tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5115591228013705292024-02-20T13:21:27.158+00:00Charwood FarmKaren — still out, standing in her field …Charwood Farm Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863491237964202263noreply@blogger.comBlogger82125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-511559122801370529.post-10612410470881087772014-04-16T11:44:00.001+01:002014-04-16T11:44:07.855+01:00It is meat (and write so to do)Firstly, I feel I should apologise for the headline. I have been told that if I want to increase the amount of search engine hits I have, I should make my headlines actually describe what I am writing about - but where would be the fun in that?<br />
<br />
Anyway, three weeks of my ban under the belt and I have discovered a fitting use for plastic wrapping.<br />
<br />
My new butcher has very thoughtfully gone out of his way to help me, despite the slight sense I get from him that he thinks I am potty. I say new butcher, because it is nigh impossible to buy chicken or meat that doesn't come in plastic from a supermarket. Indeed it was four pork chops in a veritable boat of plastic that contributed to my ban in the first place.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz6KAOc6qTXl6t7gTECw6pBT9JHUu6gWLalgqrLaHMxgAJQ328g5N06uizc4SZos5H-AlLRUCP5wGtZESIFhTzIrPPNG1cagOIf4Tq3hiDnJ4Kwhl7VMr43pgyDpvP1i_C15bRj2KiCrnX/s1600/corporaljones.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz6KAOc6qTXl6t7gTECw6pBT9JHUu6gWLalgqrLaHMxgAJQ328g5N06uizc4SZos5H-AlLRUCP5wGtZESIFhTzIrPPNG1cagOIf4Tq3hiDnJ4Kwhl7VMr43pgyDpvP1i_C15bRj2KiCrnX/s1600/corporaljones.jpg" height="148" width="200" /></a>I had thought meat would be a problem and wondered how people managed in days gone by. Then I had a vision of Lance-Corporal Jones (right), the butcher in Dad's Army, wrapping his wares in newspaper. It was possible for him to do that, partly because there was a war on, partly because health and safety rules hadn't yet banned newspaper as suitable wrapping material, and because people just shopped differently in those days, buying local and frequently.<br />
<br />
So I rang <a href="http://www.almartinandson.co.uk/" target="_blank">Martins</a>, my nearest butchers, and have now switched to buying my meat from them. This feels much better all round, it is a local business that supports local farms. The prices are also competitive, so I didn't feel I was straying too far from my plan to try and shop 'normally' without resorting to expensive high-end shops.<br />
<br />
'This takes me back,' said the chap on the counter as he attempted to wrap up some chicken thighs in greaseproof paper. It wasn't going well, they kept spilling out. Eventually he managed to contain them and moved on to the chops. The queue behind me was starting to lengthen.<br />
<br />
'This is how we did it when I started out,' he continued. It would be nice to write here that a look of nostalgia crept over his face, but it didn't. 'Plastic bags are a lot better,' he said. He was trying to stuff pet mince into paper bags as he said this, and I felt he had a point.<br />
<br />
Back home I attempted to place the sloppy paper bags in the freezer feeling the need to process them quickly before they became saturated. This was a mistake. A little more thought with how I stored them might have helped when it come to defrosting. I will spare you the details of how I managed to separate paper bag from the gloopy pet mince, but it is fair to say the mince won.<br />
<br />
The irony is that now when I bring meat home, I decant it into plastic tubs before putting it in the freezer. The other irony is that the bags the butcher normally uses are biodegradable, which makes all the effort in this direction feel a little irrelevant. Still, I shall soldier on. Don't panic!Charwood Farm Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863491237964202263noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-511559122801370529.post-88222427785794699882014-04-01T21:22:00.001+01:002014-04-01T22:25:43.991+01:00All gone teats upThe wheels are already falling off my 60-day plastic packaging ban.<br />
<br />
I thought they might, somehow.<br />
<br />
I moved swiftly to implement the ban, partly because I nearly always favour the bull-in-a-china-shop approach to life, but also because I felt that if I prepared for it, I would cheat. I chose 60 days, because it is long enough for me to run out of things like pasta, shampoo and floor cleaner - had I given myself a little more notice I might have felt tempted to do a little stocking up since the ban does not include using up existing plastic-packaged commodities.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, the first thing I ran out of was rubbish bags. Since they come in black plastic or, er, black plastic, I bowed to the inevitable and bought the most environmentally friendly sacks I could find. But I still felt cross. I comforted myself by noticing that the wrapper around them was paper. So in a very disingenuous way, I didn't completely flout the terms of my ban. Although, of course, I did really. <br />
<br />
Next up was the very thing I thought would be one of the most problematic: milk. At first, I thought I had found an absurdly easy solution. Our village shop stocks organic milk provided courtesy of the cows of <a href="http://riverford dairy totnes" target="_blank">Riverford Dairy in Totnes</a>, which comes in cardboard cartons. <br />
<br />
But then I became suspicious about how the cartons fail to become soggy. So I rang up Riverford and discovered the cartons have a very fine film of plastic on the inside. They are fully recyclable, but don't quite fulfil the terms of my ban.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Ku7tPpZeECX2iz7iex7yCt_IfrRFJZWV1JGTEnIdWGrgW7KFfCADRq0BsocdKfbf-tmDGduq2v7SV1FtVbiqTAM588mJiJioj1dtE5P4tGe08Caq6zfUOPnMb8U9I0sQItBsRRQSwhtf/s1600/cow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Ku7tPpZeECX2iz7iex7yCt_IfrRFJZWV1JGTEnIdWGrgW7KFfCADRq0BsocdKfbf-tmDGduq2v7SV1FtVbiqTAM588mJiJioj1dtE5P4tGe08Caq6zfUOPnMb8U9I0sQItBsRRQSwhtf/s1600/cow.jpg" height="132" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">'Problematic'</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Barry, the operations manager at Riverford, very decently suggested I try to find someone who will sell me milk direct from a farm. We chatted for a while about the state of the milk industry. The sad fact, he said, is that in the drive for cheap non-organic milk the cow has come to be seen as a rather problematic inconvenience. I admired his passion and commitment and decided I could do worse than sticking to Riverford milk for now.<br />
<br />
But disaster struck on day two. I discovered we had run out of milk while actually in the process of making tea - actually in the process, mark you. I sent the girl child to the shop but she came back empty handed because all the cartons had gone. I gazed in panic at the the five cups lined up on the work surface. Some households run by clockwork and on organisation - ours runs on tea. I was due to leave the house for several hours and couldn't begin to contemplate how ugly the mood would turn if I left it milkless.<br />
<br />
'That's plastic,' said Sam at the shop as I sheepishly bought some semi-skimmed. 'I know,' I said in anguish 'it's an emergency.' Later, I headed for a supermarket where I was sure I had seen old-fashioned glass bottles of milk. There were indeed bottles that resembled such a thing, but when I reached for one I discovered it was plastic, as was everything else on the milk shelf.<br />
<br />
I gave up.<br />
<br />
The next day I knocked on the door of a village farm to ask if they would sell me a jug of milk. 'Not any more,' said the farmer's wife regretfully. 'It's illegal now.' She and her husband, it turned out, started selling milk in 1946. It didn't surprise me; you can't move in this village for sprightly octo- and nonogenarians. She explained that they gave up dairy farming years ago - partly because the price of milk made it uneconomical, but also because of the ever growing list of regulations.<br />
<br />
This was confirmed by Frances, a local dairy farmer. 'To sell green-top [unpasteurised] milk, you have to jump through hoops and more hoops,' she said. 'What if I can find someone who pasteurises it on the their farm,' I asked. 'You can try,' she said, 'but they will probably bottle it in plastic.'<br />
<br />
'What if I take my own container along,' I asked. 'Well,' she said doubtfully 'there are all sorts of health and safety rules around containers.'<br />
<br />
'Oh, for pity's sake,' I said 'surely if I want to live dangerously by using my own jug, I should be allowed to.'<br />
<br />
'Where do you get your milk,' I asked Frances. 'Straight from the cow.' she said with a grin.<br />
<br />
Well, I guess that cuts out the bloody plastic.Charwood Farm Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863491237964202263noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-511559122801370529.post-58352346283401851842014-03-24T12:13:00.001+00:002014-03-24T17:03:08.980+00:00Refusenik<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKcoF3iP4i_CwZQUMlQNB2kzXhWwOxNeN3L0JQvzyJZXMvaqhbWBtn1tjN8fhyphenhyphenzBM6WRAoKqdmLlGUDZa5ynDO2sViKZFd8bCnvKyosg9Dy4i2SIfylainrqyiGQK45dlgCsbcpBkS39BO/s1600/amphora_66448.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKcoF3iP4i_CwZQUMlQNB2kzXhWwOxNeN3L0JQvzyJZXMvaqhbWBtn1tjN8fhyphenhyphenzBM6WRAoKqdmLlGUDZa5ynDO2sViKZFd8bCnvKyosg9Dy4i2SIfylainrqyiGQK45dlgCsbcpBkS39BO/s1600/amphora_66448.jpg" height="320" width="140" /></a>In Rome there is a man-made hill called <a href="http://archaeological.org/fieldwork/afob/2495" target="_blank">Monte Testaccio</a>, which only exists because all five acres and 120ish feet of it sits on top of discarded Roman amphora empties - around 53 million of them, apparently.<br />
<br />
Landfill sites, it seems, are not a new concept.<br />
<br />
This struck me as interesting, because of late I just can't stop thinking rubbish. This was partly prompted by watching <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBW8YpcYcEc" target="_blank">Tales from the Green Valley</a> - in which a group of hands-on historians set out to recreate a seventeenth century working farm. It was the first in a series that went on to spawn Victorian Farm and other reconstructions.<br />
<br />
I was struck by how little waste was generated on the farm. There was very little of the produce that wasn't utilised in some way; the wing feathers of geese were used as dusters or quills, and the straw of the long-stemmed wheat made into rope, for instance. Ash from the wood fire was used to make liquid soap. And even waste wasn't wasted - urine was stored, fermented and used to bleach laundry. The privy was an important source of compost. Packaging, of course, was virtually non existent.<br />
<br />
I spent a very intense half an hour thinking about this, during which it occurred to me that if the human race put some thought into it, rubbish would be, well, unthinkable. We're the only species that generates it, and for most of <i>homo sapiens</i> 200,000-year development we haven't generated much of it either, give or take the odd amphorae mound.<br />
<br />
Personally, I blame Henry Ford - the father of mass production. He didn't invent the assembly line, but my goodness he certainly embraced it and went on to pioneer the first affordable motor car for the masses. And so the world came to embrace affordable stuff for the masses too - so much so it formed the foundation for the entire global economy.<br />
<br />
So we buy stuff, and then we buy newer stuff to replace the stuff we bought last year that has now lost its shine or ceased to function. A couple of years ago a friend gave me a first generation iPod Touch. It is still an impressive piece of kit, but you can't buy an app that will work on it now - it's obsolete, you see. And then we buy items like cheap socks by the dozen with heels and toes that only last a few outings before we have to throw them away and buy new ones.<br />
<br />
And all of it comes in packaging. Even really useful stuff, food, for instance, comes in lots and lots of packaging. I have seen polystyrene banana-shaped packaging containing a single banana; I have marvelled at shrink-wrapped peppers. The cauliflower and cabbage I bought from Sainsbury's the other day, both came in discrete plastic film wrappers - and the question you have to ask yourself is, why?<br />
<br />
When we lived in our caravan on the field we had to dispose of all our rubbish ourselves. This meant a weekly trip to the tip for all our recyclables. These used to take up a disproportionately enormous amount of space in comparison with the size of our living quarters. In some cases our lifestyle added to the amount of the recyclables we were amassing. We couldn't store large amounts of milk, for instance, so we would accrue loads of the smaller plastic bottles.<br />
<br />
The non recyclable rubbish we bagged up every day and offloaded into various rubbish bins. By the time we had been on the field for a few months I had gained an expertise on every rubbish bin we regularly drove past or encountered. Many bins only have small apertures, so I honed in on those with open tops and became a loyal Morrison's customer as a result solely because of their generous bin allowance.<br />
<br />
Now we are back in a kind of civilisation and our rubbish is removed for us. Every Tuesday a lorry comes and takes away our kitchen waste and recyclables. Alternate weeks are shared between landfill refuse and garden waste - and it's greatly to West Devon District Council's credit that it places more priority on disposing of recyclable material than landfill. Despite this emphasis though, I would still estimate that much of my landfill rubbish is packaging in the form of film wrappers and the like.<br />
<br />
Since recycling became more popular, and in some towns and boroughs compulsory, there has been speculation about where our plastic bottles etc actually do end up. There have variously been reports of them ending up in landfill sites in China or being dumped at sea. But I unearthed a <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6238105.stm" target="_blank">BBC news report</a> all the way back in 2007 that followed up three people's recycling and found that most of it does indeed get recycled in the UK and then resold here, which is great.<br />
<br />
But despite this, wouldn't it be better just not to create the stuff in the first place? Leaving aside the landfill and pollution problems, creating packaging in the first place takes energy. If it is recyclable, it has to be transported sometimes hundreds of miles to undergo a transformation that takes further energy. If, as I do, you believe we should be trying to reduce the amount of energy we use, then creating stuff and then having to create an entire industry to dispose of that stuff, seems a little pointless.<br />
