone should produce an art farm map of the county, making sure to include: The Art Farm Project, Occombe Farm, Aune Head Arts, Organic Arts, and all the rest of them.
There isn't much art at home base though. Just some hamfisted craft. Nothing like the amazing quality of the stuff you might find here, more of the kind on display in the home-craft tent at the village fete.
Just the thought of pyrography makes me chortle; it's tattooing for the sensible, or the naff hobby you can do hunched over the kitchen table when there is nothing good on the telly and you don't fancy reading. I don't think I have ever seen an example that suggested this was a means to achieving good or interesting art. Perhaps it will be the medium for a future Turner prizewinner.
But I was desperate to label the trees in the orchard. After going to all the trouble of asking a pomologist to identify the existing varieties, and carefully doubling the number with new plantings of old Devon fruit trees, I didn't want to scratch my head in a couple of years time wondering what on earth was what. The posh version as used by the National Trust, arboreta and probably her Maj's gardeners were much too expensive and anyway entirely daft for a farm orchard. I improvised temporarily with stapled dymo tape, but the sheep rubbed them off quick smart, and with more than sixty of them I wanted a fairly permanent solution.
Pokerwork was the only cheap idea I came up with, and after a swift ebay purchase and a bandsawing of ply offcuts, there I sat, hunched over the kitchen table, being naff.
It worked though.

Terrific!

Radio 4 is my thing. In the car. After two years in Devon the tuner is still not attached to the radio aerial on the house roof - no aerial, no signal, no usable radio inside the house. Some would have murdered a cat by now. So every car ride ends with me reluctant to get out because something is on the radio and I need my fix.
My patience in not murdering a cat can be rewarded by a choice gem, a nifty morsel, a radio gaga. This week we had Sue McGregor holding hands with Jeremy Paxman and Bettany Hughes around the library table sharing some fave reads. It's not particulary relevant that Paxo chose The Secret Agent, the point is that he described it as "terrific" more times than I could count. And then it became catching and "terrific" was thrown about the programme as if it was an alternative for "and" or "the". The show was punctuated by terrific and I found myself gulping for breath so that I could continue to drive safely without tears of laughter blurring my vision.
And then I started to gasp in wonder. You'll remember Paxo's utterly brilliant interview of Michael Howard where he repeated his question a dozen times and didn't get an answer. On the basis of the "terrific" revelations I'm now wondering whether Paxo is THE interviewer of our times or someone who gets stuck in a salient groove. He sure loves repetition.

Lookering

Not a word many people are familiar with, lookering is the art (or is it a science?) of keeping a look out for other people's livestock; checking for ailments, lack of water or grazing, and knowing when to alert the owner. If a farmer keeps their cattle on someone else's land and has agreed that the landowner will peer at the animals daily, they know their beasts are getting a regular once-over from someone with a bit of nous, so don't need to visit the site so often, particularly if it is some distance away from their own land.
So today a drive through some unknown local lanes to a course on conservation grazing run by the Devon Wildlife Trust. It wasn't the lookering I was specifically interested in, but the chance to find out something, in knowledgeable company, about caring for cattle. A gentle way in to test my interest and potential commitment to keeping a few of my own and to keep the culm in good order. When the cob barn is restored it could house a number of cattle over winter, and if that is just a year or so away, planning and thinking is needed.
After a morning of discussion and learning on topics as beautifully named as zoonoses, cudding, bulling and locomotion (nought to do with Kylie and everything to do with movement) we went to see some real Devon Ruby cattle. They were on a very steep pasture and came to their owner in response to a waving of hay. One was put into the cattle crush for a few minutes so we could take a look at handling techniques and get a close-up of the signs of good health.
Glorious animals, the most rich of chestnuts - permanently autumnal - with a thick furry coat which makes them very hardy. They are not a large breed but are still enormous to someone only familiar with sheep. I was most enamoured. I need to find out more.

