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.