Selling the Mouse House

Where to begin. The dapper man who steps out of his pristine car muttering about the "prevailing winds". I, being a tad clueless at this stage say that as we are so high the wind does tend to blow up here fairly! He was asking as he wondered if there would be room to mow a short airstrip through the wheat field for his Cessna!!

Or perhaps the lady who stepped into what I class as quite a large farmhouse kitchen saying it was far too small as she regularly seated 30 in the one she has now, and would wish to do the same here! Blimey, I get in a state if I think I have to cook for six!

I have met some lovely people over the past three weeks or so as I begin the painful process of selling our lovely farm. Not really the right time of year I know to start marketing such a property but my hand was forced as most of you will know by GOH deciding to start afresh with a new model!! I am taking some comfort from the fact that the house he has moved to is turning out to be a bit of a nightmare - unseen rot and him being a Surveyor and all!!!

So, with every approaching new "viewing" the process of coffee making, wood burner lighting, hoovering, cats being booted out etc etc starts. It takes a good two hours to do a basic viewing here with the house, buildings and farm. Nearly all my prospective buyers so far has been non farming folk who now wish to farm and so the process has been rather slow. Explaining crop rotation, set aside, wheat, barley, beans and sugar beet takes some doing without them glazing over at some point. Or me for that matter.

My agents have been very good and are vetting and weeding out those people who just want to come and spend a pleasant couple of hours out in the country and are allowing only those folks with proof that they have the money to spend. It has helped sort the wheat from the chaff so to speak and saves a huge amount of every one's time it has to be said.

My new house awaits me in a neighbouring village. I have exchanged on the deal and have a few months if need be to complete so I am very lucky. I am slowly becoming emotionally detached from this place which is what needs to happen. Having spent some 17 mostly happy years here and being somewhat forced to leave, it is hard.

I have not blogged for ages as so much has been happening with the house and everything so I thought it about time to bring you all up to speed. I have had a couple of serious offers but as yet they are way off the mark and it is far too early to start to panic. So folks, if you fancy some serious mowing and you know how I spend a lot of my summer days, and you want a move to Suffolk, its rollover day tomorrow on the Lottery. Get those tickets now. I have bought mine, I may be able to stay and have the other house for the weekends! I may even mow myself a landing strip and get a Cessna, prevailing winds permitting of course.

The Pool

The water glistens, shimmers
not a ripple stirs,
Privacy prevails
Totally alone I dive into a world
of warmth, softness, freshness, blueness
A cleansing overcomes me,
as I slice through the surface
up and down, back and forth
not thinking, not caring
letting the day wash from my tired body
Finding the strength to once again
face another October day.

The final week

It's been a funny old week
in "Suffolk" speak
In seven days GOH goes
on his way
seeking his current dream
leaving mine in tatters
I am not however too distraught
I still feel that sense of freedom
that somehow this was meant to be
Three discarded wives cannot all be
at fault
Bags are being packed, skips filled,
lawns cut, cats fed
Some of life goes on as normal
parts take on a surreal feel
Meals somehow cook, shirts get ironed
cars washed, fields ploughed
All the time the air hangs heavy
with gloom and expectation in equal measure
I am down but not out
Friday looms.

The Start

Here I stand at the start of a
very long and rocky road to
freedom, alone, unknown and
untried.
Scared that what I have started
I will never be able to finish
He chose to cheat, I chose to let
him go
Would it have not been easier to forgive and
forget
To hope that every time he left the house
He headed to someplace he should
I feel deep in my heart that he was lost to me
long before the day I discovered a receipt for a dinner
I did not eat, and diamonds I do not wear
bought by a man I no longer know
So, as the starting pistol fires
I am off, running, searching, turning back,
looking forward, making mistakes
seeking the fork in the road that will take
me to a place I deserve to be
to once again smile, breathe and feel like me.

Confessions of a serial mower - getting back to normal

Normal, what is normal I wonder anymore.

Well its been quite a summer and not one I will forget in a hurry, if ever.

Suffice to say, as I cannot blog about it yet, my life as I know it changed for ever on Saturday the 4th of August. Well it had changed for ever before that date; I just didn't know it!

My health has improved funnily enough as my personal life has gone "down the pan" as they say here in Suffolk. So there you have it, Mousie is about to be on her own. GOH is moving on to pastures new and with whatever strength I can muster I intend to cling on here to the farm.
It may or may not be possible but I will give it a bl++dy good try. Sorry folks I don't usually swear but am sure you will allow me this little one!

I have not been able to blog of late; partly it is true to say because of harvest and all that entails but also because of this huge crisis in my personal life. Some of you will be aware I know and for the rest I hope you will now understand and forgive me for not going into the details here in the public eye.

So, in the coming months I will probably subject you to all sorts of comings and goings here,the sale of things if and when they happen, etc. etc.

I have a huge network of friends and family - much larger and kinder than I ever imagined actually together with my cyber support and am getting through the days somehow. Some are dreadful and some quite frankly have been fun. Fun at a time like this seems an odd expression but sometimes the thought of my impending "freedom" feels like perhaps it might be fun.

I should in fact be in Aldeburgh for lunch today as the Suffolk Three, but Suffolkmum and Tattie have gone together as I have to go back to the hospital for another scan today. Nothing dreadful just to check another part of my back it would seem. I have some discs that are a bit ropey and I think they are checking others higher up my spine.

So, a brief and not very explanatory blog, and I hope you will bear with me and read between the lines and just send me a hug now and again.

Despite all this, I have not lost the urge to mow!!! love mousie

At the Races

Every week should start with a day at the races don't you think.

Perhaps it always does for some, but not usually for us Suffolk farming folk. So it was on Monday, we got all dressed and dolled up and headed up the A12 to Gt Yarmouth and the race course there, overlooking the dunes and the beach.

Some very close and dear friends sponsor a race in memory of late relatives, and hire one of the executive boxes overlooking the course and invite around 25 friends to join them. So here is a picture of what the inside of one of these "boxes" looks like. You have your own bar, waitresses and on this occasion a running buffet of hot and cold food. Champagne and canapes on arrival, lunch at 1.00, and then afternoon tea, as if you would still be hungry. If you spot anyone you know in there, don't tell on them!!

Its all frightfully pukka, with a loo opposite, the Tote down the hallway so "one" doesn't even have to venture out of the building to bet if "one" didn't feel like it! GOH of course loves the thrill of the on course bookies and is out of the door like a whippet after every race. He said he had a few winners but was very coy about the exact amount. He did look very smug at times.

The view afforded from the box is first class, and if you don't want to stand on the balcony you can watch the race on the TV provided inside the box. I noticed some people never left the

table. I was not one of them. I am far far too nosy and like to people watch, and chat, and peer into next door's box to see who is about.

I remember when I was invited to a very smart Box at Newmarket, where the neighbouring Box was that belonging to the Al Maktoum family, the famous horse owning Dubai rulers. Such wonders and treasurers I have never seen in a house, let alone a Box at a race track.

The steward there told me that the box has to be fully staffed, flowered, etc etc always, just in case the family visit. It even had a tented ceiling.

Anyway, Yaarmuth, as they say, is a bit more real life! The wind fairly whistled off the North Sea, and off shore, the 30 or so giant wind turbines were turning silently in the distance.

The world and his wife turn up - some folks looking as though they were straight off the beach - perhaps they were, and others, wore their Sunday or Monday best! GOH wore his linen suit and could easily have been at home at Goodwood with Blossom! There is a "dress code" for this stand but not elsewhere, so there is much to watch! Girls in tiny pink dresses and high wedges and rather older husbands, all looking very pleased with themselves! Red faced men, children, babies, mums and dads, lads. We could peer down on them all.

My task for the day was to judge the Best Turned Out horse for the said sponsored race. Whilst the horses are being paraded, I had to stand with a Steward and judge which one looked the best and had received the most attention and work by its groom. It was difficult I found this year as there were 15 runners and only a couple really stood out. I was in two minds which one to choose, when a stunning grey, almost gun metal colour, entered the parade ring a tad late and it just looked fabulous. It was plaited up, mane and tail, had oiled hooves, shone - no - more gleamed in the sun and there was my outright winner. The handler was late getting into the ring as she had a difficult horse to contend with from the previous race. She was very excited to win, I handed her the cash prize, and off she went. The horse actually finished second in the race. I didn't get time to put an each way bet on, so I got nothing! Well I got lots of attention in the ring actually and I did rather enjoy the moment.

