A Proper Book

What did people expect I wonder? Some Xeroxed sheets cobbled together and clipped with a staple at the corner? It's a book alright - 220 pages; illustrations in black and white and colour,  acknowledgments, references and indexes; an ISBN number and a proper publisher. Let's be loud and proud about it.....

'Marton, the story of a Shropshire village', our book, is a reality and I think my co-conspirator and I can puff out our matronly chests with pride. Whoop, whoop. We did it!

Pick up our lovely book, caress its silky cover, admire the photograph of Marton lying in the verdant Rea Valley with Stapeley Common, Corndon and the Stiperstones beyond. Turn it over and read our enticing blurb. Surely you would want to find out more about our little Shropshire village. This is how we start to reel you in:

'To drive through Marton takes only a matter of moments. The Village’s main street, always an important thoroughfare, is now an efficient road which whisks the traveller on his way with barely a backward glance.

Stop a while though - take lunch in one of the Village’s Pubs and maybe stroll down one of the narrow lanes where the hedges in springtime are abloom with hawthorn and  honeysuckle. Head off across one of the many footpaths that cross rich pastureland and take you up onto the valley sides. Look back on Marton, nestled on a slight rise in the rich arable land of the Rea Valley and wonder, as the authors did, what secrets this village holds.

Scratch the surface and there are stories waiting to be told.

Within these pages Marton’s history unfolds. From its humble beginnings; a cluster of lakeside huts built on a patch of dry land amidst marshland the village becomes the 21st century community familiar today. 

Museums and archives have yielded their facts and figures but it is the reminiscences of older inhabitants – who have often recounted tales told to them by their own parents - that have brought Marton’s history to life. Their memories, the memories of ordinary folk, the farmer, the shop keeper and the farmer’s wife, people who worked the land and played their part in the community are our link with the past.

This is their story.'

For me it all began with a remark about a talk I'd not been to. An elderly retired chap from the village had spoken to the WI about his war-time exploits. He'd been a good and memorable speaker and the adventures of this once young ex tank driver were hairy to say the least. Everyone agreed they should have been recorded - except by then Ron had died and taken his reminiscences to the grave with him.  The seed was planted however; the village had numerous elderly residents, all with tales to tell - admittedly perhaps not as noteworthy as Ron's, but worthy of recording before they too were lost. A friend in the village shared my enthusiasm and we tentatively, with the aid of steam-driven recording equipment, set about putting memories on record. We found simply putting the cassette player on the table and pushing 'on' worked best. Folk on the whole forgot it was there and chattered away about this and that, largely without prompting. We learned about arcane agricultural practices, fairly primitive home medicine, cooking, rites and rituals and oh, so much more.  Doreen took on the job of transcribing the crackly tapes - a job which confused her word processing programme no end as the Shropshire tongue is a stranger to grammatical correctness and exact spelling. 

The project morphed into something more solid as we amassed more and more information. We borrowed and scanned pictures and documents and Doreen took up writing to strange men persuading them to reveal their secrets.

Doreen said we should have an exhibition. So we did. It was well received - but what next? It seemed a shame to stuff all the material we had gathered into a drawer never to be seen again. Then, because it was an easy answer when people asked 'What are you going to do with all this?' we replied casually 'Oh, put it into a book'. 

The long and the short of it is, that is what we did. Doreen wrote chapter upon chapter and I chipped in my three penn'orth here and there. I continued to amass pictures, maps and photographs and give them captions. I drew maps too, learning skills I didn't know I'd got. We got a price from a publisher - the excellent Herefordshire-based Logaston Press - applied for and were granted an Awards for All grant from the National Lottery.

Then one day recently - in fact on the day that I went glass blowing and Wilson (the most stupid dog in Trelystan) had his encounter with the evil fungus - 800 books arrived on the doorstep. The Glam. Ass., (bless 'im) was only moderately ruffled as they had not been expected. There was the small problem of the Big Lorry and Turning Round and the smaller problem of shifting a ton of books across a gravel path. Nothing if not resourceful, he laid down a temporary track of plywood sheets for the pallet moving thingy to run on and carry them to the garage. Well done that man. That's about a cubic metre of books incidently, and it has put paid to parking the car under cover for the foreseeable future.


At long last our book 'Marton, the story of a Shropshire village' is here.

Doreen and I got a book from the stack and opened it with a mixture of apprehension and excitement. Would it be alright? Would it be really, really alright? Would the story of Marton come out as envisaged, clear and coherent, with the right balance of pictures to text.

Well, it looks pretty good - Logaston have done an excellent job of putting our documents and files together. We're quite pleased and our sternest critics - family members - have given it the 'thumbs up' too.

Curious about what a ton of books look like? Be curious no longer:

And close up, shrink wrapped into packs of 16 they look neat and fresh and clean. I think we are both quite proud of our achievement. We really do have a 'real book'.

