You are currently browsing the monthly archive for November, 2007.
Today I’ll gather and squirrel away a cache of nuts and fruit. Plump toffee-sticky raisins, sweet sultanas, button black currants, glistening prunes, sweetly-sticky cherries, thick sugar-cracked halves of candied lemon and orange peel and soft translucent slices of citron - the palest of pale lime green. Nuts – hazel, walnuts and almonds…ground, whole, flaked; creamy kernels and rust velvet skins. Curled sticks of sweet cinnamon bark, cloves, vanilla pods, hot, spicy ginger roots and aromatic nutmegs and allspice berries. Read the rest of this entry »
You’ve probably gathered I work one or two days a week for a friend at her newly opened designer boutique in Exeter.
When Pavla first asked me if I would consider this, I was dubious. I wasn’t sure. But in the end I was persuaded. And now there’s trouble in store. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s cold. It’s wet. The land gave up. Suddenly. We brought the cattle in.
What is going on with those civil servants and government bodies?
The other morning I listened to the news in disbelief. Civil servants had ‘lost’ discs, apparently randomly chucked onto a courier van, containing the personal data, yes really, dates of birth, addresses, phone numbers, bank details and heaven knows what else, of twenty five million people! Nice one.
And it’s November not April.
Today…
…I open an unsigned letter from Natural England which informed me that
‘as my organic registration had been terminated I no longer qualify for the Organic Entry Level Scheme (OELS).’ Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve been lucky this autumn; it’s made up for the diabolical summer.
The sun and gentle mild days have made the grass sweet and palatable, and with the lack of consistent autumnal rain we’ve avoided the sodden, muddy quagmire we’re usually experiencing at this time of the year.
A month ago or so I was checking the sheep in Higher Little Moor when a smell, a trick of the light, a tremor of breeze, brought back a memory as sharp and clear as a shard of crystal. It was of my mother and me at some stage during my early teenage years. The memory fizzed and exploded in my head with a poignancy that was physical. I was taken aback. It left me with a yearning for that part of my life. A pining that it was gone and I was no longer there.
When trying to explain the experience the best I could do was to liken it to a kind of homesickness. Since then these powerful recollections have occurred on several occasions. Out of the blue. Read the rest of this entry »
What possessed me?
I began the day quite normally. Checking animals, being bowled over by the sunrise, cursing as I’d forgotten my camera.
What did possess me?
I’d made the phone calls I needed to. Pressure washed the Bobcat and yard scraper ready for the mechanic to check an irrepressible oil leak and change the scraper rubber.
Splattered with a peppering of FYM I was walking back up to the house for a sponge down and a cup of tea when the possession hit…
The mist had rolled back and the day was ice blue and golden.
Perfect for drying, I thought.
The next thing I knew I was stripping the covers off the sofas, bunging them into the washing machine and thinking ‘what if I move the sitting room into the dinning room?’ Read the rest of this entry »
Last night we donned our warmest coats, scarves, hats, and gloves and set off for the Hatherleigh Carnival. A ritual.
All photos courtesy of Will’s (my son) mobile phone Read the rest of this entry »
I hate fireworks – whilst it seems that the rest of the world is going ‘oooh’ and ‘ahhh’ I would rather be anywhere else, which of course I am. I have no idea where this loathing came from, nothing bad firework-wise has happened to me (I don’t think), and I’m pretty sure I’m not nursing some hidden psychological problem (though others may disagree). Read the rest of this entry »
Words flow when I’m excited, upset or angry. Having a rant or getting nitty-gritty isn’t a problem. But the gentle, dry autumn weather has soothed and calmed, I feel peaceful and relaxed. The words in my head are amorphous, languid and nebulous; hardly entertaining for a punchy, pithy post. Read the rest of this entry »
We have a dearth of fungi this year, but yesterday, returning home through a glade in Marymead birch wood I found the floor dotted with these glorious deep purplish-lilac fungi. The Amethyst Deceiver. I love the gothic implications. However my book assures me they are ‘quite edible’ and boringly ‘very common’ – but I’ve never found them there before…a deception? Read the rest of this entry »
To read other parts of the Shorts story click Shorts in the category section on the left hand panel.
We’d arrived at Shorts and I was unloading the livestock from the trailer…
Carefully removing my hens from the travelling crate, soothing and clucking, I put them into their future home. They shook themselves huffily, looked at me sharply, and with feathers still ruffled began scratching a good dust bath to get rid of the horrors and indignities of the journey. Read the rest of this entry »
