Two entries in one day! It's because it's a lazy day and my internet is working.

We've lost our wonderful tenants, as tenants that is. But tnhis morning there they all were in the gardne wathcing us build a hen pen. They'd been staying in our caravan after attending a party in the village. We were supposed to go but we were too tired - or too old! Please, dont feel sorry for us, we had a lovely cosy evening, thank you.

I shall miss them all in different ways. Jan because we're mates; Mark because he's so clever. and can make anything; Jo because he's one of the nicest little boys I've ever met and Naomi because she's just the best when working in the cattle shed. A natural with the animals and a fund of the most awful jokes I have yet to hear. Cheers me up no end.

Here's looking forward to the next party, visit or mooch about the garden.

Morose musings on a windy day

It’s
been ages since I wrote in this journal.
It’s because we’ve been having our TB test and found wanting. We didn't worry about TB, our cattle graze
well away from other cattle and their robust health is a byword. Guess by now everyone knows that to our
dismay we had two reactors at that first test which meant that they were sent
for slaughter; that we can’t take any animal off the farm when the ground is
now exhausted after the winter, that we can’t sell anything and that we can’t
show our cattle. And shows are our shop
window.

Before
all this happened on a blissfully warm evening we sat outside with a pre-supper
drink watching the sun set over the lakes and the Hills of Colorado darkening
from lavender to deep indigo. It is so
utterly beautiful here that one forgets why it is as it is.

It’s
because of geology, to be sure. But it’s because of agriculture as well. A place like this Valley is the result of at
least a couple of thousand years of farming; mostly sheep; it is a place of
infinite variety and beauty. Song bird
numbers are declining enormously in the rest of the UK because of arable farming
practices. This Valley teams with them.
We have a band of cuckoos here that drive us made. I kid you not! I know that cuckoos are solitary, territorial
birds, but this Valley is called Cuckoo
Valley and quite rightly. There are at least four every year
cuck-cucking away into utter insanity.
The Skylark is on the wane, but not here; its nests are in abundance. The reason for the huge song bird numbers is
because of cattle. Highland
cattle are eclectic grazers; some cattle are not. This means that they eat whatever grows
naturally up here and their dung is rich in seeds from grasses and fescues
which in turn feed the songbirds. They (the cattle, not the song birds) prune
the more virulent plants like molynia and whin, they stomp on bracken and they
open up the ground for ground and create a plethora of habitats for the creepy
crawlies to beautiful song birds and their predators. But they do none of this to the exclusion of
anything else.

So
you can understand we have many reasons to love our cattle. They are beautiful, co-operative, they
manage habitat and we eat them. It is a fact of agriculture and
conservation that if one did not keep cattle to eat, the proliferation of wild
life would decline rapidly. Moreover we
care for our animals, genuinely care for them even unto death. I guess that this is you would be forgiven
for thinking that we’re sentimental about them when they die untimely.

By
untimely I mean that they die for no reason.
Every time I talk to people about our TB reactors they ask: “have you
got badgers?” The answer is “yes”. “Well, there you are” they say
as if badgers are the answer to everything. Perhaps they are, but what about a
whole raft of other mammals who get TB and are not tested? What about a vaccine? I ask in all ignorance because I hate to see
lovely, healthy animals slaughtered without being certain why they go to their
death. It is even more distressing
because the animals that do go off for slaughter go with an unknown man, in a
strange vehicle to an unknown place to suffer I know not how or what.

What
I would like to know is what the danger of cross species infection is? Surely badgers aren’t the only carriers. What different strains of TB are there that
affects cattle? Why can’t we have a vaccine?
Do we have to kill cattle and/or badgers? I know that badgers are a top predator and
have seen the damage they do to lambs. But like all predators they are over
protected, just look at our skies swarming with protected raptors. I remember the environmental and personal
devastation of the Foot and Mouth epidemic with grass burnt by disinfectant, the
sky black with the smoke of burning cattle and the grief and anxiety of farmers
at the loss of precious animals. We seem
unable to behave in a balanced way with all this, either we want to kill them
all or we are in conflict with the people who want to preserve them all. This is a big debate that can range from the
health of our farming stock to the health of our planet to our own health and
still not come up with a universally acceptable answer. But if we don’t have the science, and I don’t
think we have, then we’ve got no chance at all of making an informed choice as
to what we do to preserve our wild life and our food stocks.