Of course it doesn't stop with a neat pile of books in the garage - the mighty task of marketing and exchanging them for money starts with a vengeance. The publicity machine has been cranked into action. We have our launch this Saturday, 22nd May in Marton Village Hall between 2 - 5pm. Do join us.

Things

Thing 1: The crescent moon.
In the sky: huge and low on the horizon, a little sketch of a moon with an attendant star which may well be Venus.
On the lane: husband, walking his brave hunting dog Chester, chats with our farmer's son who is fencing in the gloaming:

'Nice evening - looks good for tomorrow?'

'Course t'is - moon's on its back - it's not going to let any water out.'

Ah - well there you have it....and there we were thinking farmers had special farmers' weather forecasts from the Met office. Nope it's all down to the way the moon sits in the sky.  Things their fathers told them. We'll see.

Thing 2: Hen bedtime
Just how long does it - or should it - take to persuade 4 Rhode Island Red hens that the place to roost is inside the hut rather than outside on the roof? In the 20 minutes I've been standing in the pen alternately waving a stick and cajoling them to go through the door I've decided that the resident cockerel needs a pinch of bromide in his tea. They are definitely waiting until he's put his head under his wing before going in and hopping onto the marital perch.

Thing 3: The creeping buttercup
'One year's seeding means seven year's weeding'.  How damn true that is. (And Gill, if you're reading this I think of you every time I spot a weed I could have dealt with before it seeded. You were are wise beyond your years.) Have spent the day bent double with my new Burgon & Ball hand fork hoicking out creeping buttercups - the weed that is intent on world domination. Bastards every one of them. 5 mega bags full.  Ever so slightly pleased to find out that bending double in touch-yr-toes mode is no problem at all. It's only the nettles that hurt - and that's another story.

Thing 4: The Incubator on the desk.
It's try again time. After the last attempt which ended with abject failure I've fired up the RCOM Suro incubator again. I have put 12 RIR and 8 Maran eggs in and countdown starts today.....

Thing 5: We have a book.
The car must stand outside because in the garage there is a cubic metre of books. I'm told they weigh a ton. I'm also told - with some surprise - that our book 'looks like a proper book'. The local history project that my co-author Doreen and I have been working on for nearly 4 years is now a reality. We have a book - 220 pages of real book, pages and pictures, maps and charts, acknowledgments and indexes. We have an ISBN number too. It's called 'Marton the story of a Shropshire village'. We have 850 copies in need of good home. This surely deserves a post of its own........

A lost world

I love to go a-wandering,
Along the mountain track,
And as I go, I love to sing,
My knapsack on my back.

Chorus:
Val-de-ri--Val-de-ra-
Val-de-ri--Val-de ha ha ha ha ha ha
Val-de-ri--Val-de-ra.
My knapsack on my back.

I love to wander by the stream
That dances in the sun,
So joyously it calls to me,
"Come! Join my happy song!"

Chorus:
Val-de-ri--Val-de-ra-
Val-de-ri--Val-de ha ha ha ha ha ha
Val-de-ri--Val-de-ra.

My knapsack on my back.
Anybody remember this fairly vomititious song from earlier and more innocent days? 'The Happy Wanderer', it's enough to make one want to cast off any thoughts of weather-proof clothing and go off in search of the fuggy delights of the great indoors....and it has awful ear worm potential too.

Don't get me wrong - I love 'out there' and I am particularly keen on finding out stuff and exploring places but I've never really got the hiking/walking thing.

However, last evening the Glam.Ass. and I joined Marton's walking group on one of their monthly outings which take in some of our fantastic bucolic scenery. Some walks are H, some are VH and some are a walk in the park (so to speak).

This was a walk in a quarry, and as it turned out, a mere stroll for those professional ramblers who turned out Rohan clad and suitably booted. There was even a knapsack or two.

We fetched up in the car park of a 'heritage' site in Llanymynech, a village that straddles the English and Welsh borders - the national boundary runs up the middle of the A483 which speeds motorist from north to south and divides the village. The motorist is aware of the limestone cliffs which tower over the town's cluster of dusty roadside houses, shops and pubs but passing through gives little thought to questions of what or why or when.

The cliffs above the town are a quarry, of Dolomite limestone, which closed about 100 years ago. It forms the basis of a nature reserve which is the shared responsibility of Montgomeryshire and Shropshire Wildlife Trusts. Peregrines nest there. This much I knew. This turned out to be the tip of the iceberg; the raison d'être of the heritage site was the conservation and restoration of the whole Limework's area, to retrieve something of a once busy industrial site before it is subsumed by the forces of nature.

Our guide was keen. Very keen, and obviously one of the prime movers of the group bringing the site back to life. This is a man who digs out bits of twisted steel from nettle beds before breakfast and announces 'railway track, hurrah!!!', is thrilled by the minutiae of engineering, a man for whom the throb of a compressor is music indeed. His kind can also be found on the footplate of steam trains, oily rag in hand. You get the picture.  Admirable really, putting so much energy into revealing our heritage instead of letting it moulder in earthy heaps for some descendant of Tony Robinson to reveal 1,000 years hence.