I tried to look as if I knew what I was doing. I don't really, but have picked up tips etc over the years on what to look for. I couldn't for a moment do it myself.

So, if anyone invites you to a day at the races, don't hesitate to say yes, especially if it's a Monday - what could be a better start to the week. Say Yes Please, if they have a Box.

Harvest Home

Well harvest arrived this week and was somewhat of a desperate, grabbing when you could, type of affair. Extra labour was enlisted from a neighbouring farm along with an additional combine, tractor and trailer, and the ever present engineer. These combines are so complicated and electronic – onboard computers etc, that they are constantly being tweaked and reset. Gone are the days when dad sat in the full sun, with no cab, on his little 12’ cut Massey Ferguson that I swear he almost crank started. He would come in from a day’s labour, filthy, sunburnt, exhausted but fulfilled.

Now, little brother jumps off from his air conditioned cab, with his cd player, mobile phone and walkie talkie etc, still immaculate in his RL polo shirt and shorts. He even has a mini fridge thing in the cab for his drink and sarnies!! You almost need to be a Microsoft Nerd to work one of these implements.

Mum in her day would take a picnic basket up the field with “bait” at 11.00 am; probably cheese and a hunk of bread, and possibly, shock horror, a beer!! Then back again at lunchtime, and back again at tea time, leaving a flask of tea for the afternoon. Dad thrived on tea – no cold drinks for him, he found tea much more refreshing and thirst quenching he said. Mum spent a lot of harvest baking sausage rolls, Suffolk rusks and shortcakes (pastry curranty squares) which dad dipped in his tea, and large sustaining fruit cakes.

The summer holidays were solely about harvesting. This is of course why there is traditionally such long holidays for this time of year. Children would be expected to help bring in the corn. We never, ever, had a holiday when we were children. Maybe a day trip to the seaside on a Sunday, if the work was going well.

It was just dad, mum and I until little brother was 13 and able to drive the tractor "legally"!!!. He is 5 years younger than me.

Mum drove the tractor once. I say once, meaning she took in dad's instructions on her first lesson and drove the tractor straight out of the back of the shed, taking the shed with her.

Lessons were never mentioned again.

We first had a very old combine that you had to “bag up” – when the grain tank was full, we would hold the sacks underneath a funnel, standing on a platform and fill them, only the sacks were “coomb” sacks, weighing four bushel (volumetric measure) – which is unbelieveably heavy and not in existence today. Dad could lift one on his own. I think it would take three men in this day and age to do that. Health and Safety would never endorse this anyway.


Today the combine empties straight into the grain trailers and away to storage or straight to the buyer. Sometimes the barley is sold to maltsters for beer purposes, and sometimes it is just goes for animal feed. The wheat is for flour, the rapeseed for oil, and the field beans for animal feed again. Milled at the local merchants or on neighbouring farms where they still keep pigs and have their own mill/mix plant. We do not have the right soil I am told for oats which is a pity. I am sure we grew oats when I was little.

As you can see above, no blue sunny skies and picnics on the field edge, just grey gathering clouds, dark rusty dust and all hands on deck to “gather in the harvest”.

"Yow'll all wish when the winter come,
an yow ha'ent got no bread
that for all drawlin' about so,
yow'd harder wrought instead.
For all yowr father 'arn most goo
old Skin'ems rent to pay,
An' Mister Last, the shoemaker;
so work yow hard, I pray!"

[From Gleaning time in Suffolk by John Luchinton]

Dad stands scratching his head on the headland; one can only imagine what he in thinking. I know that if we had had this type of weather when we farmed at home with his little combine he would still be cutting in October. That’s an awful lot of picnics and flasks of tea!

Harvest and all that Jazz

We are in a state of expectation.

We are waiting for the rains to hold off just for a whole day so we can get into the barley.

I say we, rather like the Royal "we". I mean, of course, my brother and his huge monster of a harvester and all the paraphernalia that goes along with it. Two further men, two tractors and trailers to take turns in unloading the machine and carting off to the grain store. If we have some stiff winds and the corn dries there will be no need to go to the expense of artificial drying. Cereals of any description cannot be stored wet and the moisture content of the crop is measured frequently for the optimum content before cutting. To dry after harvesting costs huge amounts of money and of course this eats into profits; what little there is.

I can hear him now, he is cutting round the edge of the field with a clipper and cutting down the overgrown driveway where he will take his great lumbering machine. Its a huge logistical problem just getting the machine here. We cannot afford or indeed justify a machine of our own as they cost something in the order of £250,000.00. This jobbie has to cut around 2000 acres all told for the four farms it will service. It will labour from dawn to dusk.

It might be our turn first this year.

My brother contract farms for us and we have to wait our turn.

Its a case of whoever has the correct moisture reading on the day gets the machine first. Ours is looking good. We stand very high here and with a good wind and some strong sun we should be in pole position. Dad's farm lies just over the hill, across the river and he waits also. Second on the grid.

Harvest, a bit like charity, should begin at home I think he feels, but not when you are a contractor, oh dear me no. Poor old dad, he still finds this hard to stomach. He keeps ringing me to "see if they are here yet" so he can come up and watch proceedings as brother won't be doing it right - oh no no no. You can imagine. 82 years of experience versus 47. No contest really.

I took this photograph yesterday afternoon - Tuesday - whilst on my walk, looking back across the barley to the farm. I try to do at least 10,000 steps a day - the recommended amount. Who recommended I can't actually recall but it sticks with me. I have a friend who is a House mother in a Boarding House at the local Prep School in a huge old building and she recorded 15,000 steps just during a day's work!

I actually do something in the region of 14,000 on average as I am always outside, walking to and fro somewhere on this farm. It is 35 big steps from my kitchen sink, through the hall, through the dining room into the office so I can soon clock them up. 500 steps to the pond. You get my drift.

Anyway, on this particular day, I have my Ipod attached just to help me along a bit. All sorts of random bit of music, skipping from country to jazz, to rock. When I first got this little toy I was not connected to the internet and therefore it is just loaded with songs with no titles. So it sort of skips from one track to another, rather than plays a whole album. Anyway its a bit like me, skipping along to old Van M, and then racing along with Shania and dreaming with Josh G.

But all the time waiting.

Waiting for harvest.

Confessions of a serial mower - Out in front

Its not often that I am rendered speechless, but Saturday was such an occasion.

We had accepted an invitation to watch Goddaughter give her final speech at Parents' Day at Saint Felix at Southwold and to partake of a picnic lunch on the lawns afterwards.
This is now a co-educational private School, having educated at least seven members and three generations of goddaughters' maternal and paternal family.Her grandmother is a GP, still practicing at 80. One of her aunts if a published historical author. Her mother an accomplished cook. An illustrious lot let me tell you.
We were highly honoured to be included with the family and all these old "Felicians"!

I had offered to make the pudding and actually pulled off a mixed berry fruit mould which finally set and plopped out of its dish on command, in true Delia fashion.
A triumph!!

We met in the entrance to the School at the appointed time of 10.30 sharp! The two grandmothers, mother, father, etc etc and GOH and I. My friend had requested that we dress smart casual for a summer picnic.
Don't you just hate that phrase? "Smart" - I know where I am; "Casual" I can do.
We duly complied and waited to be seated at the back of the assembled 900 pupils and guests, with hopefully, a good view of "precious girl".

Not a bit of it; there we were, being ushered to the front. Yes, the front row in direct line with the podium and all the great and the good Governors seated on the stage! I could hear the folks behind saying "who the hell are they" - with good reason.

"I think there has been some mistake" I muttered as I was shown to my seat. My name was marked on the seat. The grandmothers being seated about halfway back down the hall somewhere with the "also rans"!
Utter Embarrassment.
I am now looking round at the Chanel and Prada numbers seated behind me wishing to goodness my smart casual was a bit more Ascot than Country Show! One such lady is a very well known actress off the telly. Holy Moly, what was going on.

Turns out GOH has now been appointed as official Building Surveyor to the School and his name had been noticed on the guest list and thus we had been elevated to the front! He also, from where I was sitting, appeared to have scored a hit with the Head of Governors and Head of History, both females! Oh yes, old smoothie is jolly useful at times. If only I had known in advance!

Poor "precious one" has to then climb the stage and do her speech with us sitting bang slap in the front opposite her. She was wonderful it has to be said and received well deserved prolonged applause. She even received a bronze statue in recognition of her contribution to school life and sport. GOH of course couldn't resist the temptation to take a quick snap of her, in all her glory!! And here she is - da da!!!