From whimsical to strident in one easy step

Cosy in my chair, empty supper plate being licked by one of the cats, dogs snoozing at my feet. Turn on the telly for some Sunday evening soft soap - nothing too enervating or illuminating required.
And then the ads come on and I find myself moving from calm to crazy in seconds. Is it just me or will Boots have to withdraw their new ad within the week? A breathily voiced woman (surely no-one speaks like this for real?) pants over some pseudo scientific face product. We see and hear how this stuff has resulted in women queuing like desperadoes in a state of heightened agitation, giving high-pitched screams, elbowing their fellow women painfully aside, and praised for their innovative use of handbags to bash each other on the head.
What is all this ridiculous stereotyping of women as violent idiots? Considering women must make up the massive majority of Boots customers you think they would avoid wholesale sneering at their lifeblood. We've moved on guys. Get a grip.

Autumn hedgerow dalliance

Hard not to feel whimsical and chilled this weekend. Duck, goose and hen huts all mucked out and stuffed with fresh straw, I headed out across the farm, ancient stained trug picturesquely in hand, to snatch probably the last makings for a blackberry crumble to feed friends due to arrive for lunch. And no, there was neither skipping nor gingham apron. I left the dogs behind as there are now hundreds of sheep in lamb scattered about and when I forage I tend to forget to keep the necessary beady eye on the hounds. But I did take the camera to capture this autumn moment when everything puts its last effort into looking gorgeous before wilting.

The fount of all knowledge

How many oracles have you come across? And I don't mean the Delphic sort.
Have you found a personal fount of all knowledge - someone who is not just happy to converse on a multitude of subjects but has true intelligence, has taken time for consideration and exhibits clear evidence of thought? An individual as relaxed in debating scientific issues as they are with the arts? (I apologise for sounding like some naff ad for acquiring false wisdom).
If you are lucky you might have come across one or two of these souls. My limited experience is that they tend to be quiet individuals secure about their thinking processes, perpetually on a mission to increase their understanding and eager to chew on opposing ideas in order to come to their own conclusions, which are frequently non-dogmatic and allowing of further clarification.

I worry often that my thinking is both too strident and too woolly and there is probably little that is more dangerous than an opinionated fool. In the same way that I struggle for words, I also tussle with thoughts, permanently conscious that others are more knowledgeable than I can hope to be. I put this down to a very average schooling, a sense that instinct is a strong and sensible animal, and an innate laziness. If you are perceptually bright and can dole out the required responses to fairly undemanding questions, then unless you have a teacher of extraordinary persuasive and insightful demeanour, you will get by satisfactorily without having to strain your brain. This is not a good thing. This has resulted in a deeply ingrained lack of respect for my own schooling and an inner fury at myself for not having done something about it both then and now.
The question is whether inertia can be overcome by anger, whether I can think of something to keep my brain delightfully occupied in mental gymnastics, and whether this is possible without completely ruining a sometimes precarious ability to sleep. How outrageously egotistical is that?

Picture - Consulting the Oracle by John William Waterhouse

It's those owls again

There are odd moments that you just know will become part of your life's lexicon to be shared, told and retold to friends and others til the end of your storytelling time. Small moments can be as precious as the big occasions.
The other night, after dinner, sitting quietly with a book by the fireplace, a whistling, vibrating, not entirely musical Schoenbergesque trilling echoed precisely down the chimney, landing directly in my ear.
The fireplace is big - years ago it housed the farmhouse range - and because there is no central heating and the need is great, contains a sizeable woodburner, the flue concentrating what was a vast open chimney into a more smokeless and comfortable arrangement. I quietly opened the doors of the stove to let the sound through even more keenly. Although it had never happened before I knew at once that there was a barn owl hooting straight down the chimney. The sound bounced around the room, truly eery and utterly unlike the infuriating but friendly tapping on the window of the blue tits munching by day on the linseed oil putty.
Opening the front door slowly, with lights kept off and dogs kept in, softly stepping across the cobbles to get a view, there in the moonlight, perched on the chimney pot was the owl.
I think it was enjoying the echo, like a child clapping from inside a huge concrete pipe in a playground. To me, it was a direct communication from the owl asking that the barn restorations be swiftly started to ensure it had a new home.
Two nights later it was back, and standing in the farmyard in the pitch black dark I listened to three owls communicating across the farm from different vantage points. I daren't mention that it will be at least a year before the barns are completed.