Not so much a walk then, more a slow amble round the old works looking at piles of this and piles of that, admiring brick work and kilns and trying to interpret lumps and bumps in the ground. Our guide was a great one for detail so those of us that wanted to press on and get to the bit with the wildflowers just had to be patient.

Our man's remit though was obviously industrial archeaology because even when we hauled ourselves up the steep slope to the bed of the quarry via the route of the inclined plain - a trudge which definitely sorted out the Walkers from the strollers - to be shown a breathtaking view (and did we need to catch our breath!) of the Severn valley, the industrial references continued with merely a nod to the flora and fauna. How quickly nature takes over given the opportunity. The bed of the quarry itself is now home to many limestone loving plants. Orchids, Early Purple, Common Spotted and Butterfly apparently are prolific. This year's season being late meant that few were flowering yesterday but a visit in a fortnight's time will be a different story.

It's basically a big hole in the ground on the top of a hill - and for lovers of holes in the ground everywhere here are a couple of pictures:

We're apart from the world up here. Only us and our quiet chatter, the whisper of the breeze and birdsong. The rush and roar of humanity (such as it is in these parts) does not intrude. Hard to imagine it as a working quarry with drilling and blasting and the clank and grind of men and machine. I'm reminded of Conan Doyle's 'The Lost World'  and keep an eye open for Mr Pterodactyl and his dinosaur friends.

Time to go and we edge down the other inclined plain back to the car park - why is it so much harder to go down than up? This doesn't seem to be a group who end a walk at the pub unfortunately, so home we go.

I've enjoyed this walk and think I might join the group again - if they'll have me. I might even go as far as to buy one of those nifty stick things. A stick's always good isn't it? Useful for beating off tigers, pterodactyls and vipers - poking stuff and bashing the tops off nettles.

Now I've just got to stop humming 'The Happy Wanderer'.

Blasted ear-worm.

The first potatoes and other scenes from domestic life

 Ah yes, potatoes. Today the Glam. Ass. has, with the hunter-gatherer's zeal, brought in the first of the new season's spuds. Little titchy jobs, same size as the marbles we used to call 'dobbers' - a little smaller than golf balls. Undeniably sweet and fresh, cooked with a sprig of mint and served with a dab of English butter - possibly a feast in themselves.

But what's that nagging thought: 'Men are from potatoes Mars, women are from cupcakes Venus'? What is it with men and potatoes? I can beg, plead and cajole but the delicate task of weeding between baby seedlings is never done but the selection, planting and harvest of the King Edwards has all the pomp and importance of a royal visit. Sigh. We'll just enjoy eating them then - and yes, I'll heap praise on those first earthy handfuls.

The garden is still mostly brown although if I concentrate I can see a row of spinach and just about spy the beetroot.

The greenhouse is crowded - which is good - young plants ready to go outdoors are jostling for space. The weather is still uncertain. Remember the runner beans planted exactly a month ago? They look like this now:

There are tomatoes showing their first flowers:

Basil ready to pick....some melons ready to grow and geraniums needing sunshine.

...and more basil and 'Hasta la Pasta', a favourite squash.

Indoors - and there has been a lot of 'indoors' as the weather has been so cold an wet - Broadband went walkabout for a couple of days. The small mountain kingdom of Trelystan felt strangely isolated. Instead of knuckling down and doing some of the chores which are always less interesting than travelling through cyber space I paced, grumbled and growled and spent much time staring out at the swallows sweeping low in the driving rain.  BT, my internet provider, blamed my telephone provider Talktalk, who win gold medals for their unctuous customer service and expansive ineffectual promises. The promised call to let me know how the work on the line was progressing has not yet happened. In the meantime I delved into my big box of spare parts and set up a new router - Just In Case. Mysteriously all was suddenly well. Perhaps there never was a fault with the line after all. 

It was a task both easy-peasy and unnecessarily complex. I always think delving into the Utilities Folder of the hard drive is a bit like venturing into the heart of darkness - a metaphorical ball of string to unravel so I could find my way out again would have been handy. Setting up the router was easy - but trying to restore the wireless connections to the printer from both computers less so. But hey! I did it. Just don't ask me how.....if the same thing needed doing today I know I'd be feeling the same bewilderment.

I was going to photograph the rats nest of cabling that resulted on my desk - and this even with a wireless mouse, printer and keyboard but in the end wondered what sort of sad fool photographs wires....

As I write this the Glam Ass. is vacuuming throughout. It’s quite a performance. Bits of kit which normally lurk at the back of the broom cupboard have been called into play; the little pointy nozzle thing, the brush for this and the brush for that, a new bag and a shaken-out filter. Chairs have been shifted, tables moved and anything un-vac-able gets a squirt of Mr Sheen and a thorough dust. The dogs have taken to their beds lest they fall victim to this frightening monster that swallows everything in its path.