<br />
Clearly, some things need packaging - fluids, for instance, would quickly get very messy without it. But do we really need so much of it?<br />
<br />
To answer this question I am making a pledge, which is, that from this moment for the next 60 days I am going to attempt to supply our family of five plus dog and cat with nothing that comes in any kind of plastic packaging.<br />
<br />
The more I think about it, the more I see difficulties. Do I, for instance, include plastic lids on glass bottles? What about cardboard that has been treated with a plastic film?<br />
<br />
I also want to try not to change the way we eat too much - and crucially, I want to see how it can be done in an affordable way. It would be easier to do this if I could have an expensive veg box delivered twice a week and pop along to my high end, organic butchers every day for a choice cut of beef. But what I want to see is how far you can live an ordinary family life on a budget and eschew plastic packaging.<br />
<br />
I also intend, for the sake of balance, to recruit an expert to try and assess how much environmental saving I am making. Will I use as much energy, for instance, baking a single cake as buying a mass-produced one in all its film wrapping? How much better is cardboard, if at all? <br />
<br />
I will keep you posted on my progress. Meanwhile, I have to break it to the kids that I won't be buying any packets of crisps for a while.<br />
<br />
Eek.<br />
<br />
<br />Charwood Farm Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863491237964202263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-511559122801370529.post-73681505857206455502014-03-16T10:30:00.000+00:002014-03-16T10:30:00.537+00:00Less is moorThe sun has been shining - actually shining, mark you - and I have been venturing out with the dog sans plastic pants and windcheater.<br />
<br />
At first, I confess, I felt veritably naked - but as the days passed and rain failed to appear, I became so confident, I even shed a woolly and left my hat at home.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, for the children this means I have become more insistent on getting them into the great outdoors. When the sun shines, I can't bear to see them, pale and transparent looking, hunched over a keyboard. I feel the need to invigorate them with fresh air and vitamin D. But sadly, we do not see eye to eye on this.<br />
<br />
As if getting them out for a walk wasn't difficult enough already, I decided to combine it with a learning opportunity - which, catastrophically, I told them.<br />
<br />
'I thought,' I said, in bright tones, having ambushed them on the trampoline, 'we could go out for a lovely walk on the moor and learn some map reading at the same time.'<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix4YPb5DusYRHlHV8ceCE46CRH1LfNxFel5HuOKGEw9H_017E1UHmoOpSY6s_2kVgoC0J2osquzE0vpAmStCx5F4cBKpJq3HY6XmFPo1n-KYJJoNWtdEvVpXdf1aWC-h_QmAWULBdJleJF/s1600/hound_tor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix4YPb5DusYRHlHV8ceCE46CRH1LfNxFel5HuOKGEw9H_017E1UHmoOpSY6s_2kVgoC0J2osquzE0vpAmStCx5F4cBKpJq3HY6XmFPo1n-KYJJoNWtdEvVpXdf1aWC-h_QmAWULBdJleJF/s1600/hound_tor.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a>They stopped bouncing and stared at me in silence. 'Yes,' I said, clearing my throat a little nervously. 'I thought it would be a bit of an adventure. We could go somewhere fabulous like <a href="http://www.legendarydartmoor.co.uk/hound_tor.htm" target="_blank">Hound Tor</a> (right) and then you <br />
could navigate the walk with the, er, map and compass.'<br />
<br />
The girl child eyed me. 'What's in it for us,' she asked.<br />
<br />
'Well,' I said loftily. 'Firstly, we are blessed with living in the heart of one of the most beautiful landscapes in this country. So, you get to pop out for an afternoon's walk somewhere people actually pay to come on holiday.<br />
<br />
'Secondly, you get to learn something jolly interesting and useful. Not only is being able to read a map interesting and fun - but it could actually save your life one day. It's the sort of thing they should give more priority on the national curriculum. Nowadays, people think all they have to do is switch on the sat nav or the GPS app on their i, bloody, Phone and...'<br />
<br />
Well, you get the gist.<br />
<br />
'Thirdly,' I continued 'it's a beautiful day and we've just had a long rainy winter and you need to let your nasty pallid little sunlight-starved bodies catch some rays while you frolic in the sunshine.'<br />
<br />
I finally stopped talking at that point. The children were still staring at me, this was an unexpected bonus. Normally, they listen for five seconds and then continue bouncing while I speak.<br />
<br />
I thought I had scored a point. After a short pause the girl child spoke. 'Yes,' she said, speaking slowly and distinctly as if to one for whom the English language was a mystery or whose grip on reality was delicate, 'but what's in it for us?'<br />
<br />
Later, I and the dog were enjoying a walk together - just the two of us, unsurprisingly. A little out onto the moor I encountered two jovial and youthful Americans with tents and sleeping paraphernalia on their backs. We stopped for a chat during which I warmed to them considerably for their obvious instant affection for the dog. They were very enthusiastic about doing some wild camping - despite the fact it was early March and a cold night was on the cards. I wondered briefly about adopting them.<br />
<br />
I couldn't wait to beast my children with the tale of my two new best friends. 'I just met,' I shouted as soon as they were within earshot, which was about 50 metres away, 'two American chaps who have come all this way just to camp on Dartmoor in the middle of winter!'<br />
<br />
'Yes, but they're <i>American</i>,' said the girl enigmatically.<br />
<br />
And then they carried on bouncing.<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />Charwood Farm Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863491237964202263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-511559122801370529.post-22053955258524404242013-07-14T13:09:00.000+01:002013-07-14T20:30:13.666+01:00When the cat's awayI have become reunited with taps and electricity sockets - and space - oh my goodness, glorious glorious space.<br />
<br />
We are living in an ancient cob cottage in a lovely village below one of the most fabulous landscapes in Britain. There are parts of Dartmoor that are heart-stoppingly pretty, but we are living on the north side of the moor where the scenery is more spectacular - huge, granite-topped tors dotted with trees whose branches are caught in freeze frame pointing in the direction of the wind. It is so breathtaking, I still laugh out loud when I turn a corner and see <a href="http://www.legendarydartmoor.co.uk/cosdon_beacon.htm" target="_blank">Cosdon hill</a> rising up before me.<br />
<br />
So, yes, we have landed on our feet somewhat - after months of an increasingly desperate search for somewhere to live. More of which will come in another post.<br />
<br />
But for now, we are in and sort of settled and I am still finding immense pleasure in the concept of running water. In fact, it was all going so well that I felt it was all a bit too good to be true. And so fate intervened to bring us back down to earth and engineered a cat to go missing.<br />
<br />
Much of the struggle to find a suitable property revolved around the dog and cats. Especially the cats. They have lived all their lives pretty much in fields and we wanted somewhere that they would be happy and also not too close to any main roads.<br />
<br />
We moved them over early on and they settled in very quickly adopting their usual routine of lounging around on people's beds during the day and spending the night waking me to tell me they required letting out or to noisily consume a mouse on the bedroom floor.<br />
<br />
But about 10 days ago, Oscar didn't come home. And he hasn't returned since.<br />
<br />
I have always affected a resigned tolerance of the cats. The children and I have developed a little psychological game where I am disparaging about the cats and they are rude about the dog. 'Why don't we just buy some poison instead?' I am heard to intone frequently while perusing the cat food aisle in the supermarket. And I make it my duty to point out their shortcomings as many times a day as possible.<br />
<br />
The children in turn refer to the dog as the 'smelly fat pig' - and with some justification. She is, in truth, a little portly and when she lies on her side does bear more than a passing resemblance to a black sow. And she has a whiff about her that I find deeply comforting but Gully refers to as a 'stink'.<br />
<br />
I am, as you can probably tell, one of those owners who is completely soppy about their dog. 'Look at those ears!' I coo. 'They must have been made in a special ear shop that specialises in perfect ears.'<br />
<br />
I haven't quite reached the level of a friend whose previous nanny had knitted him a jumper that matched his large black and white dog. He was the news editor of a fabulous but slightly chaotic press agency I worked for. Liking dogs enormously was part of the job description. Ted was, and is, one of the most brilliant journalists I have ever met. He could simultaneously file a report about a kerb-crawling vicar from notes taken in court while flicking through the latest edition of Your Dog, to which he often sent pictures of his hound, Siva. She (for she was a she) was a magnificent shaggy beast who slept noisily in the corner of the office. She would awake for titbits, which she took with a ferocity suggesting she had never been fed. I will forever remember the look on the face of Geoff Lakeman, the Man from the Mirror, as he examined his fingers having inadvisedly handed her half an unwanted pasty.<br />
<br />
I am, in fact, pretty soppy about any dog and I never could see the point of cats - they always seemed to me, observing my sister's, to be a one-way street - appearing only at meal times with a persistence bordering on loutishness. The saying goes: A dog says, 'you pet me, you feed me, you shelter me, and you love me - you must be God'. A cat says, 'you pet me, you feed me, you shelter me, and
you love me - I must be God.' And that pretty well sums up the difference between the two.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQP_sPEAAIJ9zZjnfU8IkblyvE-vkWFFK4kRJf6PXa_tHJFlNYYwgp0FePFVMh_wJ8Fdxpf7jL3yDmoQsVwb3DMyorLpji3HiUGK_7Ya45Zy4YOJQtfrxEbNFshB9JQ7K_5Obv8q4gz32C/s1600/oscarkit.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQP_sPEAAIJ9zZjnfU8IkblyvE-vkWFFK4kRJf6PXa_tHJFlNYYwgp0FePFVMh_wJ8Fdxpf7jL3yDmoQsVwb3DMyorLpji3HiUGK_7Ya45Zy4YOJQtfrxEbNFshB9JQ7K_5Obv8q4gz32C/s200/oscarkit.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oscar, when he was almost cute</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
But for all that, I have secretly become very fond of the cats. They are little works of art - so poised and neat and supremely built for purpose. Good engineering, I always think, is when beauty meets functionality - and cats do that in spades. So despite the cracks about poison and winter fur hats, I find I am really upset about Oscar's disappearance. I've put 'missing' posters everywhere and have been touched by how kind people in the village have been. Every night I walk around the village boundaries calling him and then stand in the garden shaking his bag of food. I invariably come back in with a wet face - and all because of a stupid cat - goodness knows how people with missing children or partners cope.<br />
<br />
Neither can I bring myself to be rude about our remaining cat - Oscar's sister, Tanny, which means things have indeed come to a pretty pass. Still, if he ever does come back, I can fill my boots - and maybe I really might treat myself to a furry cat-shaped winter hat.Charwood Farm Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863491237964202263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-511559122801370529.post-83864610632558304312013-04-30T12:57:00.003+01:002013-04-30T13:02:10.846+01:00Smoke gets in your chaiThey asked me, one day in a Sainsbury's aisle, how I knew whether I was getting a good deal on my utility bills.<br />
<br />
I, of course, replied that I was getting a very good deal on my utilities thank you all the same, since they came courtesy of Mother Earth.<br />
<br />
This caused a passing man to stop in his tracks, turn back, and comment: 'I just wanted to say, that is the best answer I have ever heard.'<br />
<br />
I swelled a little with pride, which soon dissipated as I wandered around the shop. I felt a pang of sadness; it wasn't an answer I would be able to give for much longer since we will have to move off the land soon.<br />
<br />
The mood continued, so it was that when I arrived back home I decided to cheer myself up with a nice cup of tea. Unfortunately, my tea tasted a little odd. I am very wedded to tea, and this was upsetting.<br />
<br />
I put it down to some kind of human error in the cup maintenance (cleaning division) department. But a second cup proved just as nasty. By now, I had identified the oddness as a definite smoked taste. Had, I wondered, I washed the cups in the same water as the smoked mackerel pan?<br />
<br />
I washed the cups again and swilled out the kettle for good measure. Then went and drew fresh water from the rainwater harvesting barrel. My tea still tasted smoked.<br />
<br />
It was then, I realised, that somehow the smoke from the woodburner was affecting the water that comes off the roof. This is a mystery, however, since we have had the woodburner going all winter with no obvious effects on chai quality. I can only think that it is because the rain has slowed from a daily torrent to a sporadic trickle, and that the decrease in volume makes it more susceptible to being tainted by smoke if the wind is blowing from the south west, which it invariably is.<br />
<br />
Thus far, I have been relatively pleased with our water system. I have <a href="http://charwoodfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/basic-instincts.html" target="_blank">enjoyed watching water drip into the barrel,</a> I have coped with reasonable good cheer with <a href="http://charwoodfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/barrel-of-laughs.html" target="_blank">breaking the ice on top of it</a> - but if it's going to start messing with my tea, then it is a relationship that is doomed.<br />
<br />