The veg patch

click on the picture if you want a better view to guess the veg.

I'm no Monty Don but....

After my rant yesterday I am calm, and focused on the veg patch. Red cabbage casserole (buckets of it) are cooking in the Aga, anointed with red plonk, wine vinegar, demerara, Blenheim Orange apples from the orchard and sultanas, and once cooled I will bag it and freeze it for serving later with pork, goose and duck (probably not all at the same time).
I have also unearthed the first of the celeriac - not as large as I would like but an improvement on past year's golf balls - to be mashed as an accompaniment with partridge this evening, larded with streaky bacon from the pigs and roasted. Partridge sounds very posh but they were freebies from the local farmer's shoot last winter (perhaps that makes it sound even posher).
Celeriac are bonkers vegetables, I mean, just look at them - a kind of vegetable version of an octopus. But they are delicious boiled and mashed with a bit of butter and black pepper and can be used in place of spud mash if you are avoiding potatoes.
I can hear the weeds call; it's therapy for the furious.

The lunatics are taking over the asylum

Two emails in my in-box yesterday (actually there were hundreds, most of which were trying to give me loans, a bigger cock or dodgy medications) that set my brain on fire. First was the announcement by Arts Council England that Alan Davey is to be their new CEO. That's Alan Davey the Director of Culture at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport - yup, he's the man at the ministry. So, the arm's length principle has finally been tossed out of the window. The arts can relax now they know that all decisions are being handed down directly from Labour Party central. And why is that so hellishly worrying, principles of independent decision-making aside? It's partly explained by the tenor of the second email.
More than a year ago I ranted about the Olympics stealing money from more important parts of publicly funded life. And yes, I know folks dismiss petitions as pointless, but I eagerly signed the one asking the Prime Minister to stop the Chancellor (then Gordon Brown) from using lottery money to fund the Olympics in 2012. My second email announced that the petition had finally received a response: It says, feebly, that "The Government is determined to ensure that the temporary diversion of funding from the existing good causes to the Olympic good cause is done with the least possible disruption."
If I may be so blunt, this is bollocks. The source of funding for most arts organisations, Grants For the Arts, administered by the Arts Council has already been cut by over a third and try telling artists and their audiences and workshop participants that this is causing "the least possible disruption".
Mandarin Alan Davey (that's him in the photo) will be in no position whatsoever to claw back what his masters have ravaged from the arts pot. He may understand better than anyone how things work within the political machinery but he can never champion the arts sector in shaming the government to change their tune. He has been put in place to ensure the ranting stops at his door. However, being realistic, I suspect that he is simply the final nail in the Arts Council coffin and his real job is to dismantle it or at least disarm it. Not that it has shown much ability to fight in recent times, what with the outgoing CEO saying back in June that it was not an appropriate time to appear hostile to the government. At the time this comment threw me sideways - if the government is deliberately hurting the sector you represent, it is always appropriate to speak your mind, and vigorously. Perhaps he killed the concept of the Arts Council stone dead at that moment. Jennie Lee, the First Minister for Arts will be turning and twisting in her grave. And I suspect that most Arts Council staff will be feeling equally uncomfortable.

Corn with your cob?

I do like fresh sweetcorn. All the gardening foodies will say you should strip your cobs off the plant when the silks are brown and you can feel the kernels plump under the protection of the leaves. It's then vital to run hotfoot to the stove where your pan of water is boiling in wait. The sugars turn quickly to starch and if you store the cobs, rather than a sweet fresh taste it's all a bit floury in the mouth.
And now it's well into cob eating time - they won't last much longer in this weather - but I have a heap of corn cobs that unwrapped look like dominoes, dentures with missing teeth, censored letters or perhaps pixelated images as if faces, registration plates or other identifying/rude features have been removed.
Rather than running your mouth along the cob, nibbling like a dormouse on heat in neat lines from base to tip, it's a sort of hopscotch, leap frog or tango to follow what appears to be an entirely random pattern of kernels. Some are busting out all over, about to pop in their eagerness to burst from their buttercup yellow skins whilst others sulk in pale flatness with no growth at all, cut off in their prime. And worse, their neighbour is thrusting its stuff in the most immodest of flaunts. I actually feel sorry for them.