Not that I’m complaining – far from it. I’m just not sure what’s set him off. I don’t think it was the dust bunnies which are approaching critical mass – nor the fact that it’s a job which Needs Doing Regularly. No, more to do I think with the possibility that some miniscule creature – a spider or fly – is lurking in one of the smoke alarms and setting it off. He's going to get rid of all potential pests.

At 01.11am this morning said alarm shrieked into life. Then stopped. We went back to sleep only to be brutally woken 10 minutes later when it set off again. Isn’t it horrid to be woken like that? A new battery perhaps? The ladders are in the garage and it’s dark and raining and then the dogs set off barking….I lie in bed and try to stay awake – a show of solidarity and uxorial support is necessary I think. There is much cursing and thumping about on the landing before the Glam Ass returns to bed.

He tells me he didn’t sleep a wink – waiting for it to go off again and I can vouch for that.

Let's hope it's done the trick. I shall leave the roar of the vacuum behind and venture out into the garden to plant onions and leeks. Right now, with the sun shining for the first time in days, the world looks rather green and good.

On hearing the first cuckoo....

The early morning is good. Just the dog and I and the world fresh, clean and green. For a few moments, before I go back to the house and another busy day kicks in, there is time to draw breath.
















Wow! What was that? From the dingle below me comes the unmistakable call of a Cuckoo, the sound rising up to fill the still air.

Its a nasty bird really - its only redeeming feature being that distinctive call - a quintessential sound of spring. I believe they are in decline - odd for a bird with such a strong sense of preservation. Perhaps the long haul from Africa has taken its toll - as it seems to have done with our swallows this year. Indeed this is the first one I have heard for a while, - I can clearly remember the last few occasions; 2 years ago on the Stiperstones, 6 years ago in a village up the road and 10 years ago in north Yorkshire. This may partly be due to the fact we lived in Stockport for over 20 years and while we were lucky enough to spot kingfishers very close to the town's horrid shopping precinct, the Cuckoo was never heard.

It was certainly a sound of my childhood in south Warwickshire. We three children would discuss it's traits as we rambled along the lanes to school or scrambled at play through ditch and hedge. Someone swore they never sang when they were flying. Never. I'm still not sure. We did 'bird-nesting' - although I can't remember ever taking an egg - in search of 'a cuckoo in the nest'. And no, we never found one.

The nearest we got I suppose was one of my brothers running excitedly to our teacher, Miss Charles. 'There's a cuckoo in the hedge' he squealed, pointing to the hedge of ubiquitous privet that bounded Moreton Morrell School's playground. Miss Charles was excited too and scurried over to gently part the branches and peer inside the better to see the unexpected visitor. No Cuckoo was to be seen. She wasn't to know that the infant brother - perhaps barely 4 years old - had a pet name for a ball - inexplicably balls were called 'cuckoos'. Somebody had lobbed a ball into the hedge and as far as he was concerned there was a cuckoo there....I imagine his big bossy sister (moi) explained all to Miss Charles, who probably tutted and blew the whistle which signalled the end of play.

It's quite possible we all trouped in for our singing lesson on the wireless, 'Singing Together' which introduced us to the country's traditional music, folk songs and ballads. This would have certainly been one of the songs we learned:

O the cuckoo she's a pretty bird
She singeth as she flies;
She bringeth good tidings,
She telleth no lies.
She sucketh white flowers
For to keep her voice clear;
And the more she singeth "Cuckoo"
The summer draweth near.

Hot stuff and other, erm, things.

Who remembers the Biggest Fungus in Trelystan? Nobody? Well me neither. I'd completely forgotten about it until today when at hen-letting-out-time I noticed Wilson (the most handsome bull terrier in Trelystan) tucking into something at the base of the beech tree with great enthusiasm. It turned out to be a chunk of the now dessicated remains of that fungus. I shooed him off and went in for my own breakfast. Stupid dog.

Toast and coffee for me.  So far so good. A quick look at the crossword and then I shall have to be off and away. Today is my Christmas present day. I am going glass blowing. I am quite excited.

Then in fairly rapid succession something very nasty comes out of both ends of the dog - both of which I flick with a shovel over the wall and into the lane. He begins to drool alarmingly. (Use your imaginations, detail would be superfluous.)

This does not look like good news as I have vague recollections about the evilness to this fungus and although Alan now tells me it is not the skull and cross-boned Trametes versicolour but the innocuous Meripilus giganteus, the dog looks sick and I still fret. The vet will see him asap and we decide that I should, nonetheless, go and have my day out. Wilson - your timing is impeccable.

Thus it is that I find myself a couple of hours later, in a car park in Stourbridge, having a telephone conversation about the quality, quantity and consistency of dog sick. The Glam Ass armed with that vital information does a great job with Wilson at the vet's - although I will not know this until I get home.