The guest speaker was an old Felician girl who has gone on to be a Major in the Army, and had done stints in the Falklands, Northern Ireland and Iraq. She was hysterical and an inspiration to all there. Male and Female. She would take no prisoners. She extolled the virtues of a good sound education. She stood strong, stocky and solid. You would want her on your side and at your side. I felt somewhat heartened that women like this are in our forces.

She trained at Sandhurst and gave us some details of what the recruits are like these days. She said that 50% of new recruits into the Army have the reading age of 9. Nine! I could feel my jaw drop. It appears that the Army then has to educate the new intake until they have the reading age of 15. This then enables them to read instructions, commands and maps etc.
God Almighty, and these poor souls are given guns!
I have no doubt that her words were true. The audience in general around her looked shocked. The teaching staff did not.

She then went on to give us a small insight into some of the more wittier remarks found on the reports of some of less bright of the new intakes. Such as "the wheel is turning but the hamster is dead", "would not breed from this young man",
"stand close enough and you will hear the ocean through his ears"!

We closed the speeches and prize giving with the School Hymn.. "He who would valiant be 'gainst all disaster...." and the School Prayer.

"O God, who shewest forth They Light in every age; we thank Thee for Thy Servant,
Felix, The Apostle of East Anglia.
Grant unto all who teach and learn in the School called by his name,

to serve Thee here with energy and love, and ever spread the knowledge of Thy Truth.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord". Amen

We then ventured out onto the playing fields for our picnic lunch of smoked salmon, champagne, salads and fruit mould with proper china, crystal glasses and linen tablecloth and a distant view of the Sea.

Truly British and Proud!!

The sun even shone down on our smart casual little ensemble!

The grandmothers appear to have forgiven us!

Confessions of a serial mower - Five things to Perk me up

I suppose I am very lucky in that I don't suffer from deep depressions and am usually quite upbeat, despite always seeming to be ill with something or another.


Anyway, Muddie, bless her, has tagged me and I am therefore endeavouring to think of five things that I do/turn to to pick me up from a low mood.

1. Well I think you all know by now my shoe compulsion. I have to admit it is not as bad as it once was. We have a one in, one out (pair) policy here now and this does help. I do like to keep my new shoes in their boxes and I like to keep them new! I get immense pleasure from a new pair of shoes and at one time used to have a Bally factory shop about 25 miles away and this was were I would head for a serious bit of retail therapy.


2. Reiki. I first discovered this when I was staying at Ragdale Hall Health Spa, having won a de-stressing week there in a national competition. It was a slogan what won it!! Cant for the life of me think what this witty slogan was but it must have been good. Anyway, there was a female Reiki Master in residence and I received a treatment every afternoon. With all due respect to GOH, it was better than sex. I wasn't particularly stressed when I went to the Spa, but at the end of the week I was so laid back and high, it was transforming. I have never found anyone else to do this at that level but the Master I have found locally is still relaxing and worthwhile.

3. Swimming. Not being particularly fit and having dodgy joints, running and jogging etc is out of the question but swimming is something I can do easily and as well as the next man! I have a hydrotherapy pool nearby and they very kindly let me swim there, as well as exercise.
I only need 30 minutes of breast stroke laps and I am renewed. Whether it is the warmth, the water or the exercise, it does it for me every time, and every Monday.


4. The Beach. We are only 20 minutes or so away from some wonderful Suffolk beaches and the North Sea. So, along with a lot of you I walk the beach. Just the smell of sea air lifts my mood. If we are abroad, we now always holiday near a beach and ocean. It pulls me, it draws me, it sucks me in and spits me out refreshed. I just feel cleansed.


5. I watch the movies "Pretty Woman" or "Father of the Bride" and they never fail to lift my mood.


Having read the above, they seem pretty ordinary things and nothing earth shattering, but when you are low I think routine is good and simple is safe.


Well, Muddie that's me done. I think most of us have run the relay now and I can drop the baton.

Confessions of a serial mower - A lost friend

I used to have four very best close girl friends, now I have three. I lost one because of an Internet porn site. Let me explain.

My best friends were all gathered from my teenage years, I never seemed to make best friends at School, living as we did on a remote farm in Suffolk. We were quite a self sufficient little family; dad, mum, my brother and I, living on the farm owned then by my Grandfather.
Never felt I missed out; I had a female cousin of the same age who lived just down the road, and of course I had my little brother to fuss over. I had friends at School, just not best friends. I was rather a studious swot of a child, and no one particularly likes a smart a**e! I had the reading age of a 12 year old when I was 7. I remember someone from the Education Authority coming out to test me. I recall sitting an examination when I was 7 and getting 100%, thus prompting this official visit I imagine from someone in authority to check my score and re-test me to ensure the teacher had not cheated.

This rather singled me out; I had lots of people who wanted to sit near me for the answers, but no special friend. I remember having to sit next to another girl a year older so that I could help her with her math. I pretty much taught myself from about 8 until I progressed into further education.

You may recall I blogged on the other site about the fact that I could read a newspaper at four. So the Janet and John books etc were rather wasted on me.

Anyway I digress.

I gathered best friends once I started work and found people who were comfortable with me. I looked just like any other 17/18 year old with skirts up to my bum, the latest makeup and hairdo, but with a rather enquiring, well read brain. I had read Solzhenitsyn etc at fourteen and all sorts of books that I would baulk at my 16 year old niece reading now. I am sure she has though. She also got the brains.

So, one of my best friends (S) was gathered up from the local Young Farmers’ Club. I had never met her before, but she lived only about 5 miles from me. She was five years older but seemed my age – 18. She looked like me, laughed at the same things I did, was very bright and well read though not privately educated, and liked the same men – but not, luckily at the same time!! We shared many boyfriends over the years – I say boyfriends, as opposed to lovers, because in those heady young days, one did not sleep with the boys. Well we never anyway. Daft or what?
Remember, I had Grandfather at home, and would be out on my ear if I brought “shame” on the family!

I have to say here that consequently I still have loads of men friends who are ex boyfriends with none of the embarrassment of having slept with them!!

I remember being at a very smart dinner party when one of these old boyfriends, now quite famous actually, boomed across the table – “old stick, did I ever bed you. I can’t remember”!!!
My reply, and for once I had the right one!! “Well I think you have answered your own question. You would have certainly remembered if you had!!” Boom Boom.

Anyway my best friend and I were known as the “terrible twos” – you never found one without the other. And thus it continued. An extraordinary closeness.
Her husband cheated on her after 20 years of marriage with a “friend” and left her with two boys. She had a breakdown and I helped her and supported her through that entire trauma as she had supported me through many difficult times and broken dreams.

She gradually came out of her shell and started dating a much younger single chap who farmed with his elderly parents. She met him at a charity event she helped organize.
He seemed sweet and kind, if somewhat unworldly (ha ha) and just what the Doctor ordered.
He had a house on the family farm and no longer actually lived with his parents. He kept her a secret from them and from his hunting, shooting, fishing friends. S being 20 years older than him with two boys from a failed marriage and not of the same breeding!! I kid you not.
She told me once that they were driving along when he saw his father approaching from the opposite direction and he “shoved her into the foot well of the passenger seat” so she would not be seen.
I did not approve and found it hard not to keep warning her of the disaster I saw looming. She just made excuses for him the whole time. Love is very blind.

He took her lovely places, bought her super jewels, gave her money to renovate her little cottage and bought her a car. This went on for at least two years and he had still not told his parents. It seemed one or two of his friends were in on the secret and she dined out with them occasionally, on the far side of the County of course.

Now my friend (S) was very computer literate and he was not. He needed a computer for the farm book keeping etc. So she helped him install a PC and got him on-line etc. etc. He went on a couple of courses. She had access to his passwords, everything. He, stupidly/luckily used the same ones for everything.
I did say he was young and very unworldly didn’t I. She was totally besotted. He did nothing for me, as young and fit as he was. He made her smile again at least.

Anyway, one day when she was working on his computer an e-mail popped into his inbox from an “adult dating agency”. Now we all get these damn things from time to time – but this was different – it was a REPLY to his WEBSITE (or a wink as it is called) on a very adult dating site!!! I would call it a porn site. People advertise themselves naked with graphic details too intimate to mention here.
Well, there were tears and ructions and everything in between. He swore he would never do it again, she said she never wanted to see him again, and promptly had another breakdown.

So back to square one, counselling, losing her job, I found her another. Building her up ready to face the world again.