And this experience has led me to think fondly of the tap. Some form of which, it seems, has been around for a long time. The ability to regulate water flow was clearly desirable to early civilisations - and, of course, the Romans advanced a nice line in plumbing. Leonardo da Vinci predictably got in on the act and sketched out a few examples of valves - presumably somewhere in between the helicopter and submarine. And the globe valve, which is roughly the tap as we know it today, was patented by, just as predictably, an enterprising Victorian, J H Davis.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTEb8_jguWuN4MJCF1Jyhm5ZcQLGeblLrpGMkVz959-4vKUmBr06URrKcuwQKRDh9XmmtyfIEcYO3PcbAxO84RHLn4q31M0yAl171BT0JsfTPdPB2Ztn9EDxHtcoBZknUlKZao8uROXnmr/s1600/water.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTEb8_jguWuN4MJCF1Jyhm5ZcQLGeblLrpGMkVz959-4vKUmBr06URrKcuwQKRDh9XmmtyfIEcYO3PcbAxO84RHLn4q31M0yAl171BT0JsfTPdPB2Ztn9EDxHtcoBZknUlKZao8uROXnmr/s200/water.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
In rainy Britain, we take the abundance of water for granted - despite frequent fretting about hose pipe bans - but globally 780 million people lack access to clean water, according to the website <a href="http://water.org/">water.org</a>.<br />
<br />
That means really unclean water - as opposed to the smoked but fresh from the skies variety we have in deepest Devon.<br />
<br />
All the same, I am beginning to view the prospect of a tap or two with increasing optimism.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Charwood Farm Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863491237964202263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-511559122801370529.post-37726856805879375372013-04-23T16:54:00.001+01:002013-04-23T16:54:54.463+01:00Serfs upI am sitting in our caravan in the middle of a field in deepest Devon and I am actually on the internet.<br />
<br />
This development has been brought to you courtesy of the wind, which doth blow with some force around these parts. Actually, I am writing on borrowed wind, as it were, since I am using up the last vestiges of available energy in our batteries from a considerable gale some days ago.<br />
<br />
The wind would have gone unharnessed, had Gully not brilliantly <a href="http://charwoodfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/no-wind-situation.html" target="_blank">restored the windmill</a> to working order. The charger was faulty and he felt the little turbine was sited too low for maximum efficiency. This was rectified by a scaffolding pole and some ingenious engineering and now the windmill spins with great effect, unless the wind drops, as it now has.<br />
<br />
So this visit to the internet is a little temporary, as, it is becoming clear, will frequently be the case. But it is nonetheless an extremely exciting development since I have come to view lack of access to the world wide web as the chief drawback of living here.<br />
<br />
'What, more than running water?' asked a friend. Well, yes. This is a slightly odd view - after all, hardly any of us were on the internet much before the late nineties. So why have I come to see it as so indispensable now, ranking it alongside the humble tap as a 'must have'.<br />
<br />
Maybe I am just extraordinarily frivolous and find life without the frequent checking of Facebook updates unbearable. And there is some truth here. I simply like keeping up with people. In the days before the internet, when we used the good old-fashioned telephone apparatus, my bills were always eye-wateringly high. Social networking on the telephone and in the pub merely moved online (although I have to say, my preferred method remains the pub). <br />
<br />
But the chief function of the internet - and the reason it has become so central to our life - as that it is a great enabler. Without it, access to information, goods and services <a href="http://charwoodfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/communication-breakdown.html" target="_blank">becomes very challenging</a> - and over the last couple of years we have needed all of those a great deal. The idea that I can sit here and with a couple of clicks surf my way to anything from a knitting pattern to how to make a solar panel - and then with another click source the materials I will need to do either, is so exhilarating, it literally makes my fingertips tingle.<br />
<br />
There is a slight irony, however, to all this internet bounty. Our planning appeal was refused and we will at some point in the next few months have to move off of the land. This is a little sad. We still, however, have some really interesting plans and have come to see this as a chance to consolidate and regroup - so we are bloody, but unbowed<br />
<br />
'Success,' said Winston Churchill 'is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.'<br />
<br />
<br />
That sounds like us.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Charwood Farm Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863491237964202263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-511559122801370529.post-39992271494472164092013-03-20T16:35:00.000+00:002013-03-20T16:35:34.995+00:00Barrel of laughs'What would be the attribute you would most like your kids to have?'<br />
<br />
The question was posed by my friend, Lou whom I have known since school and is the embodiment of the good things that can come out of Friends Reunited. Lou was always wise, as demonstrated by her answer to the question, which was 'resilience'.<br />
<br />
This conversation came to mind the other week, when I was breaking the ice on the water barrel into which we harvest rain water. I normally syphon this into three smaller containers for everyday use, which usually is enough to outlast any weather conditions that might make a trip to the water barrel deeply unpleasant. But we'd had a cold snap that had lasted a couple of weeks and needed topping up before any washing up could occur.<br />
<br />
Outside, I was confronted by an inch of solid ice on top of the barrel, which I had to break with a hammer before sinking a jug nto freezing water to fill up the containers. Not for the first time, I reflected that other people have taps - while at the same time feeling pleased with being so self sufficent - and resilient.<br />
<br />
It has taken a fair amount of resilience to last the nearly two years we have spent living in a caravan without utilities. The drudgery hasn't always been easy, nor the lack of space and privacy - and the feeling of isolation stemming from communications issues and difficulties with some locals has been a bit rubbish too.<br />
<br />
But I'd do it again. 'When we live within our comfort zone, it begins to shrink,' someone once said to me. And they were right - I have met an awful lot of people with shrunken comfort zones.<br />
<br />
In the grand scheme of things, the experience has hardly been that tough. We've not been hungry, we've usually been warm, we've had music and books and games - and most importantly, we've been living this way through choice, which is an immense privilege. <br />
<br />
I recently came across the <a href="http://www.oldandinteresting.com/washing-ice-hole.aspx">following extract </a>while doing a little research on the history of laundry. It's from one of my favourite websites, <a href="http://www.oldandinteresting.com/">www.oldandinteresting.com</a>, which is the history of domestic paraphernalia - and, by default, generally a history of women. It's fascinating - and worth a visit for those times when you're having a bad day because the dishwasher isn't working properly.<br />
<br />
<i>The washing of clothes at Petersburgh is very remarkable; it is done by women, who
stand for hours on the ice, plunging their bare arms into the freezing water, in,
perhaps, eighteen or twenty degrees of frost. They shelter themselves from the wind,
which is the most bitter part of winter—fifteen degrees of frost, with wind, being
more severe than twenty-five or thirty without—by means of large fir branches stuck
in the ice, on which they hang mats. In general the women seem to be more regardless
of cold than the men ; they seldom, even in the most intense cold, wear any thing
on their heads but a silk handker-chief.
- R. and A. Heber, The Life of Reginald Heber</i>, 1830<br />
<br />
Now that's resilience.<br />
<br />
Charwood Farm Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863491237964202263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-511559122801370529.post-25672725408198025512013-03-11T10:30:00.000+00:002013-03-20T14:35:00.410+00:00Bearing up under the strainI have become my mother.<br />
<br />
This realisation dawned on me during, of all places, a trip to Build-A-Bear. Against my better judgement, I had bought my daughter a voucher for a bear for her 10th birthday. A Build-A-Bear has been on the poor girl's wish list for the last couple of birthdays and Christmases, and so I felt I should buy her one while a teddy still meant something furry with four legs.<br />
<br />
Despite my best intentions, I just couldn't help myself.<br />
<br />
'I don't mind the bears, but I'm not getting any stupid clothes,' I said graciously on the morn of our visit. Zena's face fell. 'But that's the point of going to Build-A-Bear,' she wailed. I grunted and left it at that.<br />
<br />
There are some things in this consumer-led economy we live in that I just can't deal with - and clothes for bears is one of them. Clothes for dolls are fine, they are human-like in form and therefore require clothing. But bears don't wear clothes. I often wonder what the people in the factories far away who make these things think. Do they long to live in a place that is so rich it can afford to buy wardrobes for bears - or wonder at the decadence of it all? Who knows. <br />
<br />
Anyway, three hours later my mood hadn't improved. We were in the shop and Zena had gone into a consumer frenzy - flitting around, exclaiming and cooing over bears dressed like Rihanna, bears dressed like policeman, and, heaven help me, a bride and groom bear complete with vicar. And shoes. Shoes! Why do they have to make 'em shoes?<br />
<br />
Despite having spent her ten fabulous years living with a daily diet of anti-consumerist propaganda, shoes somehow temporarily disable the pre-frontal cortex of my daughter's brain. Last summer we popped in to Brantano for some trainers. In aisle sizes 12 to 13, Zena soon became lost in a pile of shoes, all of which I had vetoed on grounds that there were too tarty, too bad for her feet, too high, too expensive, just too hideous.<br />
<br />
I telephoned my friend Sophie. 'I'm in Brantano,' I whispered. 'I don't think I am ever going to get out.' An hour later I finished the phone call, Zena was still trying on footwear. I lay down for a while between shoe size aisles 1 and 2 hoping it would help. It didn't. We finally left, Zena skipping out clutching a pair of polka dot red sandals, me reeling into the only sunshine we'd had all summer. We hadn't bought any trainers.<br />
<br />
I was experiencing the same feelings of despair in Build-A-Bear. 'No!', I said to roller skates. 'No!', I said to a sleepover kit. 'No! No! No!', I said to a pair of khaki boxer shorts.<br />
<br />
'Look,' I said. 'You can have a pair of shoes and one other non-clothing item.'<br />
<br />
'Why can't I have any clothes,' she asked.<br />
<br />
'Because,' I said firmly. 'We can make them at home out of bits of scrap fabric.'<br />
<br />
And that was it - the point where I knew I had turned into my mother. My mum is an excellent dressmaker. She made most of our clothes when we were kids as well as the soft furnishings. I well remember the frustration of wanting an item from a clothes shop while she wrinkled her nose in disdain, pronounced the seam work lacking and that she could make the same thing at home for free.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
</div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaPl4nzFHWCcnJcopRwHF4pSWWBeCTta3Q5LY0GPnTNe4-f6ZhckeG5VIpQL6c9jLvwCv6qMtb1eCh4uI8VHVDBa7zbmEopvCb9vc6Bu_HHxlBaLUpI05B3uFoOR1TqNSqhxLoQXmshqx-/s1600/sewingmachine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaPl4nzFHWCcnJcopRwHF4pSWWBeCTta3Q5LY0GPnTNe4-f6ZhckeG5VIpQL6c9jLvwCv6qMtb1eCh4uI8VHVDBa7zbmEopvCb9vc6Bu_HHxlBaLUpI05B3uFoOR1TqNSqhxLoQXmshqx-/s200/sewingmachine.jpg" width="200" /></a>But what goes round, comes round and now I am doing the same thing. This is partly because I am in love with my new toy - a hand-operated Singer sewing machine. A thing not just of great beauty, but very functional. It only does straight seams, but it does them very well and it makes a satisfying chugging sound as I turn the handle. I am fairly new to sewing - my mother's expertise being something I could never hope to live up to. But I have taken to it with enthusiasm and it will only be a matter of time before we are all wandering around dressed in badly made clothes created out of second-hand curtains.<br />
<br />
Back in Build-A-Bear, Zena finally settled on a pair of flip-flops, a stuffed guitar and a kind of leapoardy bear. This needed stuffing and a heart inserted. 'Now wave the heart above your head, make a big wish and give it a kiss,' trilled the shop assistant. I caught the eye of eight-year-old Matty, his face a picture of abject contempt. It cheered me up no end.<br />
<br />
The bear, called Grrrr, is very loved but one of the flip-flops is missing.<br />
<br />
'We'll have to go back to buy him more shoes,' said Zena.<br />
<br />
'No,' I said grumpily. 'Find the missing one.'<br />
<br />
'I didn't mean that,' she said happily holding him up for me to see. 'Look, he's got four feet!'Charwood Farm Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863491237964202263noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-511559122801370529.post-26621293991702545462013-03-05T12:56:00.001+00:002013-03-08T09:22:36.559+00:00Where's a patronus when you need one?<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It's a rare week when
you can say your future hangs in the balance, but last week was such
a one with the hearing of our long-awaited planning appeal.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As a quick recap, we
have a plan to turn three acres of pasture land into a small-scale
farm based mostly on trees. Based meaning that the trees will provide
not just produce but a habitat in which other elements of our system
can thrive – such as chicken. We have worked out a plan based on
permaculture principles where all systems are integrated with the aim
being for zero waste. The human beings in the system are part of
that integration, thus waste and consumption flow seamlessly around
the whole venture. It's a complex system, but then so is nature,
which permaculture aims to echo.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
All of this requires us
to live on the land, however the local planning department disagrees.