Glass blowing then?  I'd been inspired by Kirsty Allsopp making baubles in the run-up to Christmas (how easy-peasy it looked) and I really, really, really wished I could have a go too. I wished really, really loudly....What a wonderful present that would make etc etc.  ....

The Glam Ass took the heavy hint and found a glassblower with a studio in Stourbridge; a town which was once, in the days when this country still made things, a centre of the glass industry.  I went to Martin Andrews' studio at the Ruskin Glass Centre in Stourbridge for a day's tutorial. Martin is a glass blower who not only makes his own wonderful pieces but also teaches students at Ruskin College which is on the same site.

This is the 'hot end' of Martin's studio; on the right a roaring furnace containing a vat of molten glass, 2 'glory holes' in which to re-heat the glass which has been 'gathered' from the furnace and, on the extreme left, an annealing kiln.

There are pipes and puntys - the first used to blow glass and the latter a steel rod to gather glass and hold it for shaping and working:

To get the feel of molten glass and of handling unfamiliar tools
we started with the simplest techniques; a blob of glass on a punty stick to shape and form.

The door of the furnace was slid open and in its searing heat we learned to 'gather' glass on a punty stick - dip it in at an angle, push away and turn, turn, turn and bring out the captured blob like getting Golden syrup from the tin. Keep it moving, keep it moving - keep turning the rod so the blob of red hot glass on the end doesn't droop and remains central. While it is still plastic roll it in your hand - well, in a hand protected by a wad of soaked Yellow Pages that is. All too soon the heat has gone out of the glass - although it would be impossible to touch - and it must be reheated in order to work it again.  The process is repeated again and again until Martin is satisfied that our blobs are well shaped. Then we must use 'jacks' to cut into what has become a cylinder. We make a row of marble-like balls each and are very pleased with ourselves.

Using these newly acquired techniques and with a little help, my fellow pupil and I each make a paperweight. I can't do a picture yet as it needs to spend 12 hours in an annealing kiln where the glass can slowly cool down. It is the sweetest, prettiest blue and green paperweight I have ever made. I am puffed out with pride.

The afternoon session involves glass blowing. If the morning's working of solid glass seemed involved to us beginners - think rubbing tummy and patting head - then this process is doubly so. We gather, roll, shape, paper, blow, stop, puff, pant.....and then the blasted thing has cooled down so it's time to reheat and start all over again. I am unable to blow down my pipe with my thumb in my mouth - and I need my thumb in my mouth to put over the hole in the pipe when I've finished blowing so the air is trapped and goes down to form a bubble in the glass rather than escaping willy-nilly. I splutter and huff and the glass goes cool over and over again. Somehow we overcome this - Martin is such a good and patient teacher that I don't feel like a terrible dunce at all. I get a good bubble of air into my blob of glass and do manage to blow it out to a reasonable size. Several new techniques later, most of which would be easier if one had 4 arms, my bubble of glass has become a dear little bowl. It is the best little bowl I have ever made. I love it and can hardly wait for it to be annealed and posted home to me.

 

At 5 o clock Martin asks if we would like to make something else - he got distracted for a short while with a customer and feels perhaps he should make up the time. I'm all blown out - done enough for one day. It's time to head for home and see if Wilson is still with us.

He is, thank goodness. I'd like to think he's a little chastened but I think his subdued manner has more to do with belly ache than embarrassment over being a stupid greedy-guts.

It's been a pretty good day: the Glam Ass has made Caesar Salad for supper, the chicken fencing has been delivered and a mountain of books - 'Marton the story of a Shropshire village' - sits shrink-wrapped in the garage. Cows are out on the fields up here and the swallows are back too. I have some strange white medicine to squirt down Wilson tomorrow which will be fun.

And so to bed.

Roast Rhubarb Tart

I have yesterday's Times food supplement. I have rhubarb in the garden and I have eggs in abundance. Flour and butter are staples. By some miracle the fridge contains a pot of crême fraiche. An opportunity presents itself - we will have Roast Rhubarb Tart...

It is ridiculously easy to make. Make pastry, line flan tin. Scatter base with rhubarb and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 20 mins. Make a custard with 3 eggs, crême fraiche and melted butter......do not think of calorific content. Pour onto rhubarb in flan tin. Put back in oven and bake again until puffed and firm.

Cool, trim off excess pastry and present on best white plate.

Cut slice. Pour a little cream. Eat. Enjoy.

In which I try to overcome my irrational fear of the horse

They do say that even a fish wouldn't get caught if it kept its mouth shut. How true. Almost as soon as I had said 'Of course, no problems - I'll come with you' I regretted opening my trap.

'You'll be fine' said my lovely neighbour Di, briskly and firmly sealing the deal.

I quickly added '...but I'm not going to be much use to you' and my voice trailed off as I muttered something about not being much good with horses, terrified of them in fact.

"That's OK' she said 'I'll deal with Rocky. I need you there In Case.'