Then, unbelievable she took him back. He rang to say he couldn’t live without her, would tell his parents and they would marry.
He moved in. Her boys moved out.
He lived two lives. Rushed off in the morning to the farm, had breakfast and lunch with mother, then back to S for supper and bed. They never went anywhere much – how could they – no time and someone might see them. His parents being very particular about who he mixed with – he was 35 for heavens sake! And thus it continued. He promised he had mended his ways. Was not meeting girls off the internet, only loved her and would tell his mother when the time was right. Of course, the time was never right. She was old, she was ill, she was away!!!

I thought she should ring his mother and let the "cat out of the bag" about her precious perfect son.

She says I am wrong about him and feels we cannot continue our friendship if I don’t trust him.

She has forgiven him and trusts him. GOH can’t stand him. Actually, I hate him.

I don’t hate very easily.

Now being a very nosy mouse, she told me the passwords etc to his computer when they split - and they are still the same - of course I just have to check his Website every now and again. He is still advertising but is no longer naked!
And thus it was ever so!!
I am almost, I say almost, tempted to let you have his passwords so you can all have a look at him! But you never know, I might win her back, or I might get a Wedding Invite, his mother might die or pigs might fly.

This is Suffolk after all.

Confessions of a serial mower - Singing in the Rain

Well he was amazing. Rod is THE MAN. I have never enjoyed a concert more and he was the consummate professional. Despite absolute pouring rain, thunder and lightning, he came on stage at 8.00 pm on the dot and sang his little socks off for two and a half hours. The band took a ten minute break to dry off their equipment and to mop the stage - what a star. I thought Elton John was fabulous, but Rod was in a different league - a true superstar. It took a week to build the arena, with some 150 technicians and 18 lorries of staging. It took more than a monsoon and 10 stiches in his leg from a fall last week to stop our Rod. So yes, I had an unforgettable evening. Our seats were undercover and in direct line with the stage and the mega screen behind him.
Those in the more expensive seats up against the stage got very very wet despite being issued with little blue plastic rain covers. Not a good look for all the blonde babes trying to attract his attention.
He opened his act with You wear it well and by goodness he does. For a man in his 60's he looks amazing, and very long legged for a chap only some 5'8" tall. That wife of his is a very very lucky lady.

As the heavens opened he pelted out his best known hits such as Do Ya think I'm Sexy, The First Cut is the Deepest,You're in my Heart and of course Sailing. His voice seemed to me as good as it ever was. I have never seen so many middle aged rock chick wannabe's together in one place for a very long time!! I actually felt quite young. I grew up with his music and posters on my bedroom wall.
What he made of our rather small football ground at Ipswich I have no idea after the Wembley stadium on Sunday - he was very game and kicked Celtic footballs in the crowd! We loved him for it anyway and forgave him!

I have just spoken to a friend who was taken as a treat to the concert by a member of the Football Club board - so was wined and dined beforehand, and then taken not to the Directors Box as expected, but to a front row seat which was exciting but of course it meant her rather smart clothes and shoes got totally drenched!! Anyway, she said he did look quite good even close up. I, of course, stayed totally dry in the "cheap seats".

Chrissie Hynde with the Pretenders was the warm up act and she still is a total rock chick babe of the highest order. She can still strut her stuff let me tell you.

Do I think Rod is sexy, you bet!!

Confessions of a serial mower - Peaches, no cream

My late paternal grandfather; the gentleman farmer, the rich man, the horseman, the very cruel man.
For all his airs and graces, his smart handmade suits, his car, his house on the hill, he was heartless and cold..

My grandmother, Anna, who died when I was about 11, had a horrible existence.
She was never allowed out alone.
She lived for Wednesdays.
This was the day he went to market. Whether it was the corn market or the animal auctions I cannot recall. Do you know what she dared to do then? She opened a tin peaches and ate them all! The sheer indulgence. Can you imagine? The highlight of your life, being a tin of peaches. Groceries, bread, meat, everything was delivered to the door and sometimes she managed to order a tin, without him checking the orders. She had no money of her own. He paid for and checked everything. They even had the first telephone in the village but he was the only one allowed to use it.
Who would she ring anyway? Her friends all drifted away, driven off by the fierceness of Grandfather. She became blind in her old age and grandfather put her in a home.
As far as I know, no one else had a say in the matter.
We all lived in fear of him.

She told my mum, and she in turn told me, that when she was pregnant with either my father or my aunt, she was never allowed to open the door to anyone. In case they saw “the state she had got herself in”!

Obviously they had no internal plumbing and the water was drawn from the pond.
They had a stone water filter that lived in the dairy I remember, which adjoined the scullery. The kitchen; and I can still smell that stale milk and damp stone smell, was a
brick floored, huge bare cold room with a copper in the corner and a range along one wall. It had a channel running in the floor through to the outside, for swilling out the spilt milk and floor washing water.
Romantic it was not.
My brother lives in this fine house now. With his designer kitchen, utility room, and
blackened range. The renovated water filter sits iconic in the corner. The brick floors shine with polish.
His version of events long gone are quite quite different from mine or my mothers’.

In this drinking water pond I was told a child drowned. Who she belonged to I never did discover. I knew never to go near the pond. I imagined if I did I would look down and see this little girl still lying there, staring up at me like some Hitchcock movie. I hope it was a rural myth to keep us away from the water. I fear it was not. No one stopped drinking the water anyway.

It is not a happy house, even now, for its finery. It never feels warm, it stands isolated
and alone. It affords some of the finest views in Suffolk. It still has the pond. Appearances can be so deceptive.

Confessions of a serial mower - mum "set free"

We lost mum two years ago today; it seems like last week. It feels worse than it did last year.

I have found the Service of Thanksgiving Sheet we had, and have copied below a couple of the passages from it.

On the front we had printed “Lift up your heart and share it with me, God wanted me now, he set me free” (anon). She had suffered greatly and this quote seemed appropriate.

My niece, H was 14 when mum died and she wrote the following about her beloved Grandma..
They adored each other – mum looked after her a lot when my sister in law returned to work. They spent hours together in the farm kitchen, before H was old enough to go to school and then after school.
H is now in the midst of her exams – she wants to study law - and I know grandma would be very proud of her just now.

Thoughts of Grandma Chickens

On this page I write the things I remember – things that I shall never forget.
Buns, crispy cakes, jam tarts, sausage rolls, Yorkshire puddings the size of your fist.
Oh there are too many cakes to list. All of these were cooked on the Aga by you and a little help from me.
Every time I walked into the kitchen a new smell was to be smelt, a rumbling in my stomach felt.
You taught me to knit; bears and bags. Although I could never knit as fast as you however hard I tried. When I got in a muddle it was on you which I relied.
When I was little I used to come and play with Monty and Winston in the hay. (cats)
After, we would sit on the lawn eating cucumber sandwiches and crisps, watching the fish, their tails would swish.
On a Sunday in the summer, Granddad, you and I would take the car to the fuchsia festival to take a long look at the flowers. They came in all shapes, sizes and colours; you knew most of their names.
All my memories are happy, none sad and to have these memories I am glad.
Now you live in heaven but you are still here.
I think of you when I bake cakes and tarts, although they shall never be as good as yours I fear.
These things that I was taught by you I shall never forget, they will be passed on to my children and theirs. And when they ask me who taught me such skills I shall reply in only five words – A very special Grandma Chickens. With love H xx

The photo is of H sitting in the fireplace here at Christmas last year. She is rather gorgeous and we all love her dearly. I see lots of me in her, and lots of grandma chickens in us both.

Confessions of a serial mower - scandal and wildlife

"Rummin ol day today" as dad would put it. Storm clouds but no rain; wind yet humid and close. Neither one thing nor tuther!

One of GOH's girls in the office has handed in her notice - she is running off with someone who is married and they want to start a new life away from the gossip! Gossip, we hadn't heard any gossip and feel well out of the loop!
We hadnt got a clue - she is one of the more serious, studious members of staff, not at all flighty or flirtatious - so we are all "gob smacked" as the saying goes these days. At least she is giving notice I suppose and not doing a moonlight flit.
So, quick advert put together, and hey ho, another one bites the dust.
She, it has to be said, has been rather "smilie" of late - now we know why!

Rescued a blackbird from the greenhouse before it bashed itself to death against the glass. I feel a bit like that myself today - must be the weather.