So having had our initial planning application turned down, we turned
to the planning inspectorate in the hope of having a, er, more
considered hearing.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Planning appeals are a
little like trials. Both parties have to supply proofs of evidence
before the proceedings and the planning inspector presides as judge
and jury. It's a painfully formal and dry affair as was evidenced by
the posture of some law students who were there to observe as part of
their course. Within ten minutes it was clear most of them had lost
the will to live – their eyes raised heavenward in despair as the
day loomed long before them. The atmosphere wasn't helped by the
temperature in the hall, which was very, very cold – in every
respect.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Since Gully was the
appellant and therefore a witness, I got to speak as a member of the
public. I had visualised being coherent, but failed. This is an old
problem – under pressure or in confrontational situations, I tend
to lose any ability to articulate and end up behaving like a
six-year-old. First I start blustering, then I turn to abuse and
finally end up in tears – often I do all of these at the same time.
My bosom pal, Beth, has the same issues leading to what we term the
'Yeah, but at least I've got friends' syndrome, in fond memory of a
particularly inarticulate difference of opinion she once had with a
flatmate.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Thus I babbled on
incoherently, trying to express to the men in suits how inspiring our
vision is, how much our application means to us and how committed we
are. The two lucid moments I had came courtesy of Einstein ('madness
lies in repeating the same thing over again and expecting different
results' and Ghandi ('be the change you want to see'). Apart from
that I made an arse of myself whittering on about just not being able
to understand the negativity.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
And the negativity was
palpable. Three of the villagers had tipped up for a nice day out and
sat shaking their heads and rolling their eyes whenever they felt the
need – as did one of the members of the council team, whom I had
expected might have been a little more professional. But aside from
all that the gloomy surroundings of Tiverton town hall were beginning
to suck all the spirit and hope from me. Our glorious vision was
being suffocated by an outpouring of cynicism and dry arguments over
DM10s, Core 18s and PP7s. There came a point where I realised that
even if I was locked in a padded cell for a week with certain members
of the opposition they would still never grasp the essence and spirit
of what we are trying to achieve. It was like trying to explain
Chopin to someone profoundly deaf.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The next day I was
discussing career options with eight-year-old Matty, I was explaining
that some people went to university and studied subjects they were
either very good at or very interested in and that some studied
because they had particular jobs in mind. 'So, for instance,' I
explained ' you may want to go to university because you want to work
in a planning department and you need a degree that will enable you
to get that job.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
But,' I added hastily,
'you don't want to do that.'
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Why,' said Matty.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Because,' I said 'you
will lose your soul'.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'What do you mean?' he
asked.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I fumbled around in my
head for an explanation, then hit upon one. 'Well,' I explained,
'like the dementors in Harry Potter.'
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjltHm7ROValByDC2E7W4QQpMVR43o_T7bOCAv7orn5uwcrXdjkCWRK7XHjp9puNQPHAyHU9DmxKyEMQ4p8s35_6mPubKaXGubWjbp8H1wkihSoKaB9lhm_0dHDAUsKPsn5XxFZNkFtMqC/s1600/dementor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjltHm7ROValByDC2E7W4QQpMVR43o_T7bOCAv7orn5uwcrXdjkCWRK7XHjp9puNQPHAyHU9DmxKyEMQ4p8s35_6mPubKaXGubWjbp8H1wkihSoKaB9lhm_0dHDAUsKPsn5XxFZNkFtMqC/s200/dementor.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Planning official</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Dementors are the
death-like wardens of the prison of Azkhaban who suck the happiness,
hope and life force out of their victims leaving only despair and
misery. Where they appear the temperature drops and gloom descends,
They can only be fought off by a patronus – a charm that conjures
hope in the form of a bright silver shield.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Dementors are not
visible to muggles. But they were there that day in Tiverton town
hall alright.</div>
Charwood Farm Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863491237964202263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-511559122801370529.post-75434824363992562992013-02-09T14:58:00.001+00:002013-02-09T14:58:51.233+00:00Iron filingIroning has never been a task I have approached with any degree of enthusiasm and I have been quite happy to use not having any electricity as an excuse not to do any.<br />
<br />
I generally don't mind sporting the slightly creased look, <a href="http://charwoodfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/giving-it-some-welly.html">it kind of suits me</a>. Nobody would ever have said of me that I was immaculately turned out, even when I had a house and all the mod cons that went with it. But I have reached new heights of unkemptness since moving onto the field. It is a rare day that a piece of mud isn't adhering to some part of my person and I most frequently look as though I had been staggering around a waterlogged music festival for three days. Indeed, my former boss remarked he always knew when I had been sitting at his desk by the deposits of mud underneath it.<br />
<br />
There have been times, such as when dressing for the office, that I might have wished for something less furrowed to wear. But I found that if I carefully dried the nicer shirts on a hanger, they could just about look passable.<br />
<br />
So I wasn't feeling any great regret for the iron until I was hit by a sudden desire to learn to sew, which occurred around the same time our woodburner was installed.<br />
<br />
I confess I didn't actually fully appreciate the relationship between sewing and ironing. Thus, I selected some suitable cloth and rushed home and tried to cut it out without first ironing the fabric. This resulted in the piece of material I cut resembling a dish cloth that bore scant relation to the pattern piece it had been cut from.<br />
<br />
Then it occurred to me that our lovely woodburner has a hot plate on top - ostensibly for kettles, but conceivably for an old-fashioned iron too. The next day I called in at a<a href="http://www.tobysreclamation.com/"> reclamation yard near Exeter </a>and was in luck; I parted with a fiver and in return was handed a lump of rust, which, with the application of wire wool turned into a fabulous little iron.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUBTqOgyGm0bAJS29Dc3blw4luJRzcu68X-9sPrR_1qMsTURhlu3mKL-lLJnfWdADfD9tGoroxl11ZaarI9h9GPDiMdA4WayfixtCtxf4Dw6yI1X8RwvoRYM1xdbp5ReOZvGmWbxy1fT16/s1600/iron.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUBTqOgyGm0bAJS29Dc3blw4luJRzcu68X-9sPrR_1qMsTURhlu3mKL-lLJnfWdADfD9tGoroxl11ZaarI9h9GPDiMdA4WayfixtCtxf4Dw6yI1X8RwvoRYM1xdbp5ReOZvGmWbxy1fT16/s200/iron.jpg" width="200" /></a>And bizarrely, it really works. I say bizarrely, because I had a vague sort of idea that it wouldn't be much good. That's an interesting mindset, I realised - thinking because it has been superseded by electric, more sophisticated, versions that it wouldn't work very well. But it does, even without the benefit of a thermostat, or water reservoir or anti-burn control.<br />
<br />
It's also wonderfully tactile; quite small but pleasingly heavy and it has to be held with a cloth because the handle becomes very hot. Every time I use it I wonder about the many women's hands that have held it before and imagine my grandmother in her parlour using hers. All of which brings a physical and mental connection to what used to be a mindless chore. <br />
<br />
So now I can be mindful about it, which is a somewhere I would never have considered I would be. <a href="http://www.mindfulnet.org/">Mindfulness</a>, which involves among other things an attentiveness to one's present state, is considered in Buddhism to be one of the paths to enlightenment.<br />
<br />
And who'd have thought ironing could help you get <i>there</i>!<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Charwood Farm Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863491237964202263noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-511559122801370529.post-13359362332698701652013-01-29T13:36:00.000+00:002013-01-29T13:36:41.108+00:00No-wind situationFor 18 months, our small encampment at Charwood Farm has been buffeted by strong south westerlies leaving in their wake a trail of destruction - <a href="http://charwoodfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/winds-of-change.html">tents </a>and awnings, for instance, and <a href="http://charwoodfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/awning-chasm.html">a dog forever psychologically impaired.</a><br />
<br />
So it was, we felt, that we couldn't go wrong with a small wind turbine to meet our electricity needs. This arrived at some point before Christmas along with our satellite internet unit, which requires power to work. And for a while I had visions of being connected to the rest of the world and that I would be happily hailing my uncle and cousins in Australia on new year's eve.<br />
<br />
But I have been experiencing a run of setbacks of late, otherwise known as <a href="http://charwoodfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/like-glastonbury-but-without-fun.html">wading through mud</a> - and, as ever, I mean that quite literally.<br />
<br />
I left civilisation - sorry, my office job in London - in late October. Since then Devon has been hit by torrents of rain, and although we are high up on the top of a slope and thus not actually swimming, it does make for difficult conditions in which to choose to live in a caravan without the benefit of utilities.<br />
<br />
We still have to wheelbarrow everything that comes into the field to and from the caravan to the car. This is as deeply unpleasant as it was last winter, although at least this year I know what to expect. It's difficult to put my finger on quite the most depressing thing about it - but I think it is arriving back at the field with a clean, dry and still warm load of washing from the launderette to be met with lashing rain and a precarious slide home that takes the proverbial ginger nut.<br />
<br />
The calm persisted for some days. 'I see you have power,' commented a local dog walker. 'No,' I said 'what we have there is an expensive weather vane.' And so it seemed as the little turbine swayed gently this way and that.<br />
<br />
Then one night the wind blew with a vengeance and the situation went from one extreme to another. The wind turbine whirred with such vehemence that it kept me awake, worrying, irrationally, that it would somehow rocket off its holding and smash through the trailer wall. Also, Gully had gone out there with a head torch and I wondered if he was going to attempt something rash like trying to secure the blades. I pictured him lying prone at the bottom of the ladder with various limbs strewn about the field. A vision that was still not quite compelling enough for me to get out of bed and investigate in the midst of a howling gale.<br />
<br />
Both he and the windmill had survived the experience by morning, and I rushed excitedly to the thingy that checks the voltage in the batteries, which had crept up by a whole quarter of a volt. <br />
<br />
Over the next week or so, what we gained in electricity was soon overtaken by usage - and by usage I mean a few LED lights and a radio. But we were soldiering on gamely, praying for wind, when we were hit by a blast from the arctic that lasted more than a week. The combined snow and ice stilled the little turbine's blades for eight days and something went drastically wrong with the charging unit. So we had to disconnect it from the batteries altogether.<br />
<br />
And, mysteriously, since then, we have been experiencing very strong strong south westerlies.Charwood Farm Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863491237964202263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-511559122801370529.post-46844324955513471902012-12-07T11:24:00.000+00:002012-12-07T11:24:27.039+00:00The dead of the nightFinally! After two
years of pouring food and affection into a vacuum, the cats have
covered themselves in glory.<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Stumbling through the awning in the dim light of early morning, I nearly stepped on a large dead rat deposited with love and
pride near the caravan door.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I say love, but I am
not convinced, we are generally treated with disdain by the cats
although one of them seems genuinely fond of the smallest boy. Aside
from that they will suffer to be stroked briefly and then only when
it's feeding time. Once fed, any hint of previous intimacy is erased
like the memory of an embarrassing boyfriend. I am fairly confident
that if some unfortunate accident befell me, they would be more than
happy to tuck into my liver.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
So just pride, then.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
We have, as mentioned
before, a gaping hole in the bottom of the door that leads to our
sleeping area. The cats fashioned this themselves and use it to come
and go when they please and to bring in small live mammals in the
middle of the night, which they thump and crash about killing.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaNWaeiNCPp2KbaCmkgl6_C_sKrLkeC9qfogkIENU_LVjYsHOPLum4YCkmL5OHq5UgjbOKsdS0bQ75OkEcFqom5Jh1Do9yprLH0zrzF-F9IXYIiCoqZSqd-MTCdmhRpkXtvPjeRuq9GTNQ/s1600/male-and-female-signs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaNWaeiNCPp2KbaCmkgl6_C_sKrLkeC9qfogkIENU_LVjYsHOPLum4YCkmL5OHq5UgjbOKsdS0bQ75OkEcFqom5Jh1Do9yprLH0zrzF-F9IXYIiCoqZSqd-MTCdmhRpkXtvPjeRuq9GTNQ/s200/male-and-female-signs.jpg" width="200" /></a>I have observed that
they do this differently. Oscar, the boy cat, makes much ado about the whole thing. He heralds the return of the
hunter with a loud mewing, then shows off, flinging his unfortunate victim around flamboyantly and with much accompanying noise. Once it is incapacitated, he frequently
becomes bored of the whole scene and wanders off, leaving someone else to
finish the job for him. Meanwhile, Tanny, the female cat, comes in
quietly, dispatches her prey with ruthless efficiency and eats it quickly.