So there I was committed to a day with a horse - and as it turned out hundreds of them and their besotted owners, minders and associated hangers-on. My role was, I think chief spur carrier, wrist watch bearer, confidence booster and potential horse box driver should Di damage herself in one or other of the horsey challenges.

I am a stranger to the world of the horse - the horse-loving gene is absent. Frankly the things scare the pants off me - all hooves and teeth. I make lengthy detours to keep a field and a fence between us and being in confined spaces....well, we won't go there. You can understand then that if the Eventing programme at Sapey in Herefordshire was a challenge for Di and Rocky it was equally so for me. (Not helped by the fact that when looking for this link I find that a young rider was killed on the cross country course a couple of years ago - dangerous stuff. I rest my case.)

The drive down there was wonderful. Sitting high up in the lorry, as a passenger, I looked out on the spring countryside. We ticked off the counties; Shropshire, Worcestershire and Herefordshire. A gentle rolling landscape of bosky valleys, rich red ploughland and fat contented lazing lambs. A rural idyll.

Old fruit trees, sadly many are neglected now, were coming into bloom; there are many orchards here. Fresh green leaves and frothy white blossom unfurled in the sunshine. Sapey is near Tenbury Wells where the mistletoe auction is held in the late autumn - many of the orchard trees have clumps of this strange plant high up in the branches.

We leave this world behind though and enter the world of British Eventing.

Lorries are parked up and range from modest trailers towed by a sturdy 4 x 4 to massive vehicles bigger than a lot of houses (and probably better equipped).  I am hardly able to stop gawping at the opulence and the amount of kit and caboodle needed for...well, a horse.

 

Horses of course are everywhere. Polished and shiny like conkers, manes plaited, tails bandaged and hoofs probably polished. Their riders are similarly turned out. How very smart everybody is.

There is Dressage. To me, an outsider, it's absolutely incomprehensible - and try as I may I couldn't make head or tail of the trotting about in a confined space. Is it to do with control and discipline? In a warm-up ring a couple of dozen horses and riders circled, each in their own 'bubble'. I was reminded of the Red Kite Feeding station at Rhyader - the circling birds and the circling horses were very similar. I found a sunny spot in the lee of a hedge - out of a bitter wind, drank hot chocolate, ate flapjack and tried to make sense of it all.

Next up was Show Jumping - I understand that. A change of costume and a chance for both horse and rider to let off a bit of steam.

The final event is Cross Country - and first we must walk the course - but for heaven's sake we are walking it and other competitors are using it. There are thundering hooves and there is jumping and there is abject terror as a huge, snorting, galloping beast is way too close for comfort. Di is completely unconcerned while I (actually doing very well at keeping most of the fear at bay elsewhere) am close to panic. I leave Di to walk the 'other loop' alone and retire to somewhere safe where I can watch people fall in the water jump and someone get stretchered off.

Di does very well. She and Rocky are not placed but she is pleased with his first performance of the season. I am brave enough to hold him while he has a nibble at some grass so am quite pleased too. I do not have to drive the lorry either - phew! It has been a long day. My face is sunburned and I am generally windswept. I probably wear a delicate whiff of horse too.

I've really had a very interesting day. I'm still baffled and no nearer understanding why grown men and women should be so obsessive about horses though. Any less scared? Nope, not much.

Would I go again? I heard myself saying, as I got out of the lorry when we reached home, 'Anytime Di, anytime' - and you know?  I think I meant it.

My week....

...mostly in pictures:

Look at this heap of floppy puppies. There were eleven in total; 10 week old fox hounds. (Are we allowed fox hounds these days? Perhaps they were only hounds.) I have never seen such a soppy, floppy bunch as these three, just chillin' in Sunday's sunshine.

Well, I didn't go to buy pups I went to buy some hens. I wanted Rhode Island Reds - a good dual purpose bird and a breed which isn't as readily available as I had hoped. We found some eventually on a farm up in the hills up beyond Llanfair Caereinion. Puppies, hens, geese, ducks and peacocks seem to co-exist quite happily if a tad chaotically. All the stock seemed  healthy and I came away with 4 young layers and a mighty cockerel.

We all know how difficult it is to get a good photograph of a hen - let alone a penful of the critters - it's a bit like photographing a group of children. There is always somebody gurning, scratching or turning round. See what I mean here? Backs turned, heads down and even when I manage a head shot it's such an evil visage I rather wish I'd not bothered.

Daniel came and stayed for the night en route to some arduous, mountain trail. It was his birthday too - 30 - and the many kilometres he planned to cycle were his way of celebrating. Me? I'll settle for cake.

We've had some beautiful weather too; it's now possible to see a tinge of green in the trees and hedges. On lower ground I've noticed the hedges are almost in leaf. Shrewsbury's unlovely by-pass was almost pretty on Thursday morning with young fresh greens and frothy white blackthorn. I wonder how many of the motorists rushing by noticed just how beautiful the embankments were. Thursday was a day for 'me' - a restorative visit to the hairdresser and a mooch round the shops. My shopping mojo had deserted me though and I came away empty handed. Something it helps to buy something - anything - to set you off on a spree, but even trying to break my buying duck by purchasing a note pad and pens didn't work.  Perhaps it was the combination of the last days of the Easter holidays and the rails and rails of flimsy summer clothes that were unhelpful. There was a distinct chill in the air and bikinis and strappy tops made me shiver.