The right to take a break

When you are at school and reach the time when you just can't stand the itchy uniform and the dull homework any longer, it's half term. Or end of term. Or even better, summer holidays. Wired into your very being is the regularity of taking a break. And then, keen to leave your juvenile pleasures behind you, you start work and realise with mounting horror that the statutory holiday allowance is a measly 20 days a year, and school and college suddenly doesn't seem such hard graft after all.
You work for a few years and if you are lucky, your annual leave entitlement grows a bit. Perhaps you get five weeks off a year. There are of course far too many dippy workaholics who take their laptops, mobiles, blackberries and assorted wifi goodies on their holidays, irritating their spouse, lover, children and the folks in the next hotel room; that's their call.
And now, we have John Gieve being criticised for being on holiday when he should have been at work, managing the financial crisis of the moment. Firstly, it appears he was actually attending his mother's funeral for part of his leave, and secondly, what's the problem with taking a break? His boss was at work sorting things out, as no doubt were most of his staff. I presume, just as the royals don't fly together in case the lot get mashed in a single aircrash, that the Gov and his deputy don't holiday at the same time - very wise. If either man was the sole person able to control the situation I would be very worried; what if one of them became ill, or died, or just needed a day off to see to the boiler repair man?
Sorry folks, I just don't buy it - everyone is entitled to take a break and if you do a very important job, then someone else will have been briefed to cover it for the short period of your no-doubt much needed absence and rest period. Should nurses or surgeons never take a break because there is always someone in need of an operation?
And then there are farmers. Not sure how it can be organised that farmers can have their statutory entitlement - but then they are self-employed, and the law doesn't count. Here, neighbours cover for the odd day, weekend or slightly longer absence, but it is a big responsibility and you can only do this with other farmers, folk comfortable with animal feeding regimes, milking and knowing whether that sheep should really be upsidedown. Farmers usually have big hearts and are generous in giving of their time and advice; in time of crisis or busyness it's all hands to the hayfork, but they don't often have deputies to cover for them.
Perhaps we could develop a scheme like the one in Finland, and I could have my very own Deputy Dawg.

April fool

And then I checked. It's September. So I looked again at the Guardian weekend colour supplement, and yes, there really was a two page article (sadly no links to the actual thing) complete with photograph, encouraging you to run backwards with your neck twisted askew in a feeble attempt to stop you from running under a bus, into a grimacing parent with a pushchair and ten carrier bags (sensibly not plastic, must be hessian or linen) or into a lamppost. Apart from the assured bad neck, plentiful bruises and worse, I couldn't get my head round the benefits because I just couldn't take it seriously. I look forward to the letters page next Saturday.
So I hunt down the latest on Foot and Mouth on the Defra website and bang, there is a warning about some disease I've never heard of with a name that sadly yanks the bells on the April Fool's hat; Bluetongue. This is the first time this disease has ever been recorded in the UK. On top of Foot and Mouth it seems rather careless of some straying biting virus-riddled midge that some new notifiable disease has appeared at this time; you might be forgiven for imagining that we are tumbling into a Hieronymus Bosch nightmare.
Foot and Mouth scares are starting to emerge outside of Surrey. Those in Norfolk and Solihull have thankfully come to nothing, but now there is another in Hampshire and you can't blame farmers if they start to feel distinctly nervous that the Surrey boundary will not contain the disease for much longer. Rather than limbo, perhaps we are perched in purgatory.