I can't help feeling there is a metaphor for the difference between
the sexes being played out here.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
More to the point, it
is being played out where I sleep. With the dead rat in mind, I have
over recent days had cause to shudder at what might have been. So it
is somewhat ironic for the cats, that the day they finally fulfilled
their brief was also the one they sealed their banishment from the
trailer. It's a bit harsh – but that's OK. They don't really love
us.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
</div>
Charwood Farm Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863491237964202263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-511559122801370529.post-47617408411843556882012-11-26T14:43:00.001+00:002012-11-26T14:43:35.732+00:00Going off message<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'You seem to have left not just the office, but the planet too,' observed my friend Lin in an email.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, I may as well have done. My transition from commuter to full-time field dweller has been less than smooth.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First there was the little incident of the filched Blackberry. This was the result of a mix up in a London bar after my last day at work. My friend and I had identical smart phones and she mistakenly went home with mine during a farewell exchange rendered extra confusing by the fact we were both very drunk. So far, so not too much to worry about. This could easily be remedied by the trusty post. Sadly, though, when the mail was delivered I received an empty Jiffy bag, devoid of any phone. Not such a trusty post then.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So I spent much of my first week on the telephone to the Royal Mail, which was magnificently disinterested in my missing phone, even though it had gone astray while in its care. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The loss of my phone was a bit of a catastrophe; we have no landline and we are not in a 3G area, so dongles are useless. Thus <a href="http://charwoodfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2012_01_01_archive.html">my Blackberry</a> wasn't just a useful communication tool, it was a psychological connection to the outside world away from a small village in deepest Devon where the inhabitants don't like us much.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Still, I didn't have long to dwell on this misfortune because the next week the car broke down in the middle of a country lane, so that took care of that week.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Since then, we have been enjoying the effects of nearly a fortnight of torrential rain, which has led to flooding and general misery - again. We seem to be having a lot of weather in recent times. I can't help but wonder if there is something driving our climate, some sort of change perhaps. But, surely not; why else would our government appoint a climate change sceptic as the secretary of state for energy?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our little encampment is at the top of a slope about 190m above sea level. This is not luck, we discounted an awful lot of plots that were low lying. We believe in climate change, even if Mr Davey does not. Thus although it is extremely soggy, we aren't actually having to wade around our home - unlike many others. But we have been affected at times when the roads around have been flooded.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It does feel somewhat as if the fates have combined to test quite how isolated I can become before losing my marbles. I think I'm doing quite well, all things considered, but Lin disagrees: <span style="background-color: white;">'I must admit, your decline to a mad woman in a field has been more rapid than I predicted,' she wrote after receiving an illegible email typed in haste without the benefit of spectacles. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Still, not quite drowning yet - just about waving ....</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
Charwood Farm Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863491237964202263noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-511559122801370529.post-71281410926611180772012-10-31T18:39:00.003+00:002012-11-08T11:03:42.402+00:00Careering off track<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Why don't you wear the
brown dress that looks like a carpet? '</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I hadn't, hitherto,
been aware that I owned such an item of apparel, but thanks to
Matty's intervention I certainly wouldn't be wearing it again.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I don't often fret
about dresses, it's a rare day I <a href="http://charwoodfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/giving-it-some-welly.html">vacate my jeans and wellies</a> but this was an extra special occasion because I was scrubbing up for my leaving
party from the Observer newspaper.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5bka8hHT4N58ujtj3AuoKvXiN-kxIV1P5i3yGkebsUe5xxyQ6Tos1emJONY_IXyf7TSgo2xIIAXNJoFg7a5fJeaK3W2bP1hnEBzfHzvjaY47bZXQkV8hNskxGYzczZ62iX9mf414APSKL/s1600/observer460.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="120" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5bka8hHT4N58ujtj3AuoKvXiN-kxIV1P5i3yGkebsUe5xxyQ6Tos1emJONY_IXyf7TSgo2xIIAXNJoFg7a5fJeaK3W2bP1hnEBzfHzvjaY47bZXQkV8hNskxGYzczZ62iX9mf414APSKL/s200/observer460.jpg" width="200" /></a>I have worked at the
Observer for 12 years. Some people see work as a necessary evil, but <a href="http://charwoodfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/busmans-holiday.html">I loved my job </a>and I liked working with clever witty people – so I
was lucky. Sadly, however, the newspaper industry is shrinking
rapidly. People are buying fewer newspapers and have instead migrated
online to read for free what they once were happy to part with
80p-odd for. The result is a massive contraction in national
newspaper circulations – and regional newspapers are in an even
worse situation, but don't get me started – that's a whole other
blog.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I, therefore, along with my
colleagues, was offered a financial incentive to leave my job and the
offer was useful enough and the long-term future of newspapers risky enough to take their
shilling and run.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
And run I did. There is
a tradition among newspaper offices that a sub-editor of reasonable
regard and long standing service is 'banged out'. This stems back in
the midsts of time, when compositors banged on the chases - the metal frames that held the type - when an apprenticeship was completed. This later transferred to banging out sub-editors whom they didn't hold in abject contempt. This was high praise – compositors held nearly everyone in
abject contempt.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Anyway, it is a
tradition that has continued albeit now people bang rulers and thump
desks. It is extremely moving and has brought me to tears whenever
anyone else has left. I had been dreading the moment when it would be my
turn.<br />
<br />
So I took it at a
sprint. I was escorted out to the clatter and thumps by a venerable
and much-loved colleague. Jo has worked on every paper in Fleet
Street over the course of the odd decade or few. She is the Kevin
Bacon of the newspaper world. The theory is that any actor can be
linked to Kevin Bacon in six steps or less. Jo is the print press
equivalent, although in her case the maximum degree of separation
must be more like three.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I
tearfully made my way to the pub, where I got completely trolleyed -
again. And that was the end of all that. </div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I feel a little odd,
post Observer. Like I have lost some essential part of me, which is I
guess what comes of letting go of a career that culminated in working
for the newspaper I decided I wanted to work for when I was in my mid
teens. But the future looks interesting – and I have very happy
memories.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
And these have a
tangible form too. I have a medal for services to sub-editing drawn
by the paper's brilliant business <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/david-simonds">cartoonist Dave Simonds</a>. I also have my very own front page - another newspaper tradition where the front page
is adapted to catalogue the foibles and fallibility of the person
leaving. Mine was suitably offensive and extremely amusing and I am still so bowled over with it that I have reproduced an extract below to finish off, courtesy of my former colleague and good friend, Ed Latham.</div>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<u><br /></u></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<u>Inventor of caravan chic (possibly)</u></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Mother,
writer, headteacher, knitting champion... everyone knows Karen
Luckhurst, author of the celebrated Charwood Farm series. So Ellle Decor was thrilled to get an invite to her stunning home in Devon.
Would it really be like the books? </div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
We
needn’t have worried: from the moment we arrived, Karen made us
welcome in that inimitable Charwood Farm style: ‘Sorry, you can’t
drive in at the moment because the car’s broken down and is
blocking the gate! But if you get in the wheelbarrow, I’ll try to
keep you clear of the dog.’ </div>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
<span style="color: black;">Settling
down in the cosy confines of the classic Elddis Crusader that
makes up the core of the farmhouse, we couldn’t wait to talk
interiors.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><b>Elle Decor:</b> Karen, you mix palettes, styles and periods to stunning effect
in the caravan. What’s your secret?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><b>Karen:</b>
I always feel that eclecticism is nothing to be scared of. Here, for
example, the dynamic wriggling of the mosquito larvae in my glass of
water create a shimmering counterpoint to the couch grass on the roof
of the kebab trailer.</span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><b>Elle Decor:</b> I love what you’ve done here with the Lego on the floor.