I
said earlier that we had great confidence in the robust health our cattle. The TB test is a test of immunity not
specifically for the presence of the disease.
It is at best only 80% effective and that it can be skewed by the
presence of impurities in the blood or infestations like liver fluke. Moreover, if there is a reaction is more
likely that the cattle have been exposed to the disease and fought it off and
are now immune. And then we have them killed! It makes a nonsense of animal
welfare putting them through all that stress on a regular basis. In any other situation whoever was
perpetrating this outrage would be had up by the RSPCA!

At
the risk of sounding utterly wet and a weed it may be that 20 years of careful
breeding will go down the pan as at the latest TRB test we had four inconclusive. If, at the next test, they are still inconclusive they will be killed. All four are all of our very best animals, constant
show winners and breeders. It will set
our breeding programme back a dozen years at least. Not that it will stop us, things could be
much worse. I think of the average age
of the farming population, which is 60, and it seems to me that there may be
some mileage in trusting us old ‘uns get on with feeding the population and keeping our animals healthy instead of beating us over the head with half baked ideas about health and safety.

Theatre

It is most provoking, as Humpty Dumpty observed to Alice, when people can’t tell
the difference between a tie and a belt, or in my case between waving and
drowning.

Due to an overdeveloped social conscience and a desire to continue showing off, I
have conceived the idea of founding a Youth Theatre. Frankly I think it’s rather big of me. Not because it’s altruistic, although it is in the way outlined; but because it’s over-ambitious!

I last ran a Youth Theatre over 30 years ago. It was easy. A friend lent us an old barn up in the hills of Llanfair. 18 children aged from 5 to 18 came each Sunday afternoon to learn about performance, telling stories, writing scripts, making scenery, costumes and how to co-operate. We drove around the area piled somehow into my old Landrover, all 19 of us squeezed in amongst props, and costumes with really very little thought as to health and safety. I was the only adult and we
performed puppet shows, pantomimes and reviews in pubs, in fields at village
fetes, town festivals. All the material
was devised, designed and written by the children. Sometimes it was ad hoc and sometimes it was pretty professional; it all depended on how long we’d had to rehearse and make props, scenery and costumes.

It’s very different this time, we have to be a constituted Charity, we have to have CRB checks, we have to have Trustees and then we can get “Funding” I wasn’t expecting that and now I know why potential Prima Donnas are popping up. To date I am the official and only recognised PD. And it is here that we come to the provokin bit.

I have been promoting the thing so as to get the thing off the ground. The sooner the better in my view. Within what seemed like minutes but was probably a couple of days, to my delight, people were contacting me. But they just wanted to tell me how to set the thing up, how to teach, how to direct and how to run it. They even went so far as to complain that I hadn’t done it as they would have; but refrained from going into too much detail.

None
of these are particularly provoking in themselves. However, what is provoking is the inability to tell the difference between a grateful welcome to some practical help and an inability to know what I was doing.

In the end, of course, no practical helphas been forthcoming and I am at liberty to set the thing up to please myself. As I would be taking the lion’s share of the responsibility and am currently funding it this suits me to a degree.
In this way, when the inevitable rush of people wishing to be on yet another committee arrives; either to gain kudos for cute costumes for their offspring, or to put pressure for same to be in the limelight, I will be able to resist in favour of the talented and the dedicated.!

Now I’m off to Zumba which should take care of any last vestige of aggression that I have left after this rant!