Layers of detritus

The farmyard tells an ever changing story. It has a daily tale. Today, soft white down dances across it, caught by puffs of wind. Spots of blood speckle some of the feathers. I have been dispatching and plucking the two surplus Aylesbury drakes and my hands smell of burnt feather and my hair is full of fluff. This evening I will be clean, but the farmyard will bear witness for a week or three yet.
A couple of days ago the muck heap in the little yard was savaged and its goodness spread about various fields. A few tractor bucket loads was snatched for the vegetable garden, and en route a small trail of the precious stuff was dropped in the farmyard to tantalise the dogs who brunch on it eagerly. I must pick up the remnants before they bust their guts.
The goose hut is in the orchard, some way from the compost heap, so when their dirty bedding is barrowed away down the track, through the farmyard and to its designated rotting place, wisps of straw drop to reinforce any interested watcher that I have, yes, mucked out again this week.
And then there are the dried onion stalks. I plaited up the onions and removed any excessive stalk length, binning most but again dropping some, and they mix with the rest of the detritus in the yard.
Not all the farmyard droppings are organic; small bits from the tractor, nails, washers, dull coloured bits of metal and offcuts of wood tell you that a repair job took place in recent days or that something fell out of a barrow or a toolbox. I pick these things up and put them where they belong, but tomorrow there will be something else, evidence of other comings, goings and doings.

A seaside special

Today was an impromptu holiday. The plan - to take the dogs to the beach now that the summer season is over and only the unemployed, the retired and the child-free are tackling the Cornish coast. The National Trust's Northcott Mouth may not be found on their website, but it is a wee treasure all the same. Smooth sea shaped boulders and pebbles far too big to put in your pocket litter the edge of the beach, making a satisfying crunch sound as you make your way seawards. From a distance you see the purplish black-capped jagged rocks peppering the beach and as you get closer, you can see that the rocks are in fact a mussel-lovers paradise.
The dogs pick their way carefully over the rocks and through the pools, allowed off their leads here all year round. They are mildly nervous of the sea and jump back from the lacy white froth, barking as I move away from them to get my knees splashed by the last licks of a once vigorous wave. Once I'm back out of the scary sea the dogs are playful but keep close, and watch as I twist some of the larger mussels off their salty barnacled bed and into a fresh as a daisy pooh bag.
The surf is up, a perfect Beach Boys day, only this beach is too rocky for safe surfing (is there such a thing?), and the noise of the waves is pounding and fierce and sucks away all other thoughts.
For now, the rock pools are ankle deep, clear and still. In a few hours they and the rocks that surround them will be feet deep in water, there will be no visible beach, and the woman who runs the tea caravan with its neat benches on well-clipped lawn, will be at home making her own tea, whilst I pick the beards from the mussels and serve free food.

An itchy critter

First we had mozzies, but I didn't even think "malaria", just itchy irritating bites. Now we have a small tick, removed and shoved into a clean sample bottle for posterity and I am thinking, hypochondriacally, Lyme disease (also meningitis, arthritis, heart and neurological disorders).
I hoik sheep ticks off the dogs from time to time, being careful to do the twizzling thing with the tick stick to avoid leaving the head buried in their flesh. Even so, the welts part the fur and mini bald patches result for a few days. But never before have I had the dubious pleasure of removing one from my own groin. Immediate thoughts - crabs - how did I get that? Bed bugs - yuck! But a trawl through the terrifying medical websites and a look at the mite in the bottle says no, it's just a tick.
I walk through long grasses on the farm in shorts and sandals. The advice is to always wear long trousers tucked into your socks and boots - what in 70 degree sun? So now I suffer with minor groin itch (yes, far too much information) and a constant shivery wonderment that is my body asking itself whether there are any more of the critters lurking in the warmth of my skin. Tickle tickle tickle.

The sounds of the night

Owls have been on my mind recently and last night an owl was practically perched on my nose. At least, it sounded like it. Lights off at about 11.30, the hooting through the bedroom window was loud and clear. It drowned out the hum of mosquitoes most effectively. The Tawny owl must have been lonely. It called, every few seconds, and there was no reply. So it kept on, hopeful that a kindred spirit would lift its feathered ears and join it for a night's hunting or other pleasures. At 3am it was still going strong, its eagerness for company neither impaired nor dashed. At 5.30 it finally stopped when the cockerels took over.
But a hooting owl is somehow not an irritation. Their extraordinary beauty means that instead of twitching the duvet about in restlessness, I lay in bed and grinned to think that there was an owl so close. And they do get close. Two weeks ago picking blackberries with a friend, reaching into a deep hedge to collect the juiciest samples, a Barn Owl flew out between our heads and off along the hedge line to find somewhere more private for its lurkings. We had been nose to beak, yet hadn't seen this large white and gold owl until it launched itself. Its feathers were scrupulously groomed; as it flew away you could see the perfection of its plumage, the attention to cleanliness and order ensuring a silent flight and good hunting. Later that evening it was seen again travelling up and down the lines of rowed up hay in search of displaced rodents.
Boxes for Tawny Owls and Little Owls have been built and put along the woodland edges on the farm; I haven't yet seen anything enter or leave the boxes, but then I walk during the day and these are nocturnal creatures. Barn Owl boxes will be made and placed in the roofspace of the barns, once there are roofs and rafters to protect and sit them on. It is on the to do list.