On a brighter note, the eleventh duck has resurfaced - she has not been eaten by Mr Fox but seems to have been alienated from the flock as it were. Brothers, don't get me started on that one. She sits alone and looks very sad. I am feeding her up and making a fuss. Bloody males, it wont be long before they all want to jump on her - ain't life grand!!

One of the mother pheasants has hatched off 12 chicks and they are strutting up the drive - more livestock to worry about.

I'm not actually as miserable today as my blog makes me sound - my wording is rather
morose - I am blaming it all of this flipping weather.

Confessions of a serial mower - down and dirty

Well I have just spent an hour and a half on the kitchen floor with our carpenter - lots of sweating, swearing and thrusting, but no sex. Yep, the integrated fridge has gone wrong, the new one has arrived and it is a different size!! My arms are small enough to reach the back to adjust the legs and said arm got stuck!!
Luckily I know carpenter man very very well, from junior school in fact, so getting down and dirty was not an issue. I mean dirty in the sense that the dust and debris behind my fridge and plinth was somewhat embarrassing. But, much to my amazement, no dead animals!
This is not the day I intended.
Firstly we had a power cut during a severe thunderstorm, then carpenter man turned up unannounced as his outside work had been rained off, and we "might as well have a go at the fridge"!
Whilst on the floor with said man, GOH comes home! His contact lens has come adrift and he can't sort it! So, he helps get my arm out and I then have to find contact lens under his eyelid. Typical Friday really. I hope you are all having a fun day too!

I took this picture yesterday afternoon and then saw @themill's border - I now need obelisks to complete the look I fear. Did you make them or did you buy them I wonder. There is talk of heavy rain here for the weekend so thought I had better record the roses before they get their petals all bashed.

I am now going for a lie down, alone!!!

Confessions of a serial mower - just another difficult day!

Hellfire and damnation. I am seething.
May 2006 I frequented our local Ford dealership with a friend of very limited means and a small savings account, to exchange her old banger. We struck such a deal and we were thrilled. Her old Fiesta was traded in for a 3 month old ex-demo Ka.
I did all the dealing and suchlike as old mousie is sometimes likened to a Rottweiler and I was rather pleased with myself!! It was a cute little car and just right for her. Her first proper car that wasn't a "heap". Something of her very own.
A year's free motoring was ensured for said friend with the final free
service being this May, all part of the package.

Wrong!!

Said salesman it seems was in the midst of a mad passionate wild affair at that time, his mind was on other things, and he did not write up the deal as we both understood it. He left the dealership soon after our transaction, and after some 30 years of marriage, ran off into the sunset with a lady he sold another car to!! He now, rumour would have it, drives coach tours all over Europe with lady lover and no one knows where he is based. Wonderful.
Anyway, friend goes to pick up little car from its service to be told she owed £200.00 and the service was not free and there was no record of it.
"Couldn't possibly be as it wasn't new when we obtained it". It had just 3,000 miles on the clock and was their demonstrator!! Why would I make it up.

We are both liars it would seem. Couldn't possibly have made such a deal - if we had it would have been logged etc etc. Well, the "loved up" salesman made so many mistakes on the sales document anyway, that we are at a stalemate at the moment.
It's a "he says, she says" dialogue.
Friend paid up, in tears, and I am now trying to get the money back.
Her husband, of course, had said she shouldn't have the car and she is now getting the "I told you so" spiel.

I was so pleased with myself at the time for sorting this out, without the use of GOH, and now the bloody thing has gone pear shaped. Now £200.00 may not sound much to most people, but to my friend, it is a huge big deal.
Hubby and I have over the years bought various cars from them, and now of course GOH has got involved. He was so incensed, and I have to admit, I am going to let him run with it.

Now awaiting a huge removal lorry - no, we are not joining Jane and moving to pastures new - in a rash moment when No 2 son bought the house in Portsmouth, I said would they like our dining room furniture as it would fit so well in the house.
Thinking it was far to old and traditional for them I thought I would make the gesture.
"Yes please" they said, "When can we have it"!! Sh*t!
They have now sold their stuff and need it now. So my lovely 12 seater table and chairs are off to a new life. I have managed to hang on to the dresser, which being oak, luckily isn't to their taste! I am now going to redecorate and get an oak table and chairs.
I will not be changing my car this year it would seem.

Photo is of son, daughter outlaw and the Heiress here at Christmas with the dining room furniture. I may hold back on the grand gestures in future.

On a brighter note, in the Telegraph this morning, I see it is very "now" to wear pink. Thank god for small mercies!

The great, the good, the rich and famous descended on Suffolk this weekend for one of the biggest house content sales of the year, held in a village nearby. The collection of furniture and objet d'art was huge and very valuable, and judging by the Telegraph this morning, made over £2 million! Keith Skeel the famous interior designer and collector is moving on and out and abroad. The side roads were awash with expensive cars and posh folk all vying for a piece of the action.
Not much there for us or that we could afford, so we headed out of Suffolk down to Essex to have lunch with four of our bestest friends.

The sun shone by lunchtime and we were able to sit outside the Barn Brasserie at Great Tey for pre lunch drinkies. This large barn conversion is a wonderful restaurant that even caters for the likes of me with my food intolerances and the menu is marked accordingly, gf, gluten free, df,dairy free and even vegan. Something for everyone and as usual the food was spot on.
For some reason or another the service was rather "hit and miss", but it caused us so much hilarity that we forgave them and accepted complimentary coffee to compensate.
We were called into the restaurant at 1.15 as our "starters" were ready. We were served from a huge selection of breads; tomato ,seeded, nutty, etc. etc.
Alas no warm oven baked fresh bread for me. However, because we were talking so much we clean forgot the time and by 1.45 realized we still hadn't actually had our starters and we were ploughing through the wine fairly!
We signalled the waitress and she promptly rushed over and started clearing the table. We explained we had only actually been eating the bread and "where was the rest of it". She looked aghast. There was much toing and froing from the kitchen and raised voices were heard.
She explained that we had been "breaded" and the kitchen hadn't been informed. Well, we all fell about as we had not heard this expression before - I personally thought it made me sound like a bit of scampi - or perhaps some deep dark masonic ritual or "blooded" as in hunting and all that.

Anyway it set the tone for the day and we laughed throughout. I think we left there at 4.00 pm - a hell of a Sunday lunch!

Our designated driver brought us back, and we finished the day off with nibbles and fizzy overlooking my stripy lawns. No one wanted bread.

Today is back to reality with the silage being cut in the next field and the huge baler coming behind. In my younger days silage was collected and heaped in large silage clamps on the farm to be used as and when. Now it is stored like big straw bales. I wonder if it is to do with Health and Safety - the clamps used to be covered with black plastic and old car/tractor tyres - I don't expect this is correct anymore!!

The deer have found my new rose bed of David Austin "Sister Elizabeth" roses planted in memory of my mum. They have stripped them bare of their leaves and all that remain are the pink frothy heads hanging forlornly on the twiggy branches. I would laugh if it wasn't so sad.
So no pictures of the roses, just one snapped through the hedge of the silage making in progress.

Confessions of a serial mower - an Aga Saga

A comment from Pondside made me realize we all rave about our Agas, Rayburns and suchlike and some folks, particularly across the pond don't know so much about them. So, in a nutshell, they are either two ovened or four, mine is two, run on gas, oil, solid fuel or electric, enamelled ranges. Enormous storage heaters that cook. Not cheap to run, but then they can do so much more than cook - heat water, radiators, press clothes on the simmering lids, drying herbs, preserving, toasting bread and crumpets on the hobs, and warming bums. There is really nothing quite like an Aga roast. You can even do a "fry-up" in a pan on the floor of the roasting oven.
Visitors tend to race across the kitchen and hang off the hand rail, warming their bottoms. Farmhouses and large country houses had them way before they became fashionable. They are instantly available to cook with, whenever, no preheating etc here. Rather than worry about temperature control you place your items for cooking in varying positions within the ovens - the top oven being the hottest etc. Sounds really weird at first, but you soon get the hang of it. Mine is run by propane gas as we do not have mains here, and is a rather dark chocolate brown - it was inherited with the house and this particular colour, whilst not my choice, has now come back into fashion and can be bought again would you believe. I knew if I waited long enough it would. www.aga-web.co.uk

Daughter outlaw, a new convert to them, has just purchased one second hand herself off e-bay for her house in Portsmouth. She has got the more traditional cream. All she needs now is her new kitchen to put it in - planning permitting! I know lots of you lucky things out there have four ovened ones and I am rather envious of that. Still, beggars can't be choosers. Still, having been brought up in a home with a solid fuel Rayburn which was a nightmare to control and keep clean, I was just plain thrilled to get a gas Aga of any size or colour. When we were in Florida last I saw a four ovened Aga going into a MacMansion as they are known - even in the heat and humidity of Florida, they are the thing to have - you just turn up the air con I guess. In Suffolk, I hardly ever need to turn her off, even on the hottest days, I just open all the windows and doors - I can't really bear to be without her you see. Bugger the flies!
So for Pondside, a tiny potted blog about an Aga - so now you know what we are all on about.