Since I drafted this, two of my very competent and skilled old students have consented to serve on my committee; and the perfectly fabulous Helen Jones without whom things would have gone particularly pear shaped on the first workshop! I am an ungrateful cow! Bless you girls I love you xxxx

Losers!

Today is not like any other day. We lost an adorable little bull last week and this week our TB test threw up two reactors, this means that they will have to be slaughtered. One was a really beautiful heifer: the end of a distiguished line. This means that we can't show our animals at any shows this year; so no shop window and no sales for six months, probably. There will be no movements off the holding so our 30+ steers don't go to their summer grazing lands: and we lose the income from this too. Much loved animals and a big chunk of income lost in one fell swoop. We feel raptored indeed.

But we've had worse and many other people have gone through this experience and the feeling will go away soon. Meanwhile, the garden waits, there are heavenly walks over the hills and a felting project to finish!He looks rather macabre at the moment, dont you think?

Teenagers! All that hormonal angst

Having not long ago gone through that most enigmatic of women’s Rites of Passage, the menopause, I have been forcibly reminded of that awful time of loneliness, alienation, self hate and anger that is characterised by the hormonally deranged. I love teenagers!

This is not to say that I have endless patience with them. It is the most wearing thing to be grunted at, ignored, abused and reviled. Nevertheless, this is exactly how they are feeling and, whilst one may not be able to all sweetness and light in their company if they push you too far, they do it because they hate everything. We, on the other hand, know about all that and love everything. Don’t we????

Naomi is a teenager and she lives in the Vally; she says she wants to help with the animals. So I ring up in the morning:

“Hi Nai” I say, “we’ll be down at the yard in about ten minutes.”

“Nghh!” she says

“See you there?

“Uh.” she replies. It's like talking to a little rooting creature who is busy rooting.

At this point I think: “she won’t turn up, she’ll be grumpy and uncooperative, why did I ever bother to encourage this young thug?” When she arrives she is nothing of the kind. She has a dry sense of humour and a lopsided, sardonic smile and works hard.

“Mum woke me up when you rang!” she says. After yesterday’s assertion that she always woke early and was ready for the outdoor life she and I both know that she is as much of a sleepy head as her mum. But her smile tells you that she knows that.

We get to work.

Yesterday we washed the little beef shorthorn bull. Geoff leads him out into the sun where he poses shyly by the catle crush. Today we are working with the Highland Cattle. She is good with animals and learns

quickly. It takes her a while to get used to talking and working at the same time. Every time she thinks of a joke or a remark she stops in the middle of what she’s doing; whether she’s preparing to heave some muck into a wheelbarrow or halter a yearling. The yearling gets bored and wanders off and we have to start all over again. But by the second day she’s haltering them all by herself. By the third day she’s managing to combine the work and the questionable jokes. She's a useful addition to the "team".

Up here in this high Valley the grass seldom comes before May. This year it has arrived early. I am surprised. After such a cruel winter one would have thought the grass would be even later, but the glorious warm weeks of April must have given it a boost that most years don’t offer. The fields are that heavenly tender emerald green that you know means lush early grass. Consequently the cattle have got the squitters. The rich sound of dung hitting the ground reminds me of the opening bars of Eastenders - or someone falling down stairs. Their bums are rather horrid as a result and we’ll have an uncomfortable time getting them clean when it comes to washing if the rain doesn’t come to give us a hand. Dung, as you know, can dry to a concrete consistency. They used to plaster walls with it, after all.

The garden is reacting in much the same way as the grass. Bluebells have invaded the little oval back vegetable garden

and the shrubs that haven’t died have put on quite a show. Things are harsh up here and I am still a novice at decorative planting. The consequence of this is that I just put in whatever cuttings I glean from chums and think will look good. This means that although I’m glad that azaleas and rhododendrons, bridal veils and clematis, and no doubt wigealia, syringea in due course, have lots of flowers this year – there are still huge gaps. My copper beech looks dead, but I know it isn’t and a little oak I planted by the chestnut fence about four years ago still has a mantle of dead leave. The fruit trees in the orchard have more blossom on them than I can ever remember. It is a joyful time in the Valley when the sun shines like this.

