You are currently browsing the monthly archive for December, 2007.
I hope you’ve had a good Christmas. We have, time has flown and I’m having difficulty knowing which day of the week it is. Family is still gathering making every day an excuse for celebration. And the realisation it’s New Year’s Eve the day after tomorrow is just dawning on me.
I was four when I first set foot on English soil. We disembarked at Tilbury docks one December afternoon. I remember being struck by the smell of England – damp wool, engine fumes, tar rope, concrete metallic street-wet. Two people greet us dressed in scratch rough tweed. One, my grandmother, holds me tightly close, her cool soft cheek against mine – Lizzie Arden, Blue Grass, powdery pinkness. The other, my grandfather, lifts me up, laughing, joyous – pipe smoke, pears soap, boiler coke. We drive miles in the dark night. I listen to the talk, the chatter, the excitement and drift to sleep watching sodium street light play on the wrinkles and skin of my grandfather’s neck. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve just spent two days battling with the frenetic, crazy, commercial side of Christmas. Yesterday I was working in the shop and after I’d finished Robert and I had arranged to meet up to do some late night Christmas shopping. Icy cold, sparkling lights and a band playing Christmas carols, Exeter felt festive and surprisingly inviting. Read the rest of this entry »
Yesterday was strange. Jilly was all about the place. Not weird, not spooky nor particularly sad – she just was about the place. I caught imperceptible flashes of her out of the corner of my eye, saw a glimpse of her moving alongside the bobcat by the cow palace, heard the rustle of her in some leaves on our walk and, strangest of all, I felt and heard her whiz past me into the truck, her most favourite spot of all. Read the rest of this entry »
Through all this seasonal excitement and disorder there is a constant – the stock – and the twice daily routine, come hell or high water, is as about as grounding as you can get. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s a week since Jilly died and I’m beginning to be able to remember her in a softer, gentler way without so many of the sudden punches to the solar plexus of raw pain and horror. Skye and Ness, though still clingy, seem chirpier too and are beginning to reinvent the pecking order between them. Read the rest of this entry »
Sitting resolutely in my office yesterday trying to put my mind to various troublesome bits of paper work, bill paying and a thousand other niggly annoying things that had been put on the back burner - for so long that they had begun to bubble and boil - I became conscious of heavy furniture being dragged along above my head.
Half listening, I wasn’t taking too much notice when there was a great crash…
“Olly? Olly…is that you up there?” No response. The dragging resumed.
I got up, stuck my head round the door and called down the corridor
“Hey Oll, you getting Christmas decorations down from the attic or something? Okay? Need some help?”
All weekend the firmaments hurled oceans of water at us. The wind howled, shrieked, wailed banshee-like; crashing brutally, tearing viciously. I was as brittle and unstable as spun sugar; as transparent and fragile as old glass. I could at any second splinter into a million tiny fragments and dissolve into a small insignificant stream, disappearing and absorbed by the watery world. Read the rest of this entry »
I’m going away for the weekend.
I’m getting on well with things I have to do before I go.
I’m returning from having lunch with my mum, and choosing her some warm, cosy clothes. I stop at the top of the lane to let the dogs out, collect the post and say ‘hi’ to a neighbour who’s passing. The dogs are already making their way down the lane as I jump into the truck and pull away.
A soft thunk and the front wheel bumps. My stomach falls a thousand feet. An unearthly howl. I stamp the brakes, tear the door open…my dog, my Jilly, writhing in a small ball of frantic pain; she can’t stand she flails around and around in a macabre nerve jerking dance. I scream for help, hoping my neighbour will hear. Nothing. I try to still and calm Jill’s frantic movements, she grabs my hand and chews frenziedly…I’m yelling, shouting, screaming for someone to come, someone to help – nothing. Jill’s jerking subsides, she quietens, her eyes mist and plead. I lift her gently into the truck, sobbing. Skye and Ness look on in confusion. Read the rest of this entry »
Indigo-black, dark, chill-cold streets. Pavements which glint with iridescent oil-slick wetness in the yellow light of street lamps. Oblongs, diamonds, squares and triangles… kaleidoscopic layers of glowing patterned colour, thrown out into the dark night from the open doors and windows fronts of festive shops, luring you into warm inviting interiors.
Five things to do on a rainy weekend.
1. Fluke the calves and young stock 2. Fluke the bull 3. Fluke the lambs
4. Fluke the rams - and for a bit of variety…5. Dehorn a six month old calf
Fasciola hepatica - liver fluke Read the rest of this entry »
My ‘hoarding and squirreling’ of nuts and fruits for cakes and puddings didn’t pan out as planned.
I was late setting off from home as several farm matters needed seeing to. Then road works slowed down any reasonably speedy progress into Exeter. Shop matters absorbed another couple of hours and when I eventually managed to start on my less and less well-planned shopping foray it was only to find that I was struck with ubaniphobia which had me wandering around in a semi-mazed state, wide-eyed, gormless and perfectly useless at making a single decision or purchase. To cap it all, the one shop where I knew exactly what I wanted (nuts and fruit) was completely out of stock and waiting for delivery… Read the rest of this entry »