Confessions of a serial mower - back to normal

Yesterday was totally mad. Rain drove through cracks and places we didn't even know we had places. The dining room leaded light window, large and North facing of course, streamed with rivulets of water, draining down to the ledge and then along the beams to the wood floor. Pooling just short of my huge rug. We mopped up with towels hastily grabbed from bathroom and did the best we could to stem the tide.
I have lit the wood burner in there today, to try to dry and air out the room.
We recorded over 3 inches of rain this weekend. Extraordinary for this time of year -more rain in a day than usually for the whole of May. The dampness seems to be seeping through the house, except for my beloved kitchen with madam Aga sending out her warm rays to greet me. Thank god, and the occupants before me, for she!

Others, less fortunate in the neighbouring village have been without power since Sunday so I can only imagine how they are coping.

Our traditional Whitsun Gala held every year for the past 60 in the surroundings of Framlingham Castle was washed out. Cancelled for the first time in living memory.
Bert Stocks Fun Fair arrived, but no fun was to be found. As fast as they tried to
erect their equipment, it just sunk into the mire that is the Castle Meadow. If it didn't have a running moat, it has one now.
Fields stand with water - just two weeks ago we were despairing that the beet would die through lack of rain, and now they stand up to their necks in water.
Their leaves are at least touching over the rows, on schedule, by the Suffolk Show, tomorrow. Surely it will stop raining by then. The Trinity Showground at Bucklesham near Ipswich [named after the Suffolk Trinity of horse, sheep and red poll cattle) stands on light sandy soil, "boy's land" as they say round here - so it should drain and be usable we hope. For a wonderful day out, where Town meets Country, there's not much to beat the Suffolk Show - especially if the sun should shine on it. It usually does. Here's hoping.
A view of our barley taken last week, on a Suffolk sunny day.

Confessions of a serial mower - Farewell our lovely

We bade farewell to our beloved "Lady Doctor" as she was known around here, today.
She was only 67, and had suffered with a brain tumour for the past four years.
She moved to Suffolk some 35 years ago, with her young family, having qualified in Glasgow and working in large cities in the North. She stemmed from a hugely academic and talented medical family. We were very lucky to get her. Suffolk was a dramatic move for her, and she came to settle in the large old Rectory in my village. We thought she would be too posh for us. How wrong we were.

Lady GP's were somewhat of a novelty then.She joined our practice on a part-time basis to do the "women's things" as it were. General Practitioners then were mainly middle class, middle aged, set in their ways, men. Our glamorous LD was a vision to behold. She wore stilettos - always; very tight short skirts and low cut tops.
Her hair piled high with bright glitzy flowery things, wafting perfume wherever she went. She liked a fag and a gin and tonic but not in her clinic!; her family, her patients, classical music, Italian art, the local harrier hunt, and a giggle.
She was a vision; glamorous to the very end.

Her first marriage failed and she had a new partner and husband in her latter years who was devoted to and utterly besotted with her, and who can blame him.
She suffered much tragedy, not least the death of her young daughter last year, also of a brain tumour.

The Church was filled to bursting and I stood outside with my boy, and his friends who had driven from all over the country this morning to be here to support her only son, their beloved friend. For the first time in his life I think, No 2 son was early - he rang me at 11.00 from the church to say there was no one there. Of course not, the funeral was at 1.00 p.m. He was two hours too soon. We laughed, he came up to the house for some food, before we all set off up the farm driveway to the church a second time.

He had been up since 5.00 am, to sort the Heiress out and get child care for her as daughter outlaw is in front of the cameras today on Branscombe Beach in Devon. You will recall that the MSC Napoli lost its cargo here and people looted it. Today, the Receiver of Wrecks hands back some of the looted goods to that poor woman who saw her goods being taken from a container. I digress. Someone at least was having a brighter day than us.

The birds sang in the trees, as we sang in the churchyard - the small flint St Andrews' church sardined with her family, never mind colleagues, friends and patients. We had the sound relayed out to us. An appreciation of her life was read out by one of her practice partners, he sobbed throughout. Rooks called, goslings squawked in the meadow next door,and babies babbled and grown men cried. Our retired vicar came back to officiate, as did the retired vicar before him. Everyone wanted to say farewell. A far too premature goodbye. A true country send off; of folks in black, folks in working clothes,nurses in uniform, girlies in short short skirts, and boys in ill fitting jackets and tight jeans. No frowns at this mismatch of motley crew today.
She would have loved it.
The bells rang out and Bach played on the tape machine - "Sleepers Awake" - and four pall bearers of varying heights struggled with her coffin, tilting at an alarming angle, on the uneven grass. A single wreath of red red roses, bobbing along on the top. All that was missing was the clip clip of her high heels.
She would have laughed.
Particularly as I stood in a very large pile of goose poo outside the lychgate.
Laugh,.. until I cried.

Confessions of a serial mower - A day in the life of a mouse

Well, if I didn't know better I would say I lived at Longleat. If a Rhino came out of the set aside tonight I would say "game on" (pun intended).
My day began at 6.30 am, I alighted the stairs to mother duck and eleven babies, well teenagers, sitting waiting for me on the back door step, in a sea of poo. In my particularly old but very comfy wrap I trotted off to the pond with a bowl of mixed grains, we have progressed from the baby grower pellets. The ducks follow in formation just like the man who taught the geese to fly in that film.
I pray they learn to fly on their own, as this is not a skill I possess, alas.
At the pond is a heron and a kingfisher.

Meet rather dishy postman on way back from pond, who eyeing up my grey bobbly over washed wrap, asked where the ducks were. I pointed to the pond and made a dash for the house, just in time to bump into a ruddy jogger going through the yard on the footpath!

Proceed to hose down and bleach back step. Now in blue wellies and grey wrap, not a good look.
GOH goes off to work, without contact lenses - he can't manage them without me and couldn't find me. He is not a happy bunny.

Put on load of washing, eat breakfast, shower, etc etc and start the day.

On the back lawn stands a Roe deer, presumably just having had her fill of my David Austin roses. She looks very serene and content. I am far from this state.

Open post, several bills, final reminders and the usual rubbish.
In even worse mood now.

Now I have a hornet in the conservatory, its the size of a Zeppelin, believe me. I corner the bugger and squash it with the pole that opens the roof lights.
Its not even 9.00 am yet and I am exhausted.

My brother arrives to spray the set aside before the wind gets up and the spray drifts. I have to ring a couple of neighbours as one has a sensitive cat, and one is allergic to spray. My permanent grassland around the house is a joy but this year the thistles and sheep's parsley has taken such a hold it threatens to engulf the grass, and thus take over. We have never had to resort to this before. I am very anti-pesticides etc. I had rung DEFRA and got permission for this spray to be applied, and so brother carrys on. Under the set aside scheme we are not allowed to top or cut this grassland before the end of July so the weeds will seed even more if I do not do something now. I am assured by brother and DEFRA the wildlife will not be affected. I do hope so as I have owls,skylarks, finches,wood peckers,jays,rooks, crows, bats, mice, voles,moles, pheasants, partridges, rabbits and hares,roe and muntjac deer, not to mention Mr. Fox. As I said before, I am only lacking some big game, and I could sell tickets. DEFRA permitting of course!

I get on my mower and have a good hour, cutting some rough grass and doing a couple of stripy lawns. This is my therapy. It makes me feel good. I am thinking about tomorrow.

Then off to a little market garden about eight miles away to get my potting geraniums - I am rather fussy about my colours and I buy white, red and a new one called rose - a pretty salmon with a white centre. The owner takes me to see some that are flowering, as he knows how funny I am about these things, and they pass muster. He then wants to look over my car!! His wife wants one and he wondered what they were really like. Another half hour wasted. Its a six year old hatchback so hardly noteworthy.
Quick bite of lunch and field several calls for GOH, who is not on the farm today but in his Architectural office seeing clients.