As the Show season approaches the training steps up a pace. Every morning after breakfast Geoff and I march solemnly round the yard leading a young animal. They’re bored and we have to heave them along to begin with. It’s exhausting work and I think to myself: “dumpy little old ladies getting on for 70 shouldn’t be doing this!” But I know that if we get it right they will be easy to lead on the day and I will be proud to take these lovely beasts round the ring.

We are proud of our cattle. It’s taken over 20 years to develop a type and it is very special to see them all dolled up for show. They are inveterate show offs and love the buzz and excitement of a Show; and the bigger the better. Cattle are good at body language and atmosphere. They can read you better than any human. If you’re bored then they’re bored; hence the rather lumpen performance at home. As soon as you get to a Show you can feel the excitement and so can they, and they rise to the occasion. Even the bulls who are notoriously slow put on a bit of speed.

Naiomi and I will be looking after the farm on Saturday because Geoff is going to the Chelford Sale. I'm glad to be working with her, I love teenagers!

Was I really 67?

This photograph taken 60 years ago is of me at the top of Hong Kong Peak overlooking the harbour. Now I'm 3 years off 70! There was a time, doesn’t seem that long ago, that I thought getting to 60 was a long life. Now perhaps I’ve only just begun to learn things. But then, I thought the same in my forties and my fifties.

Trouble is that as the 60s progress one forgets things. However, it’s not the lessons one forgets it’s the day to day things. The ability to do several things at once is diminished. Today I was listening to the radio while I filled a saucepan to cook some polenta and did some washing, But then I nearly dropped a pair of knickers into the boiling water meant for the polenta and would, no doubt if left to myself, have thrown the polenta over the drying rack!

For my 60^th birthday Geoff took me to Positano by way of a heavenly romantic sleeper from Paris to Rome and a small hotel in Capri. I had not been to Positano since I was 14 and I thought it hadn’t changed much. But that was because there’s no space for make changes. But the tourists had changed. When our parents took my sister and I on a tour of the Amalfi coast in 1958 Positano was the playground of the “Beautiful People”. Large white yachts floated serenely out in the bay and skeleton thin, tobacco coloured women in shocking pink, yellow and black bikinis, like colourful hornets, stalked the streets or sat in the seaside restaurants. But my ambition was for a “sloppy jo” to wear with my calf length jeans. I persuaded my mother to let me have my fluffy juvenile hair cropped short in spikes round my face and changed my Start-Rite sandals for a pair of black pumps.

I think by the time we got to Ravello I was no longer a little girl. I remember a flame red dress with a tight bodice and a deep square neckline that probably gave my juvenile tan an added glow. Posturing young men made an appearance when I went bathing which embarrassed and puzzled me. Once I cottoned on to the fact that it was in order to impress me, to my shame, I became a giggling, simpering idiot.

It was that visit down the coast to Positano and on to Ravello that began my fascination with the Ancient Greek world. When I passed through Southern Italy with my children on our way to Malta I walked round Paestum, Pompeii and Heculaneum with Barney as a toddler on my hip and Toby aged nearly 3 holding my hand. [Here are Toby, his cousin Jiggs and I on the walls of M'dina].

It was magical. Paestum was still an open site in those days; anyone could go and visit and we picnicked sitting at the foot of a great column of the Temple of Poseidon.