Disgusted of Devon

Words fail me.






Photograph: John Stillwell/PA from Guardian website

****!

Driving back from Exeter yesterday lunchtime in good mood I tuned to Radio 4 and the mood melted away as I realised that the news was all Foot and Mouth related. These days that sort of report has a physical effect on me; I'm sure a heart can truly sink. I get home to messages from farming neighbours and friends, all wondering what will happen next. Plans are swiftly changed - trips to sheep sales are cancelled, preparations for moving livestock are abandoned - and we all hold our breath.
The BBC ten o'clock news doesn't cover as much information as the Defra website which is not reassuring; whatever else you want it is consistency of message.
This morning it seems as if the new outbreak is of the same particular strain as leaked from Pirbright. This gives transitory relief; if it was a different strain the whole farming community would be in an even greater panic of contemplation of unknown quantities. As it is, the ethereal nature of the transfer of the disease will come under greater scrutiny, but how one traps an airborne virus is beyond my imagination. I look at the disinfectant mats laid at the gateways of farms and wonder if they are simply band-aids over mortal wounds.
Looking at the morning papers, I am dismayed that politicians of any colour only think of their own political capital at times of disaster; why this situation should be seen primarily as haunting the government rather than the farmers it actually affects is beyond me and the comments that the Chief Veterinary Officer was pushed by economic reasons to prematurely declare that Foot and Mouth had been eradicated are surely utter foolishness.
The Defra website will be a continually open window on my computer today. If the concern over a pig on the farm in Norfolk is substantiated, farming hell is at hand.

Mozzies

I can't sleep. My skin is all reflexive shudders. The night world thrums and hums and buzzes. The whole house has tinnitus. Upstairs the mosquitoes thrive and feed on my blood, raising small welts of absurd and long lasting itchiness. Tubes of sting relief are scattered within easy reach. I clap my hands and in minutes squash a dozen of the flimsy insects; speed is not one of the tricks in their armoury. Under the inadequate protection of the duvet I dream of being swathed in muslin and the mosquito net turns into a shroud.
I come downstairs in the middle of the night to seek some quiet and then depress myself by looking at what can be done to diminish their numbers. On a farm not much, unless you want to deprive the livestock of water and create massive feeding grounds for blowflies and worse on their resulting rotting carcases. Perhaps it is simpler to get the river re-routed.
Last autumn it was the cluster flies and perhaps that is yet to come, although some in the north are already infested. These beasties behave very oddly, congregating in huge, unbelievable numbers at the windows and cling there buzzing whilst you swat the lot to death with the tried, tested and effective fly swat, purchased two for a pound at the local market. That's one for each hand. Outside their feet stick to the peeling whitewashed walls, perhaps providing food for any non-migrating birds and bats; their sole redeeming feature.
Enough already. My sleep has been disturbed by the mozzies for several nights and I am tired and irritable. The dogs sleep through, their thick fur a solid protection. If I am to function during the day I must drown their night noise with interesting thoughts that bring buzz-free dreams.