Make up some beds as Son No 2 is home tomorrow for a funeral. Our lovely lady doctor who is only in her early 60's has succumbed to a brain tumour. Her children and ours all went to school together so they want to come home to support her son.
Poor C has now lost his father, his sister last year in her 20's also to a brain tumour and now his mother. Can it get any worse. The funeral is in our little village church, where my mum is scattered, and I have no idea where everyone will fit in as there must surely be hundreds there. She was a hoot. She wore extraordinary clothes and the highest heels and loads of makeup, and loved a drink. Try not to think about it.

Just time to finish weeding and hoeing the veg patch and then cook tea.
Sit down to watch a couple of soaps, and what do I get for my days toils, ruddy football. Whoopee do!!
And, yes, the ducks are back for their supper. The pheasants are on the terrace stealing some scraps I had put out for the cats.

Tomorrow - and I am dreading tomorrow - though I get to see the scrummy son,
will be a tear filled day I am sure. Perhaps I should not moan about my country day today. Duck poo doesn't seem so serious in the scheme of things.
I have just eaten six squares of Lindt chocolate to compensate. It hasn't helped.

I have taken a picture of the set aside so you get an idea of what I am talking about.

Confessions of a serial mower - A Rose by any other name...

Will Blossom get her "Markie" flowers?
or could she wait just hours and hours
Mr Rose, we just have a hunch
will do all he can to ensure a bunch
of the wildest, blowsiest biggest blooms
enough to fill her splendid rooms
Huge sums of money are all very well
but we are the folks to whom they sell
His profits are just vast you see
and pointed out by mousie me!

Confessions of a serial mower - an emotional morning

I have had a very emotional few days. The Heiress, our Angel and new found love of our lives has been very very poorly. A month ago she had the MMR vaccine; I was worried as many people are over this, and was told not to be so old fashioned! She started to get sick last Thursday and spiked a dreadful fever on Friday and was covered in spots by Saturday. Doctors prodded and poked and finally decided yesterday that she has baby measles - from research it would appear that rarely this can occur up to six weeks after the MMR vaccine is administered.
Today the rash is subsiding, her temperature is normal and she is perky and wants to eat. There doesnt appear to be any lasting damage. We are on a moments notice to drive to Portsmouth if need by. We have a web cam link to watch her as she is home.
We tried to carry on as normal all weekend, we even went out for that hilarious meal, thinking she just was teething, hot and grumpy. But our baby girl was really sick.

I have been looking through my favourite Daisy Goodwin poetry book, for a bit of comfort, and found this poem, by Bernard O'Donoghue. You may find this odd at a time like this, but with Blossom losing her friend and others having suffered, it just shows how important it is to tell those people you love, that you love them. I hope Blossom finds comfort from the fact that her friend knew how much she was loved. I told my dear departed mum often and I will now make sure I tell The Heiress every time I see her, in between the kisses.

Going without Saying

It is a great pity we don't know
When the dead are going to die.
So that, over a last companionable
Drink, we could tell them
How much we liked them.

Happy the man who, dying. can
Place his hand on his heart and say:
At least I didn't neglect to tell
The thrush how beautifully she sings.

Confessions of a serial mower

Still feeling rubbish and somewhat under the weather but pulled myself together sufficiently enough to go out for dinner last night for a pre-arranged get-together in local "Chelsea-cum-Suffolk" smart restaurant with dear old friends. We hadn't seen them for ages due to all sorts of reasons, so much catching up ensued. Anyway, just to brighten your Sunday on this very overcast grey Suffolk morning, two hysterical moments from last night.

Firstly, in our eagerness to catch-up, we all tried to read the menus, beak about, talk and drink at the same time. Mr. H, friend's husband puts down his menu to begin a long tale, and it promptly catches fire! The little unseen "tee light" candles strategically placed along the centre of the table, catching him and the menu unawares. The smart leather-look (we now know plastic) bound menu smolders and then burst into flames.
Flaming funny. We found it most amusing, the Maitre de did not. It was quickly doused. The "bonfire" smell permeated the entire eating area, and there we are, giggling like children, sat centre stage in prime spot window table, trying to act casual. As you do. Scornful eyes upon us.
By now I am almost hysterical with the silliness of it all - desperate for the loo but not daring to get up and walk in front of everyone. I think I was hyper from the fact I was just out.
Anyway I then ask friend how her father was coping in the nursing home, as he had become frail, depressed and somewhat forgetful. At 93 this is allowable, and quite normal. He was finding it hard to cope at home alone and refused to move in with them.
It appears he is settling in a bit too well. Soon found his "sea legs".
Friends were summoned in to Matron on Friday about "his behaviour". He has acquired a lady friend, 85, and she has taken to visiting him in his room, they are noisy and inappropriate behaviour had ensued!! They had started "sleeping" together - seemingly frail old boy has made a remarkable recovery, found a new jest for life and started to remember old joys; frail old biddy, we think, has set her sights on his unsold bungalow!! Matron says old biddy is the instigator and friend's father was not doing enough to discourage her! Could she have a word with him!
So friend says "there she was, sat on the end of his bed, saying whats this I hear about you and Ada!" Old boys reply "Whatever she said, she was willing and I do not want to marry her!". The situation is not really sorted but it certainly ensured our evening was hilarious, and apologies to those sitting round a table of four old foogie, now in darkness (the candles were confiscated) crying with laughter!
We may however have to find a new venue for our next catch-up! The food incidentally was superb!

Confessions of a serial mower - "humming along" nicely

Well it was meant to be a quiet "me time" sort of day today. A leisurely shower, blow dry hair, paint nails, a bit of exfoliation - maybe a blog - you know the sort of thing.
GOH had to leave at some ungodly hour to visit a stud farm and farmhouse in Wiltshire he had designed last year and which is now complete. He has gone to do the "snagging" list as they call it - the little, we hope, bits and pieces that are not quite right or not finished to the clients satisfaction. A sum of money is retained at the end of a contract for six months or so, and is released to the builder when this final inspection is carried out and any work outstanding is finished. I went down there when the stud had an open day last autumn and was really quite impressed. "I wish you wouldn't act so surprised when you see the finished article" says GOH, "it doesn't give the right impression". He has been a designer for some 40 years now, man and boy, but I am still impressed when I see his finished work. I have to learn a new way of showing how proud of him I am! Surprised is not a good look!! It frightens the clients!
He is a very talented architect though I say so myself and has designed many buildings all over the country. He specializes mainly in schools and buildings associated with them such as sports halls and swimming pools. He designed and actually constructed by himself one of the first barn conversions in Suffolk, in another life, before Mousie. As such, he is quite sought after and even though he is now 60, he loves every day of his job, though the planning bureaucracy does wear him and the practice down. It is this proper job as I call it that allows us to live here and farm, without his income we could not afford the mortgage. Plain fact.

Anyway, was just settling down for a relaxing day on my own, when two builders turn up on the doorstep wanting to start the concrete floors in the barn. You remember, the ones dug out by the gravedigger. So clutching the shower towel round me I have to find the car keys to move my car and the trannie van. Can't find the van keys so have to ring GOH who is now with said client. He is not amused and I get short shrift but now know where the keys are! The hum of the mixer permeates the house as the floors get laid. It is not going to be a peaceful day I can tell.

Another knock on the door, by now my hair is at least dry. It is the fertilizer man for the lawns - you know my pride and joy - and as it has rained could he spread the organic lawn feed today. He also wants to chat and talk about the neighbours up the road and I just want to get dressed. It is now 9.15 a.m. Another hum permeates the house - the smell, and I mean stink, from the organic chicken manure lawn feed pellets!! It would seem that the last time he used this fertilizer I was away on holiday, so never noticed, and "the smell usually goes go in about 3 days, providing it rains"! Oh, that's alright then! Now have to shut all the windows and the back door.

The ducks and ducklings by this time have heard me and are also on the door step demanding their breakfast. I look down and there is more organic fertilizer on my step, this time it is fresh and in natural form. Lavender anyone?

Confessions of a serial mower - back to normal - copy

Rather a quiet day in Suffolk today - thundery, heavy, close sort of day as they say here, feels a bit stormy. Finished off the lawns that were a bit too damp to do yesterday. Delivered Parish Magazines - one or two people owed the princely sum of £4.00 for the yearly subscription and I had to pursue this. The most difficult customer was my old dad - "didn't know if it was worth it"! I rather thought 12 copies of our newsy little magazine, delivered to his door, was well worth the money but such is life. He saw me eyeing up his brand new lawn mower and hedge cutter and thought he best hand over the cash!! My brother was no better. Embarrassing or what, when your late payers are family and the church warden has to quietly mention the fact to you. Mum would always pay for all these sorts of incidentals. Money is not the issue here, dad is what you would call very comfortably off these days, as is brother. If its not for the farm or garden they don't like parting with their cash.
A real Suffolk trait.