No wonder Poseidon was important along this coast. That smiling sea can change with alarming speed. Later on sailing down to the Straights of Messina we only just escaped losing our spinnaker and being “pooped” by a white squall. The Galli rocks are said to be the haunt of the Sirens. Of course there is now little doubt that the Odyssey is an account of the Greeks’ spread westward and the mythic quality of the narrative is just what you’d expect from sailors who had come back from wild and unknown lands. They were not the first or the last to report that “here be Dragons”. Or in Odysseus’ case “visually challenged anthopophagae”. (with thanks to Eve Williams for that quote)

These days, however, I like to spend my birthday around the farm; we always have breakfast late because we do the yard animals but on my birthday it’s leisurely for me; I’m excused yard work. My day’s my own to write, garden, create and walk with the dogs. For supper there’s chicken casserole made with chilli oil, leeks, artichokes and wild mushrooms followed by raspberries, strawberries and blueberries in a Framboise sauce with whipped cream. Geoff, no doubt will bring out something fizzy to drink while we watch the sun slink over the hills. It will not be a formal evening; but a cosy one with a soppy film to watch over coffee and chocolates and then bed and utter sleep. Heaven!

CAN SPRING BEFUR BEHIND

reflections on grooming and training the wooly beasts

The weather has been so benign that I had almost forgotten what it was like last month. But today brought it all came home: the mud, the wind and the staggering over rough and slippery ground. Today I slurped through it in my enormous Wellingtons to get to the field behind the big shed. I have enormous Wellies because they are reinforced up to my ankle. My job is to groom the young stock, it’s close work and I don’t like having my toes squashed or my ankles bashed by clumsy young animals who weigh a great deal more than me!

Pansy’s become a competent cattle dog over the last four weeks. Last month Tina Turner, she of the wild hair style, was right at the top of the field and I had doubts whether Pansy would be able to get her and her particular friend with the wonky horns. I called Charlie to help and he gallantly dashed up the hill, round the heifers and had them cantering down the hill in a minute flat; as usual he went too fast and bit them so that they missed the gate completely and shot back up the hill again. We started all over again and I could tell that Charlie was getting a little stressed because he had a stick in his mouth. He looked as if he was smoking a large cigar. This time he was a little slower and he and the heifers swept past me and in through the gate. Then it was Pansy’s turn and she went a collected two heifers who were watching by the fence in horrified fascination as Charlie rushed too and fro with his quarries. With Pansy in sedate attendance they minced delicately along the fence and in through the gate as if to say “this is how you do it”.

“Stuck up cows” said Farquar’s friend a black steer. “Heifers actually ” said one of the heifers primly as she minced by.

This morning Pansy flew round the whole lot of them. They were scattered along the whole length of the hill, so it wasn't easy. She brought them donw to the gate at a steady pace with great confidence. She doesn’t bite and she’s white, both a bit of a disadvantage when moving animals. The black and white motif is readily visible and quite startling to cattle and sheep alike. This silky "Luck Dragon" is something to be examined, not run away from; so there’s often a stalemate while bovine and canine stare at each other nose to nose. If Pansy doesn’t do something to break it they could be there until lunch time. Today she fixed them all sternly with a policeman’s eye and they moved along.

Her grandmother was like that, WPC Daisy Spawton we used to call her. Here she is with her descendants: L to R Charlie, (grandson) Daisy, Lilley (daughter) and Pansy (granddaughter).

At last we came out of the driving rain and into the comparative warmth of the big shed. The smell of cattle is sweet and indefinable; it's very comforting. It's no trouble to tie them up because they are now used to the routine. They like routine; and they enjoy it because they get groomed and made a fuss of. For them it’s “what we all do” that matters; and “we all” get tied up and combed; the boss murmurs sweet nothings at us and walks about with us. So far they haven’t worked out the fun of a "showy" walk: a brisk pace and toss of the head. But they will, and then there’ll be no stopping them. They just love to show off. But today they lie down before I finish combing them and so I have to get down in ths straw to finish off. Then I lie down with them because it's damp and my back gave way! There's no getting away from old age is there?

They’re warm and cosy and sweet smelling and I think it’s a bonding exercise, but I’m not sure if they see it like that. After all, I’m supposed to be the leader. If I herd them they move; so what on earth am I doing lying down with them? The don’t ask, they just chew the cud and breath on me. Works for me!