Early morning cobwebs

Creeping slithering things

I knew that there were grass snakes in Warwickshire but I have been in Devon for more than two years and had spotted no evidence of a slithering thing until now. My composure is therefore ruffled. I know they are harmless. I know they are one of the many wondrous species of wildlife that have unwittingly chosen me as their landlord. But now that I have seen a sloughed snakeskin a few yards from the house, I also know that the freshly clad previous inhabitant of said skin cannot be far away.
I have checked my trusty Readers Digest field guide to animals and it tells me they are common in lowland areas and found mainly in damp heaths, woods, lush pastures, damp grass and ditches where frogs kick about. The farm offers all of this, so just how many are out there, minding their own business but potentially causing me to lose mine?
A compost or dung heap is their favourite place for laying eggs and I cannot now visit the compost heap without an involuntary spine-shiver of fearful anticipation. And you should see the polytunnel - there is practically no visible ground, covered as it is with rampant cucumber, courgette, tomato and bean plants. Talk about the perfect amphibian hiding place. What do I do when I have to ferret amongst the cucumber plants to pick a beauty or two and mistake the soaker hose for something more animated?
There are nice damp jungly bits all over the farm where a snake could comfortably snooze and forage, conveniently hidden by the brambles that I am busy picking, no longer in pastoral crumble induced calm but in nervous hope that Hissing Sid will keep himself to himself.
Hundreds of eggs from multiple females may be laid in one place and the young are hatching right now. I have visions of plagues or at the very least, hysterics (my own) on a par with the commotion created by my coming face to face with rats en masse.

The joke shop

Back in June I oh so casually mentioned that in the dim and distant past and throughout my childhood, my parents ran a joke shop in Soho. In the non virtual world, on the few occasions that this information has slipped out, it is received with wide eyed surprise and a desire to know more, but there was nary a blog comment on this topic.
I have been thinking about the shop recently. Physically its exact location is difficult to find now, having been sold twenty-five years ago and subsumed into the Trocadero, but it was a few steps from Piccadilly Circus, on Shaftesbury Avenue opposite the Globe Theatre (since renamed the Gielgud Theatre), and had been a photography studio when my parents first took it on not long after the second world war. They photographed many of the film and theatre stars of the day, including Mae West, and I wish I still had the proofs, but they disappeared many years ago.
It was tiny. A long thin galley of a shop, dark and old fashioned, shoehorned between a Chinese restaurant and latterly a pizzeria. In time the shop morphed into a souvenir and joke emporium. It was lined with deal shelves, some of which hold my books today, but then arrayed with London souvenirs (Beefeater dolls, Tower of London ashtrays, mini statues of Eros), squashy full head rubber masks (Miss Piggy, Frankenstein, Elvis) and every kind of joke product. Bizarrely, when the enormous Hamleys toy store just around the corner in Regent Street couldn't provide the exact joke that some discerning young punter desired, they would send them to my parent's place.
The basement was not open to the public; you reached it by a narrow curving stairwell, not unlike those on the Routemaster double decker bus. It was storeroom and receptacle for unwanted stuff. A complete jumble, and never ever cleaned, I was terrified to go down the stairs to use the toilet. There were several small rooms, some of which I never entered, stacked as they were from front to back and floor to roof with boxes. I had no idea if the boxes were full or empty, if they were from the photographic history of the shop or the more recent souvenir and joke existence. A large photographers light box was often left switched on casting light and shadow among the gloom; there were no windows and just one or two low wattage light bulbs hanging from the ceiling. Rats scuttled through the debris, grown huge from Chinese and Italian leftovers stolen from the neighbouring restaurant bins. One large rodent fried to death, trapped in the light box, creating the most horrendous stink.
Some school holidays I would help out, taking the cash to the bank or capering about outside the shop wearing a Miss Piggy mask with full blonde wig to encourage folks to enter which oddly seemed to work. I would stare at the dipping glass birds in the window, their faded yellow feathers dusty and the rim of the tumbler they bowed to, rimed with ancient water marks. Doling out whoopee cushions and stink bombs to more adults than children was an offbeat way to spend one's time perhaps, but it only feels so in retrospect.
My favourite thing was to be allowed to roam Berwick Street market, officially buying some fruit, but in reality gawking at the passing actors, the prostitutes, the film runners and blacked-out windows of the sex shops.
As I got older, and just before the shop was sold, I would from time to time drive my Mother in the early hours into the centre of a quietish London to await the glazier or window boarding guys if some junkie had mashed the glass in an effort to find some cash for their next fix. The last time we arrived to find a huge jagged piece of glass still in the door, covered in thick arterial blood. A red trail led to the till, and the tray pockets for the coins were filled with blood that had to be scooped out in readiness for the next day of trading.