Fantastic granularity.</span><br />
<b><br /></b>
<span style="color: black;"><b>Karen (laughing): </b>Thanks! It’s kind of ‘<i>objet trouvé</i>’ - I just came
across it like that after getting back from work one evening, but I
think it really works in that space.</span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="color: black;">Elle De</span>cor: </b>And I understand you’re launching your own line of
homewares?<br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><b>Karen:</b>
Yes, I wanted something that captured the timeless simplicity of
rural living with a modern edge. Our new Bucket™ toilet, for
example, comes in a range of pastel colours and, with a built-in
handle, is very easy to empty when full.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><b>Elle Decor: </b>Charwood Farm isn’t just a house - it’s a veritable
compound. For example, this wooded space here, with the flat stone in
the centre and a couple of other stones placed nearby, is slightly
set apart from the rest of the home, isn’t it? Can you tell us a
little about what you were trying to achieve – were you inspired by
Japanese gardens?</span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><b>Karen:
</b>Oh no, this is where we beat the heads in of rodents that have been
too badly wounded by the cats to survive in the wild. Generally, the
cats enjoy toying with them until they’re beyond endurance and
physically incapable of escape, and then just leave them, so that can
create a tricky little domestic problem in the bedroom. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><b>Elle Decor: </b>And the light in the atrium here is stunning. It’s so airy!</span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><b>Karen:</b> Yes, that’s because the roof’s blown off.</span><span style="color: #888888;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />Charwood Farm Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863491237964202263noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-511559122801370529.post-26039815611631100582012-10-14T10:30:00.000+01:002012-10-14T10:30:02.851+01:00Saturation point'How's your week been,' asked a colleague.<br />
<br />
'Wet,' I replied.<br />
<br />
What my reply lacked in articulacy, it made up for in accuracy, because this week <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-19913483">Devon has been nothing if not wet.</a><br />
<br />
It rained steadily all week, in a normal sort of way, then on Thursday it sloshed down. This was bad timing, for Thursday is the day I have to collect my daughter from school and traverse 15 miles of country roads in order to chauffeur her to various dance classes in Exeter.<br />
<br />
It did occur to me – as I drove slowly along thin strips of visible tarmac flanked by vast, lapping puddles, along already narrow lanes – that the best thing to do would be to collect her and go home, but that seemed a bit wuss-ish.<br />
<br />
So we picked her up and set off to ballet along the back roads. The going soon turned rough – after heavy-duty puddles for about a mile we turned a corner to find an entire lane was flooded, the road resembling a small river. The water was clearly not too deep, but since it was brown and swirling it was impossible to tell how much not too deep it was.<br />
<br />
I pulled over and tried to decide whether to brave it. After a while a lone car swished through from the opposite direction. The driver, a breezy woman with a cigarette dangling from her lips, wound down her window. 'You thinking of going through?' she asked brightly. I nodded. 'Yeah, there's loads of this,' she said nodding at the floodwater. She paused and glanced reflectively at her dashboard 'I've conked out again,' she said cheerfully, 'Good luck!'<br />
<br />
I hadn't found this exchange particularly reassuring. My boys were even less so. 'We are so going to die,' said Matty happily as we set off through the water. He and Sam leaned out of the window to get a better view as we headed through the flood and shouted gleefully as brown spray hit them in the face. 'This is awesome,' they yelled 'we're gonna die'. <br />
<br />
We didn't die, and more remarkably the car didn't conk out, which had been my chief fear – certain death falling further down the list, somewhere behind landing in a ditch.<br />
<br />
Such adventures continued for about five miles. Each new stretch of floodwater proving to be as stressful an experience as the last.<br />
<br />
Just as I felt I could relax a little, I came across a stretch of lane where large chunks of the bank had fallen onto the road, mud and debris everywhere and tree roots alarmingly exposed. This sent my anxiety levels soaring, and I heard my daughter begin to moan. 'Yes!' chorused the boys joyfully.<br />
<br />
We made it through and arrived late and shaken at dance class. There I met a lady who lives in a village on an alternative route home. 'I'm thinking of going back your way,' I said. 'I wouldn't,' she replied. 'I've just seen a car floating.'<br />
<br />
So we returned the way we came, only this time in the dark.<br />
<br />
Zena attends a school that takes the Church of England part of its name very seriously. She has, in a short space of time, become well acquainted with a number of songs of a spiritual nature. As we inched cautiously through the puddles in the dark she struck up with Jesus is my Saviour. We hit the first flood. 'Awesome!' yelled the boys, 'Love him more and more' carolled Zena, while the windscreen wipers squeaked and the rain continued to fall.<br />
<br />
By the time we got back to our village we had ploughed our way, in more than one sense, through He's Got the Whole World in His Hands, and Kumbaya. <br />
<br />
It was cold back at the field and still raining, but I have rarely been so pleased to get out of the car.Charwood Farm Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863491237964202263noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-511559122801370529.post-63520190121673981402012-09-30T10:30:00.000+01:002012-09-30T10:30:01.551+01:00Basic instinctsThe adventure with the <a href="http://charwoodfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/all-coming-out-in-wash.html">mosquito larvae in my hand washing</a> has led to a rethink – with the result that I have spent the week playing happily about with the water system.<br />
<br />
The first task was to start afresh with our big barrel that collects the rain water off our incredibly <a href="http://charwoodfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/out-through-in-door.html">efficient corrugated roof</a>. The water it contained was a light shade of brackish and was hosting an assortment of dead insects, very alive larvae and some beetles swimming vigorously. There were a lot of these, and no dead ones, which made me wonder. Had some of them been swimming for weeks? Or had they all gone for a spontaneous dip together? In any case, I carefully lifted them out – with my bare hands. I was very proud of myself.<br />
<br />
I then set about cleaning some receptacles. These are blue 20-litre containers that we got off eBay. They must have come from a juicing factory because their labels bear information such as 'blackcurrant concentrate'. What was left of the concentrate had, of course, congealed into a life form thus the barrels required much sluicing and shaking about to dislodge the residue.<br />
<br />
With everything ready, all I had to do was wait for the rain. <a href="http://charwoodfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/drought-not-in-this-bit-of-britain.html">And that is never far away </a>although, given that <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-19718288">North Yorkshire spent most of the last week under water</a>, I was surprised there wasn't more of it. Still there was enough to fill a 220-litre barrel in a couple of hours of steady rainfall. This was incredibly satisfying – so much so that I took to standing soggily outside to stare at the water cascading out of the rainfall outlet.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMTCmUNffVf-iTakGCDxK0_kYbXAEmrnsjUFn_VdefpsoBkyIgSYqfEh05yaj9CRoCtPwHm9TwpDei1ePpHcQyHUoseOFvavaAWoM-_kipXgBV2dGhqnm-z1z34Ks6lS35VkWt_DMhHfq-/s1600/infinitypool.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="130" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMTCmUNffVf-iTakGCDxK0_kYbXAEmrnsjUFn_VdefpsoBkyIgSYqfEh05yaj9CRoCtPwHm9TwpDei1ePpHcQyHUoseOFvavaAWoM-_kipXgBV2dGhqnm-z1z34Ks6lS35VkWt_DMhHfq-/s200/infinitypool.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Infinity pools – over-rated</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I haven't always been so easily pleased – but over the years age and child-rearing have dramatically reduced my pleasure threshold. Where once luxury might have been an infinity pool somewhere close to the Aegean, now it is getting through a cup of tea without having to deliver loo roll or a lecture on cat sleep management. In such a climate, watching rainwater trickle into a barrel is positively self-indulgent.<br />
<br />
But there is something more tangible to this than the lamentable state of my down time. I feel increasingly that living – as many in the western world do – so far removed from our basic needs robs us of something very fundamental.<br />
<br />
In his <a href="http://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html">Hierarchy of Needs</a> model, American psychologist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Maslow">Abraham Maslow</a> argued that in order to achieve our full potential four fundamental layers of needs have to be met, the most basic of which is physiological – the need for food, water, warmth, sleep and, er, other bodily functions.<br />
<br />
In a civilised affluent society we don't have to think too much about those things. Flush toilets remove our waste and take it somewhere nameless, where someone faceless does something unknown to it so we never have to think about it again. We buy our food neatly packed in boxes or wrapped in cellophane. Clean water gushes out of our taps. Shops sell cheap ready-made clothes to keep us warm.<br />
<br />
This is clearly all to the good – Maslow is right, it's pretty difficult to achieve your full potential if your body is in starvation. But when our basic needs are so easily met is some fundamental instinct thrown off balance? I don't have the answer to that, of course. I only know that when I create something rudimental out of nothing, I feel a deep sense of well being. For instance, I knit. Out of two pins and a length of yarn I can create jumpers, socks, scarves and hats. I'm not the only one – there are a lot of us about. Some people still even take needle and thread and make garments. Why do this when we can go to Primark and buy a sweater or tracksuit bottoms for £3.99?<br />
<br />
In the same vein, people hunt, camp, grow vegetables, keep chicken, make honey – in short we do things that are time consuming, sometimes difficult, often messy, all in the name of keeping in touch with our basic needs – because in a world of hotels, supermarkets and pre-packed eggs, we don't have to do any of them.<br />
<br />
All of which is a very long-winded way of saying that by standing in the rain watching my water barrel fill up I am connecting with some primordial survival mechanism that feels a need to be connected with. It doesn't necessarily mean that I am going mad.<br />
<br />
Yet ...<br />
<br />
<br />Charwood Farm Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863491237964202263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-511559122801370529.post-48235256239867199032012-09-16T10:30:00.003+01:002012-10-07T01:47:00.177+01:00All coming out in the washLiving in a washing machine-less world makes getting white school polo shirts clean something of a Herculean task.<br />
<br />
Well, OK, not quite Herculean; it doesn't really equate with capturing the Erymanthian boar, for instance, but it's not far off, I can tell you.<br />
<br />
A colleague recently asked 'washing machine or vacuum cleaner?' in a 'George Clooney or Brad Pitt?' type conversation. I pointed out that I was uniquely placed to answer this question since I have had neither for more than a year now – and I can tell you unequivocally that I would take a washing machine over a vacuum cleaner any day.<br />
<br />
Sweeping takes about the same amount of time as it does to vacuum, especially when you factor in all the stopping and starting to deal with bits of Lego or apple cores that have have been sucked up and are blocking the hose.<br />
<br />
Washing without a machine, on the other hand, is a complete pfaff involving either hand washing or launderettes, neither of which remotely compare with the convenience of the modern front loader.<br />
<br />
Take these shirts, for instance. <a href="http://charwoodfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/school-of-fraught.html">My daughter only started school recently</a> and I bought two to be going on with. These were meant to be supplemented over the summer, but predictably M&S had run out. <br />
<br />
So if one gets dirty, it can't wait until launderette day. I therefore decided to hand wash it. I didn't want to use our precious drinking water, so went to fetch some from one of the barrels that is stationed around our <a href="http://charwoodfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/out-through-in-door.html">lovely new awning roof</a>.<br />
<br />
I filled a bowl, then noticed it contained a number of wriggly tadpole sort of things. I looked at these thoughtfully for a while, then concluded they must be mosquito larvae, which explains why there are so many of the damn things flying around of a night biting people while they sleep.<br />
<br />
Much as I might have wanted to boil-wash them, I didn't want splatted insect larvae on Zena's new shirt, so I went off in search of a strainer. Once they were removed, I stood at the sink for ages applying vigorous kneading and pummeling actions to the shirt. Then I tipped the suds away, and had to fetch more water, strain out more larvae and fill a bowl in order to rinse it out.<br />
<br />
It must have been at this point that the shirt came into contact with a small dollop of curry that had gone unnoticed on the outside of the bowl. Despite being a very small dollop, it left a large yellow smear in several places. This, I only noticed, when I was hanging the shirt on the line.<br />
<br />