Hopping Moon wondered if I had a photograph of a manatee (sea cow) a rare mammal found in the warm waters in and around the Everglades and South West Florida - www.manateecenter.com. I have pictures of the whirlpool effects they leave in the water when they come up for air, but they didn't reproduce very well.
I have printed the photo GOH took when we were there last February of a dolphin playing with a fish. That's about as exciting as it gets. No blog today just these little meanderings.
Lastly, did anyone hear back from the ASA when they contacted them regarding the CL competition. Just wondered if it was all now done and dusted and if CL emerged unscathed.

Confessions of a serial mower - travels with mum

Kitty B set me thinking the other day. Her blog discussed cremation as opposed to burial and it is a dilemma we all have to face in one form or another I guess. Either in advance for ourselves or when the inevitable happens for a relative.

I have a fear of fire and thus I have instructions in my will that I want to be buried in the churchyard attached to the pretty Church of my birth village. Many late family members are resting there after their agricultural toils; great grandparents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. As a family we have travelled all over but we seem to come to rest back in our beloved Suffolk village. Farming is very like that, you need to get back to your roots, in dry soil preferably under a spreading chestnut tree. We are a bit obsessed with chestnuts in our family. It is the name of my paternal farm, Chestnut Tree Farm.
When I was born one Christmas Day, a sweet chestnut was planted to commemorate this momentous event and it thrives today, tall and spreading and pink, on the farm.

Mum, now she was born in a tiny cottage in the village where we now live. She had no desire to be buried and this left us in somewhat of a quandary. “ What to do with mother”! She left no written express wish.
I inherited her very warped and macabre sense of humour and I am sure she has a wry smile about her now as she watches over me from wherever she is today. I say that not in jest, but because she could be, well, anywhere. Upon her passing much debate (polite word for it) ensued. I took tea with the Vicar, a modern, forward thinking man. He had spent many hours with mum during her last days, and he gave me some very sound advice. Whatever you do, he said, “scatter her to the four winds” if you want, but if you do you will never have a place to come back to. He added he had come across it time and again, after a while you will need a place to return to, a place to chat, to leave flowers, to just be with her.

Mum is now a very well travelled lady. Her ashes are indeed buried in said Churchyard with a little marble plaque and vase so I can visit her whenever I want and place some flowers and have a chat. But not all of her. Some are here with us at our home in a special little box. Some are scattered with her beloved mum and dad in our Churchyard here, the village of her birth.
The remainder are floating somewhere in the blue green warm waters off the coast of Florida in the Gulf of Mexico, scattered off our favourite barrier island, where dolphins play and manatees swim, and the sand is white and children scream and frolic in the gentle waves. She is forever on vacation. She never was in life; she rarely rested or ever had a holiday. She worked and worked and mothered and cared, all her waking hours.
She was planning to come with us to our secret island the year she died. So, with special permission and a lot of prodding, comments and raised eyebrows from the Customs Men in Miami, she went, safely encased in a jiffy bag, via British Airways. A trip of a lifetime. A trip after a lifetime.

Confessions of a serial mower - in Grandma mode

What a fun filled few days we have had with The Heiress. We have experienced many new treasured memories in just this short time. She walked unaided for the first time, teeny tiny little steps, quite by accident as she momentarily forgot herself and walked to steal her Granddad’s tea. She promptly sat down with the shock and excitement of it all, but we were there to witness it. She shrieked with laugher till we all cried, and has been gaining confidence ever since.
She has learnt to open and close cupboard doors and drawers whilst saying “open” and “close” every time, a hundred times, for at least half an hour at a time. Fisher Price has nothing on my poor bedside cabinet.
We have had our first picnic in the garden, under the sunscreen tent thingy we bought last year, only it wasn’t sunny it was windy but it served its purpose and indeed I may keep it erected for myself.
We have used the super duper coach built pram for the first time, a photo of which is accompanying this blog. She wasn’t too impressed at first but then she realized the pram was sprung and rather thought she was on some fairground ride I think.
She ate her first jelly – it seems she had never had a jelly – something I think I was raised on. If all else failed with me as a child, I was a particularly picky eater, mum would make a jelly or even a milk jelly, just to get something into me. Anyway, The Heiress is teething and her little gums are really sore. So, I followed my mum’s example and whipped up a jelly and it worked. She loved it and every meal this weekend seems to have involved a jelly in all sorts of guise. Plain, milk, with fruit, without. A spoonful of jelly, a spoonful of poached fish. I know, quite disgusting, but she loved every wibbly wobbly spoonful. Note my new improved language.
We are actually in training, as in a few weeks time, we get to look after her, on her her own for an entire weekend whilst her parents attend a non-child friendly wedding in Scotland. Its many many years since we have been entrusted with sole care of a toddler and we get the feeling we are being “hot housed” this weeked.
To this end we have all been obviously talking about the child abduction case in Portugal.
The rights and wrongs of leaving children unattended, even in seemingly the safest of settings. I am a born worrier and can and do worry for England. I would fear too much about whether a child choked, or drowned in the toilet, or fell, or turned the hot water tap on etc., let alone contemplate leaving them alone in a building however near I was. Is this just Grandma over protection, I think not. As I go upstairs to check she is still breathing for what seems like the hundredth time, and then hear her snuffly little angel breaths, I just know most of you think like me. She is the most precious gift we have ever been given. I feel my late beloved mum is guarding her with me.

Confessions of a serial mower - back to normal

Today is property day in our local rag the East Anglian Daily Times, www.eadt.co.uk, and looking through the property section I was shocked by the property prices. I shouldn’t be, I used to work in that industry for one of the top Estate Agents in the Country no less, in a previous life. That’s the one before GOH. I married quite late at 28, so I had a varied work life until I settled down. My first job, at 18 was with said Estate Agents. As the new girl, I obviously got the rubbish jobs, but gradually worked my way up through the departments, ending in Land Agency. My boss managed large country farm Estates across East Anglia.
My favourite department however was property sales; writing up the sales literature and chatting up the "punters"; we had far more poetic licence in those days. We could say all sorts of flowery things to describe the most hideous of structures and stretch the truth more than somewhat.
Now one has to be particularly careful, with the Trades Description Act etc (CL take note!). "Quaint little gem, ripe for renovation, slightly uneven walls with authentic interior", now has to read, “totally derelict with structural damage, woodworm and deathwatch beetle”. Not so appealing is it.
Anyway, what I am trying to say is that once involved in that industry it’s hard not to always be looking and checking out what’s hit the market. Today I am still constantly amazed by the prices. A fabulous house, but not palatial, has just come on the market near us, after several generations in one family at some £6,000.000. Six million. Blimey O’reilly that’s some commission.
It’s not even an Estate, it has about 10 acres and it’s in dear old remote Suffolk. Not central London or the Home Counties. Whatever are prices there doing now I wonder. Well I know, I also indulge in Country Life Magazine now and again.

We bought our farm some 17 years ago; we acquired the land in 1989 and took possession of the house the following year (via Farmer's Weekly I think).
This enabled the outgoing farmer to build his super new retirement bungalow on land he retained, and gave us breathing space to sell our pretty, quaint, quirky thatched cottage nearby. We were let down several times with our cottage sale (nothing new there then) and finally sold to an already elderly couple from Scotland. They were the least likely of our prospective purchasers we thought to make an offer; the gentleman was huge and tall, our ceiling heights varied to put in mildly. His good lady was a sweetie but with "dicky" hips, and our stairs wound round in a very precarious manner. Anyway they loved it and finally bought it and are still there. Not all elderly folks want a bungalow it would seem. When I see the couple out and about I dearly want to know if they still manage to negotiate those stairs. They were not for the faint hearted. But then them Highland folk are a tough old bunch as we know!

After all these years, and being married to an Architect, this farmhouse still has lots of things to be finished. A roof here, plastering there. A bit like a mechanics car I guess. It’s a long term, lifetime project. The farm, the buildings, and the house. In that order. It has been a huge long hard slog and I know I am very fortunate, but I do have a very soft spot in my heart for my little thatched cottage. My first home as a married woman. Is it me, or do us women get rather sentimental about houses.