I've planted broad beans and peas outside and the penalty for any marauding pheasant who fancies scratching for supper will be severe. The first few spears of asparagus are through. How quickly they grow. Again, you pheasants 'Watch it or Else'.

The brave hunting dog, Chester found the beginnings of a pheasant's nest; a single egg on a bed of leaves in a patch of long grass and daffodils. For once he didn't rush in and eat first but stood patiently waiting for me to check it out. That's progress perhaps.

 We have a man on a roof - the Glam Ass's latest project, a field shelter nears completion. I will soon be able to stop worrying that he will fall off before he's able to do some of the jobs which need doing on the ground.
 
And flowers - colour at last. (Though white blossom can hardly be said to be colourful.)

The pink primroses are a bit of an oddity - in reality not such a horrid pink as my photograph makes them. We're not sure if they are a wild variant or the result of a bit of primrose promiscuousness. Anybody got any ideas?

All welcome none the less.

Then there was a Jamie Oliver Party (think posh Tupperware), Granny T's funeral and the next instalment of fettling the Village Hall Garden.....

Finally the news that Doreen and I have been waiting for - our book 'Marton, the story of a Shropshire village'  should be with us at the end of next week. I'm always a little reticent about mentioning real names in this place but feel now, as our names are going to be on the front cover it's hardly an issue. We also need all the publicity we can get as we need to sell, sell, SELL. 800 books are going to take up a lot of space somewhere.

 So that was my week - never promised it would be interesting. Let's see what the next one brings.

The Young Farmers' Dinner Dance is on the horizon - better go and look out my dancing shoes.

In which we sing in celebration of the life of Granny T

We went to a funeral once at Bangor crematorium which scored highly on the contemplative side; much 'wissy' music and private thoughts but little audience participation - by which I mean no hymns or prayers. OK, that was the family's choice.  Communing with whatever I believe in I'm happy to keep a private affair but I've come on such an occasion to share and make sense of loss with my fellows and support the bereaved family. We sat, for three quarters of an hour, each in our own little bubble - and left feeling something was missing - we had been 'gathered together' but there had been little sense of gathered togetherness. No sense of a coming together to either mourn or celebrate a friend held in common.

At a Thanksgiving service held today for the elderly Granny T. our community gathered with her family and sang their hearts out. The Chapel was full and those in the packed village hall heard the service relayed. We rose to our feet and raised our voices to the roof. I was rather hoping for 'Abide with Me' but at a proper Welsh funeral there was, as there surely must be, 'Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah'.

I bet you could have heard us in the next village. I have never been part of that before - even when as a schoolgirl 600 of us would assemble to sing on a daily basis. Brilliant.  Singing it seems, even for those of us tone deaf souls, still hits the spot. Faith? Well, that can still remain a private affair but I'm sure the Minister's words were truths and a comfort to many. 

And then there was a proper funeral tea - mountains of sandwiches and cake and a bottomless teapot. Granny T - rest assured - it was a right good do.

Record keeping or The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

This morning I have mostly been sowing runner beans; 'Lady Di'.  I think I've grown this variety before. I think it's about the right time to sow them indoors too. To check this I did what I usually do; rummaged through my pot of used plant labels and looked to see if I could find one from last year or the year before. This blessed pot is my planting guide. I reckon that if the variety and the sowing time worked then it should be OK this year too.

I sense you all sighing and muttering 'stupid woman should keep a proper record.'

You are all right - of course I should. Better than relying on a plant pot of muddy labels or my dodgy memory. I would know where the snowdrops and daffodils were planted when I come to plant more in the autumn; I wouldn't be surprised when I discover a Peony already growing where I want to plant a Peony this year.....and I would know which varieties have proved themselves worthy of a seed drill.  For me it's a counsel of perfection keeping a written record - this doing things properly. I know I should have a Garden Book, a Hen Book and a Deep Freeze Book. When there were bees there should have been a Bee Book, but there never was. I would have known what to do when, and where. I have ambitions and good intentions but somehow it peters out after the first page.

There is a lot of nonsense sloshing around in my brain - some vivid memories surface apropos of very little.......I can tell you exactly where I was when I heard that Kennedy had been assassinated (sitting on a grey hearth rug in front of a rather nasty log-effect electric fire with a ill-tempered, long haired cat called Tinkerbell) - or where I was when I heard of John Lennon's death (taking the boys to school and crossing the bridge over the Stockport - Manchester railway line - the same bridge incidently where I heard that Freddie Mercury had died too. Henceforth it will be known as the Bridge of Rock Star Doom....) I can only hazard a guess at the year, never mind the day, that Harry Nearly Burned The House Down. Details of that evening are engraved on my mind and include the spoonful of vanilla ice cream en route to my mouth when a complete stranger broke in and rushed up the stairs shouting 'Fire!'  What use are those arcane bits of information? Even to me. I need facts and dates, times and temperatures not vague sensations to make my garden grow.