For a while, I performed a little dance of rage around the washing line. Then I fetched the strainer, sifted out more baby mosquitoes and went through the whole process again.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEGwm2J4TeP0UoTx7k47SpBbIOP1Vg08IIADNawZ8IJsb1UvUXrgpJS4aVPjH3XqPgHv0UUkfDzXNv7Vdvv0f3ipYPVWPx73SLbB7dYXjJWT0aYULyaOw_UtBG_HVzIq1CFi5Fn7OZ_U_I/s1600/medieval+washing+bat.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEGwm2J4TeP0UoTx7k47SpBbIOP1Vg08IIADNawZ8IJsb1UvUXrgpJS4aVPjH3XqPgHv0UUkfDzXNv7Vdvv0f3ipYPVWPx73SLbB7dYXjJWT0aYULyaOw_UtBG_HVzIq1CFi5Fn7OZ_U_I/s200/medieval+washing+bat.jpg" width="123" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Washing polo shirts</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Normal women do not have to do this sort of thing in this day and age. But actually, it is not so long ago that hand washing was commonplace. In the 1950s, my mother used to stand at the sink for hours hand washing my eldest brother's nappies. Even in the early 1970s when she had a new-fangled twin-tub, I remember that she still used a mangle. Washing clothes and linen took up the best part of two days of her week. Women before that used tubs, dolly sticks and washboards. But even the washboard was an invention of the 18th century – prior to that cloth was soaked in a 'lye', a mixture of ashes and urine, before being taken down to the river, even if it was frozen, and being beaten with a wooden bat. And, of course, there are many women across the world who still do wash clothes in the river.<br />
<br />
So if I ever do get a washing machine again, I will love it and give thanks for it both on my behalf and that of the millions of woman – and the odd man – whom it has liberated from a huge amount of drudgery.Charwood Farm Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863491237964202263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-511559122801370529.post-71487496600274895282012-09-09T10:30:00.002+01:002012-09-09T10:30:02.984+01:00Smelling a ratHumans, we are told, are never more than ten feet away from a rat – and I am sure that living, as we do, in the middle of a field is likely to bring them closer than that.<br />
<br />
But we have never seen one and only heard something that sounded like gnawing once, so I was prepared to remain in blissful denial until provided with any evidence to the contrary.<br />
<br />
Evidence came in the shape of some strange animal droppings we found under a pallet when we moved it recently. The cats can't get under the pallets and wouldn't, I hope, dare do such a thing there anywhere. And they were too big for the desperate purgings of a mouse being vigorously toyed around with by needle-sharp claws. So, I reluctantly concluded that they must belong to a rat.<br />
<br />
This theory appeared to be backed up this week when it became apparent that something was eating the cat food. I had left this in the awning, for some stupid reason; I think the cats were annoying me, they usually do. So it was that when I opened the door of the caravan one evening, I heard something crunching its way through the Whiskas.<br />
<br />
Call me slow, but I figured that this was irregular, since both cats were asleep in the caravan.<br />
<br />
I opened the door wider and in the light saw a dark and disturbingly large shape ambling away slowly, nay, insouciantly.<br />
<br />
I shut the door quickly and addressed the caravan occupants. 'There's a freking rat out there the size of a Shetland pony,' I said.<br />
<br />
I was somewhat freaked out.<br />
<br />
Ten minutes later I opened the door again. The creature had returned and was knocking back the cat food. I shut the door – next time he was going to die.<br />
<br />
I spent the next ten minutes whipping the dog up into a state of nervous frenzy. 'Where is it?' I said excitedly spinning round and looking under things. 'Where's that big old rat?'<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6Xo3RFLX5md32tKb_almQnLgqWHbKxzSm_bqcdfX5xfTJ-Nn0E53y6dEVIZ9U4GRDIkBmfvS0rw3pefkoblJFJK0Ibq31JqeF7OwFAA3jHwbvBTt4BW0d3Fb9EsWUrBMi4MHRUTcyUo_d/s1600/oodypiccrop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6Xo3RFLX5md32tKb_almQnLgqWHbKxzSm_bqcdfX5xfTJ-Nn0E53y6dEVIZ9U4GRDIkBmfvS0rw3pefkoblJFJK0Ibq31JqeF7OwFAA3jHwbvBTt4BW0d3Fb9EsWUrBMi4MHRUTcyUo_d/s200/oodypiccrop.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oody – faint of heart</td></tr>
</tbody></table>With the dog primed, I flung the door open. The dark shape looked up from his dinner and headed off reluctantly. The dog backed into the caravan, lips drawn apologetically over her teeth, tail wagging despondently between her legs. It was a poor show.<br />
<br />
The dog, I should remind you, is half a bull terrier – half an English bull terrier to be exact. A dog so menacing in appearance that it was picked to play Bullseye, Bill Sikes's nasty-tempered sidekick in the film, Oliver!. Oody doesn't have a temper, or a lot of courage come to that – she is a dog deeply in touch with her inner chihuahua. She is scared of rats and a <a href="http://charwoodfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/awning-chasm.html">lot of other things besides</a>.<br />
<br />
So, I was forced to head off to bed with the vermin issue unresolved. Once there, I sat upright, covers pulled up to my chin, unblinking eyes on the <a href="http://charwoodfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/permaculture-catflap.html">large hole in the door made by the cats</a> as their own personal entrance system.<br />
<br />
Soon I heard the unmistakeable crunching of cat food. I rang Gully who was still in the caravan. 'It's out there,' I hissed.<br />
<br />
The door banged open and he came flying out torch in hand. And there, frozen with fear and blinking in the light, was a hedgehog.<br />
<br />
So I could sleep easy after all, happy in the knowledge that I have a cute little helper hoovering up the slugs and snails <a href="http://charwoodfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/out-through-in-door.html">in my indoor garden</a>. But I am under no illusions that there might not be a rat ...<br />
<br />
<br />
Charwood Farm Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863491237964202263noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-511559122801370529.post-14241729219226241762012-09-02T10:30:00.001+01:002012-09-02T10:30:02.840+01:00Conkering one's fearsSummer is over, the camping stuff is packed away, the evenings have a definite autumnal chill – and I am becoming vexed on the subject of spiders.<br />
<br />
We spent last autumn in the caravan, which, thankfully, appeared to be a spider-free zone. In fact, I didn't see a single one. But this year, we are sleeping in the trailer and that is a different affair altogether. Large cobwebs stretch above the door and on the underside. Cobwebs that can only have been put in place by something large and muscular – and her mates.<br />
<br />
This theory was borne out recently by the Sad Demise of the Pretty Spider. This was a little lime green arachnid who was pottering about among the struts that hold up our <a href="http://charwoodfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/out-through-in-door.html">new wooden awning</a>. It was a nice day and the sunlight that came through the roof highlighted his colour. I watched as he busily – and happily, I felt – made his way along a long strand of web that I took to be his own creation. 'Ahh,' I thought 'what a clever little chap, isn't nature wonderful!' Nature, at that point intervened in a not wonderful sort of way, when a large and violent spider pounced on my little friend and had him bitten and done up like a kipper before I could say 'Oh'.<br />
<br />
My boys, meanwhile, have gleefully taken a book out of the library bearing the title The World's Most Horrible Deadliest Spiders Ever - or something to that effect. Its pages contain gruesome close-ups of eyes and jaws interspersed with descriptions of how prey is reduced to liquid before being sucked up. Just in case this doesn't freak you out enough, there are pictures of injuries arising from spider bites: limbs with large holes containing rotting flesh or swollen extremities oozing pus.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF-XXCUG3_Fhz43cY4TmisP4NPUGAHsz2P37-EJXQbUm_ZRW7g1wpdeKfAt1-xLeW90guoBNEMTnooF8TvsgJmtDG7_MyWS8r-Fs8x_im4HjafSikdFg1CSi7iBxVRw2RYRAePBNl-gKY6/s1600/House-spider-008.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="120" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF-XXCUG3_Fhz43cY4TmisP4NPUGAHsz2P37-EJXQbUm_ZRW7g1wpdeKfAt1-xLeW90guoBNEMTnooF8TvsgJmtDG7_MyWS8r-Fs8x_im4HjafSikdFg1CSi7iBxVRw2RYRAePBNl-gKY6/s200/House-spider-008.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The common house spider:<br />
hideous, ain't it? </td></tr>
</tbody></table>My youngest loves this book and has had his nose in it ever since it left Crediton library. He is a generous lad who likes to share his pleasure, and thus it is presented regularly to me for my delectation. I am required to answer questions such as 'If a venomous spider bit the dog, how long would it take for her to turn all mushy so it could eat her'. I was forced to read the whole book to him in the car on the way to the station in the uncomfortable knowledge that I would be sleeping on the floor in someone's attic that night.<br />
<br />
And, of course, the spider season is about to begin and our trailer feels somewhat exposed.<br />
<br />
This silly fear of spiders is something I feel I should conquer – it seems daft to be living off grid in an outside sort of way and being squeamish about our eight-legged friends. Such weakness makes me feel unsuited to our lifestyle; I should be the sort of person who can pick up a spider with interest and conduct a short nature lesson. But then I am always thinking I am unsuited to our lifestyle – I am easily left feeling inadequate by any woman who can change a tyre, wield a bow saw, or any other practical application I am unequal to.<br />
<br />
So, vexed I must remain although I shall take steps to help myself – spreading conkers and spraying citronella about - and above all, getting rid of that horrible book.<br />
<br />
Charwood Farm Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863491237964202263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-511559122801370529.post-27277119708276908872012-08-26T10:30:00.000+01:002012-08-26T10:30:09.692+01:00Skip to my loo<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Our loo has had an amazing upgrade. It is no longer a bucket.<br />
<br />
I say that, but in the interests of accuracy it is technically still a bucket, but with a new housing and a red, shiny loo seat.<br />
<br />
This is the third arrangement for our sanitary needs. We <a href="http://charwoodfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/privy-counselling.html">started off with a chemical loo</a> that came with the caravan and was foul in every sense. That bit the dust when a small, but vital, component fell in the tank into which it was being emptied. This was replaced by a <a href="http://charwoodfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/wasting-away.html">bucket with a loo-seat </a>attached and which served our needs very well – so much so we had two, one for number twos and the other for number ones.<br />
<br />
But they have now been combined into one glorious superloo. This comes complete with a special filtration system, otherwise known as newspaper. Through this, liquid seeps away into a further filter while more, er, solid waste remains in the bucket and is treated to liberal sprinklings of sawdust. This is then emptied into a larger container which will, when full, be capped and eventually turn into highly fertile organic matter. All of this is constructed from two buckets, one cut down to house the other and a collar fashioned from the bit that was left over - all of which is very pleasing from a reuse, reduce, recycle point of view.<br />
<br />
And it's not only the loo that has had a makeover. I now have something akin to a bathroom – it has walls, a wooden floor made of pallets, and a door with a little bolt. The latter used to be the door to the shower room in the caravan, which was removed many months ago and has been lurking around falling on me and annoying ever since. But it now has a new lease of life offering closure and privacy as well as a place on which to pin up dinosaur pictures.<br />
<br />
Moreover, my new bathroom also has a battery-operated light with a pull switch. It is therefore now possible when going to the loo to walk in, pull on the light and lock the door behind you, just like normal people do.<br />
<br />
But the best thing about my new loo is that it has a pot plant.<br />
<br />
This had been the source of not a little concern on my part during its construction. In my experience, all composting loos involve a sort of wooden bench with a floral arrangement set upon it. At the fabulous <a href="http://thistledown.org.uk/?staying-at-thistledown/camping.html">Thistledown campsite in the Cotswolds</a>, there were geraniums. My friend's loo is home to marigolds. Others I have seen place pretty arrangements of cut flowers in jam jars on the surface.<br />
<br />
But during preliminary discussions about the design of our loo, it became evident that pot plants did not feature. 'Yes, yes' I would say dismissively as I was talked through various facets of the brilliance of the plan 'but where will I put my plant'. <br />
<br />
This, it appeared, was proving irksome to the waste solutions manager: 'What the bloody hell are you talking about,' he said.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6i-Dmbus34pOu1UoRhefE7XxsTU2M1awcRkTmlnyFsl5acB0SBp2c31KNvENWfj9ILm_GSbbfqWWRVqpwhh0s1xMW6WjxRNJoqoZonEVeSOwgP0BSvnbrCCHtzo7lVGPRhYrnymmSEiMJ/s1600/loo+pic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="120" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6i-Dmbus34pOu1UoRhefE7XxsTU2M1awcRkTmlnyFsl5acB0SBp2c31KNvENWfj9ILm_GSbbfqWWRVqpwhh0s1xMW6WjxRNJoqoZonEVeSOwgP0BSvnbrCCHtzo7lVGPRhYrnymmSEiMJ/s200/loo+pic.jpg" width="200" /></a>I decided, for once, not to pursue the point and this strategy paid off. The design allowed for an in-built rubbish bin that would be housed in a hole cut into the wood next to the loo. Happily, however, we had visitors coming and time became of the essence so the loo was installed without the hole for the bin. This left a bare stretch of wood, which was just asking for a little something to be placed on it. Hmmm, now what shall I put there?Charwood Farm Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863491237964202263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-511559122801370529.post-55407745442897863082012-08-22T10:30:00.002+01:002012-09-02T01:50:27.755+01:00Out through the indoorOur awning blew away, you may recall, earlier this year – leaving us without a sizeable chunk of our accommodation and the dog traumatised for life.<br />
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The awning had come with the caravan and had, to put it mildly, seen better days. Bits of it were held together with duct tape and the roof leaked. But it was by and large functional and home to items as varied as mallets, scooters and Barbie dolls, the latter of which went mouldy – so that was a bit of a result.<br />
