Tuesday 7 June 2011

Crack, coughs and combines.

I am writing this in a dark cupboard with only the light of a candle for illumination.

We don't have a power cut or anything but there is an almighty electric storm outside and I am afraid.
It comes as the icing on the cake for my Day of Gloom; dentist, rain, 'flu and now lightning.

We have all had/ are having 'seasonal flu' which is great sounding for fresh produce but rather debilitating for the producer.

The Farmer is over the worst of his bout and was being furtive yesterday then vanished for a few hours. He returned looking terribly pleased with himself and was carrying two large bags.

"Did you bring Lemsip?" I feebly managed to ask from the nest of duvets and blankets that I hade made on the sofa. I was the Symphony of Pathos after my dip into the Ocean of the Unwell.

"No. Even better, I bought a sports outfit. Trainers and everything. I am going to rehab".

"Rehab? I had no idea you were taking crack cocaine or have you overdosed on whisky toddies?". I noticed that the 'nice bottle' which I won at the Ploughing Society raffle had evaporated.

"Noooo. It is heart rehab and we do excercises. I am looking forward to going".

The whitest pair of trainers stared at me from the open box and I muttered a silent prayer of thanks that he had not gone completely mental and bought shorts.
Farmers of a certain age and shorts do not a bonny picture make.

He is pretty much back to good health again and his return to work was the turning point. I swear it was making him ill not working.
Almost all the cows have now given birth and there are only two left in the barn. The herd and their calves are outside on the hill.
The sheep will soon be ready for clipping and this year we will have to ask professional shearers in to clip. The Maori team can clip an entire sheep in almost one minute and are incredible to watch plus they can party like it's 1999.




The Farmer has been under the old combine, checking all the complicated bits, oiling things and in his element.



We still have a few weeks to go before any harvest and it has been so wet and cold here - the very opposite of the weather in England. I feel so heart sorry for the farmers and growers there and wish the weather would swap places. They need the rain, we need the sun.

The farmhouse has really cracked under the strain of the wet weather and another piece of plasterboard from the kitchen ceiling succumbed to gravity and smashed on the ground.

"Oh look! now we have a mezzanine bedroom/ kitchen with dangly plumbing pipe effect".....

Outside is thriving with the rain and the garden is a refuge. I decided on vegetables over flowers this year but the hardy old perennials have burst into flower and there is a harmony which smells good.
I stumble outside in a fever induced state, beduffled up, carrying a hot water bottle and coughing wildly at the petunias or the cabbages. It would be even better with a hot mug of whisky toddy, for medicinal reasons of course, alas it has evaporated and I don't trust myself to drive to the Co-op for more.

Perhaps The Farmer could jog there .....

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