This year I shall try harder. Today I have sown those runner beans under glass. Potatoes are chitting (for variety click the picture) and the itsy seedlings are Basil - still sitting on the warm bench. Tomatoes were potted on 12 days ago and are looking good - roots nearly showing at the bottom of their pots when they will be ready to move on again. 96 onions potted on. Leeks (Porvite) ready to go to the cold frame. Ditto Sweet peas. Peppers, bless'em, such fragile seedlings, little tiny things as yet only 12 days old - keep warm and not too moist (Inferno, Thai Dragon, Anaheim and Tasty Grill). Melons have germinated. Lettuce sown - red Cos, Webbs and Little Gem. Broad Beans (Express) are in the ground planted 2 days ago. Also shallots. Cleaned out hens.

The weather has been wonderful.

I think this is a record.

The song of the Curlew.

In yoof-speak it was sooooo not a beautiful morning.

Not raining, but cool and decidedly overcast. Was I 'bovvered'? Yes, I think perhaps I was. I'm finding this spring, which shows no signs of being truly springlike, hard going. It's been a long haul since October and there's a way to go yet. There have been milestones; the snowdrops were welcome and the daffodils and primroses more welcome still. I've greeted each burgeoning green bud with enthusiasm - but the land is still so cold and wet. My boots bring in clods of sticky clay......

Sorry, I digress. Now where was I?

Ah yes, early one morning, under a cloudy sky, clad in boots and jacket trudging up the field to let the hens out. I've a feed bucket in one hand and an eye open for Chester - The Dog Who Cannot Be Trusted as he follows fresh morning scents in the dingle.

A sound stops me in my tracks - unmistakable and plaintive - a sound that is the very essence of spring, a sound so magical and musical and a sound so loud it might be coming from only a few paces away. I do not need to strain to listen - it fills the air, surrounds me - coming at once from here and then seemingly from over there. Loud liquid notes rise and warble - and there is a response too but it's not an echo from the wall of trees on the hill. There are a pair of birds.

How do I describe in words the cry of the curlew - a clear watery trill that fills the air? A burbling, bubbling glissando of notes? What an inadequte description that seems to be.

I cannot see them although I know they must be close, perhaps they are on the wing. Indeed they are - I now see them silhouetted against the sky, wheeling and spinning over the conifers of Badnage Wood. Spinning and swooping, unmistakably curlews singing love songs in the bright morning air.

Wonderful.

Nothing....

.....diddly squat. No fluffy Easter chick-fest here......

The little incubator that hummed and buzzed beside me on my desk is now silent, empty and dissembled.
I'm sad to report that there were no chicks. Not a one. Yesterday, on day 22 having given up hope of a hatch, I cracked each one open and found that all were apparently unfertilised. I wonder what we thought we'd seen on day 9 when we candled them? Evidence of a vivid imagination perhaps.

Still, ever the optimist I take the view that as one door closes another will open. There will be other eggs to hatch. The cockerel's future is uncertain though.....will he end up as chicken soup or will warmer weather (and please, please, please can we have some warmer weather asap) perform a miracle with his fertility?

In the meantime I'm off to appease the household Gods. The ironing mountain calls.

In which April 1st fools us into thinking it is still mid-winter...

Lambs skipping in the April sunshine, sweet flowers blooming.....dream on. We woke to a white world this morning and this was the scene at lunchtime as snow fell heavily on the small mountain kingdom of Trelystan. Who would be a sheep?

Weatherwise it has been disturbingly horrible up here for the past couple of days. We seem to be taking one step forward and 2 steps back. One moment whooping ecstatically over buds and shoots and the next glumly pulling on boots, hat and mitts to trudge to the compost heap. Sigh. English weather eh? Don't cha just love it? Always something to write about though.


On the desk next to me the incubator still hums. The 14 eggs it contains are due to hatch on Saturday. I am moderately excited but having lots of those 'don't tempt fate' moments and wondering if they are actually fertile eggs after all. Have I actually seen the cockerel at 'it' with the relevant hens recently? Answer 'not much' - but then I don't watch them every waking hour.

I am an optimist and have made preparations just in case a number of fluffy chicks do chip their way into the world on Saturday. The Glam Ass and I have rigged up a brooder with a heat lamp at exactly the right height so that they will be not too warm and not too cold. Here sod's law might come into play - having made the preparations will that mean that no chickens hatch? Whereas if I'd done nothing would I then have to make emergency arrangements when they all emerge into this cold damp kingdom?

As it is there is a lovely warm spot ready and waiting in the garage and if the weather continues to be so unkind I shall go and curl up under the heat lamp myself.