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In fact, just about everything went mouldy in that awning. It was dark and damp and therefore conducive to mould. I didn't realise how much I hated it <a href="http://charwoodfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/awning-chasm.html">until the day in May</a> when it blew away. Once it had gone, I felt a lightening of my soul and a connection with the great outdoors that I was lacking.<br />
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Without it in place, I could throw open the doors of the caravan and feel at one with the world around; and without it, I could experience the elements in a visceral fashion as I stumbled blearily in the morning from trailer to caravan. This may sound slightly miserable, and no doubt would have been in the depths of December, but was not at all unpleasant in the spring – not even in the rain.<br />
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However, such alfresco pleasures could not go on for ever. We are a family of five trying to build a permaculture farm from scratch, and for both of those we need room to put things and keep them dry.<br />
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We reviewed our options at some length and in the end decided to veto another canvas awning. The last one had blown down and not been particularly effective, so we decided we would construct a wooden one instead. Well, I say 'we' – by which clearly I mean Gully, I merely functioned as the functionary.<br />
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As the walls started to go up, I felt a sense of being imprisoned. I had been glorifying in the close proximity of nature and now nature was beginning to recede. But I hadn't reckoned on the delights of our roof.<br />
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Every facet of our project has been thought through very carefully, particularly the use of materials. We had hoped to avoid using plastic – but sometimes plastic is the best material to use and enables other aspects of our plans to work. We needed a corrugated roof as the most effective surface from which to harvest rainwater while making use of as much natural light as possible. And so we reluctantly arrived at the conclusion that PVC sheets would be the best thing for a roof.<br />
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But the resulting effect is fabulous. The space is filled with natural light and feels very much as though it is part of the outdoors. Underfoot there is mud and in places grass and, er, weeds, all of which heighten the effect. I can plant my tomatoes and peppers direct into the ground where they get full sun through the roof creating an indoor garden effect. And the rain harvesting capacity is amazing – we filled up a large-capacity container in a single afternoon of intermittent showers.<br />
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So I am very happy with our new space – as are the cats, who, when they are not filling it with dead things, bask in the sunlight that pores through the roof. And it will be great in the winter when a little insipid sunshine should warm it up nicely.<br />
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It all just goes to show that good things can come of bad – although I'm not sure the dog would agree.Charwood Farm Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863491237964202263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-511559122801370529.post-83281153897070061232012-08-19T10:30:00.001+01:002012-08-19T00:29:32.804+01:00Having a field day'Let me get this straight,' said my friend Bridget. 'You're going on holiday – to a field.'<br />
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I've have been away a fair bit over the past few weeks, hence the lack of posts, and did indeed spend some of it in a tent in a field. A change, after all, being as good as a rest – even if it is swapping a very basic way of life in one field, for an equally basic way of life in another. Still, it was lovely. The kids spent the time going feral and filthy – so no change there – and the dog basked happily in the love of an admiring fan club. This consisted of a little girl and boy who lived in a nearby tent and who knew the hallmark of a truly noble beast when they saw one – unlike my children who will keep on insisting the dog is fat and intellectually challenged.<br />
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In fairness, I did get to spend some time in a hotel too, spending long hours in the bath to the annoyance of my sister with whom I was sharing a room. 'She's making the most of it,' my Mum said – and I was. I had spent a fortune on bathroom treats and was up to my ears in hot fragrant bubbles, a copy of National Geographic in one hand and a cup of tea in the other. Believe me, there is nothing like a bit of hot bath deprivation to truly appreciate a good long soak. In fact, I think next time I'll just pass on the sight-seeing and spend the entire break in the bath.<br />
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This holiday came at a bad time in terms of our planning application. We had to appeal within a month of our enforcement notice and this deadline coincided with my gadding about the country on pleasure bent.<br />
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Most of this year has been taken up with planning in one way or another. This requires an enormous amount of time spent on the computer in writing and research. Without electricity or the internet, this annoyingly has to be largely done in a library. Now don't get me wrong, I think libraries are proof of the inherent goodness of mankind and I am completely with Stephen Fry, who has lauded public libraries as 'unreservedly great'. However, our nearest library is nine miles away and it is not always convenient to pop there to look up a minor point of planning law – moreover, it is shut on Wednesdays.<br />
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We can, at a pinch, look up some things on the internet using the mobile phone, but in order to do this we have to stand very still on a particular spot in the caravan, facing east and trying not to breathe. While we do this, the internet very, very slowly loads; each new page we click on also loads at a snail's pace, then, just as the page we want appears, we breathe, or shift our weight slightly and the connection is lost. Then we curse and stamp about and kick the dog and this is therefore not a healthy exercise for anyone, particularly the dog.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMU59rLMDMwSogfzSDoZdvx6ikPiOZMJ1OdEQStcaSyCR9YQZlwa4gmxorr5ubZ6SoVg7r8xDSXOCZCsc1mn5QLVcgmU1YqZxHInskALaoQCOdJLUsdHFMmtR30zNSExn_IKzC5E4E9QoV/s1600/flowersinfield.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMU59rLMDMwSogfzSDoZdvx6ikPiOZMJ1OdEQStcaSyCR9YQZlwa4gmxorr5ubZ6SoVg7r8xDSXOCZCsc1mn5QLVcgmU1YqZxHInskALaoQCOdJLUsdHFMmtR30zNSExn_IKzC5E4E9QoV/s200/flowersinfield.jpg" width="200" /></a>So all this palaver has robbed us of time we could have spent preparing the field. Still, the appeal is in now and although we have plenty of work to do for it at least the deadline is not imminent and we can now turn our attention back to the field and preparing for tree planting.<br />
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But before that can happen, I've still got a couple of camping trips to fit in before the end of summer.<br />
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You can take the girl out of the field ....Charwood Farm Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863491237964202263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-511559122801370529.post-80679382759779311412012-07-15T10:30:00.001+01:002012-07-15T10:30:02.595+01:00School of fraughtMy nine-year-old daughter had her first day at school last week.<br />
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This was, and remains, her choice – I was happy to home educate to the end, but she wants to give school a go and so off she went for a taster day, attired in white and grey with an enormous bag on her back containing a solitary apple.<br />
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It was, by no means, the first day she has spent away from home – but it was the only time she has been away where I have felt her absence so keenly, I suppose because it was a presentiment of the future.<br />
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My little girl is sparky and bright and in many ways my chief companion in the family, we can actually have a real conversation about books or music – if I appear a little down in the dumps, she will notice, if I ask for help, she is the one who jumps up.<br />
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My boys, by contrast, tend to occupy their own planet. A friend once observed that boys broadly fall into two categories – William Browns or Hubert Lanes – and my two are definitely Williams. They are fabulous, inventive, outrageous and funny, but with the emotional range of a frog.<br />
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So, the morning dragged by very slowly without my chatty little friend. About midday, Matty looked up from his Lego a vague thought having surfaced. 'Where's Zena?' he asked.<br />
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'She's at school, dear,' I replied with exaggerated patience.<br />
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He digested this apparent news silently for a while, then his face lit up with enthusiasm. 'Do you think,' he said 'that a little boy has crawled underneath her desk and tied her shoelaces together yet?' At this happy thought the entire male contingent of the family roared with laughter, this observation evidently being extremely hilarious.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZzu2b40ElVz6vgKh5JixB7V6avoljSyjXHf1R63969BcVUPxPkZ7uOIBHhldpkfgmINGCYrsFmmuk_HWu_1tbeXNYD5S-BLQOwlXLeR6K7jtbaW2IZm0B0HBxOsCrSF7C1GXuORtwwSOO/s1600/allosaurus-dinosaur.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="140" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZzu2b40ElVz6vgKh5JixB7V6avoljSyjXHf1R63969BcVUPxPkZ7uOIBHhldpkfgmINGCYrsFmmuk_HWu_1tbeXNYD5S-BLQOwlXLeR6K7jtbaW2IZm0B0HBxOsCrSF7C1GXuORtwwSOO/s200/allosaurus-dinosaur.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dinosaurs - overrated.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Time dragged by. I answered many, many questions on comparative sizes of various dinosaurs with a cat, our caravan, a blue whale, the moon and the planet Jupiter. I confirmed over and again that if our dog was eaten by a dinosaur or a shark or a lion that yes she would die and no, there, wouldn't be much left and yes, it is possible that one, all or none of the above would spit out her rectum like the cats do with mice bottoms.<br />
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I sought refuge tidying the trailer. At some point the boys appeared and left armed with teddies. I looked out of the window, they had lined them up and were shooting them with Nerf guns.<br />
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I made myself a nice cup of tea and sat down to enjoy it in peace only to notice that Matty was pulling savagely at the skin on his chest. 'What are you doing?' I asked irritably. He gave me a beaming, gap-toothed smile. 'I'm trying to see if I can pull my nipples off, Mumsies,' he said casually.<br />
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I leapt up and headed for the door. 'I'm going to pick up Zena,' I said 'and I don't care if school doesn't finish for another hour.'Charwood Farm Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863491237964202263noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-511559122801370529.post-49203518905560635792012-07-08T10:30:00.001+01:002012-07-08T10:30:00.898+01:00Unsung Heroes<div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"> </span></div><div style="color: black;"><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<div id="AOLMsgPart_1_6fc27541-cabf-49cb-9187-e57be1449904"><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: black;">We were served an enforcement letter last week giving us notice to remove ourselves from our land. <br />
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This we have been expecting since April when it came up before the planning committee, so it was hardly a surprise. Still, we thought the timing a bit strange – the council not yet having pronounced upon a complaint we have lodged regarding our treatment. <br />
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The Planning Inspectorate advises that the appeals process should be a last resort, all other avenues having been explored beforehand, therefore it seems a bit bizarre of the council to press on with enforcement without having finished considering our complaint – but I suppose the cogs of bureaucratic machinery must grind on regardless.<br />
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Friends and supporters have greeted this new development with dismay, but I honestly don't feel particularly upset by it. I knew it was going to happen at some point and now here it is. I also have a win-win view of the future regarding the farm. <br />
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Running a truly green business, living off-grid in a sustainable house and growing our own food is something of a dream. But the dream has become a wee bit tarnished by the campaign waged by some of the villagers against us, which I can't get my head around. I can understand that they may be suspicious of us and concerned about change but we are pretty anodyne, we don't indulge in pitbulls, parties or piercings – so why the nastiness? So, given all that, if we succeed that's fabulous and if we don't, well there are more tolerant places to live.<br />
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I decided a while back that the only way to cope with some of the harder aspects of our lifestyle was to view the journey as an enjoyable adventure. It is tempting to look to a time in the far future featuring a house and successful business and consider that to be the time to enjoy our achievements. But that is a long way off, or may not happen – and so I try to be mindful of the pleasure that exists now. I may point out acidly, for instance, that other women have taps as I struggle to manipulate the heavy water bottle to fill the kettle, but actually, there is a part of me that quite enjoys the process. Heaven knows what it is, some primeval urge to connect with water in a way that taps don't provide, perhaps.<br />
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And there are many golden moments to enjoy. In the absence of a telly or electrical entertainment, the kids are so inventive and funny.</span></span></span></div><div id="AOLMsgPart_1_6fc27541-cabf-49cb-9187-e57be1449904"><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></span></span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLTHfKxndJB-YO6VrCFITa4wiZuFPhrJCV8JJaRrM6NSVgubcSAD_Ek0yfgzGXs2AdkE7Ev1_RWeZpmhBnxNpKdV0G0wDnH36suuUdKLV72utvEiTJe_r126aJfGk4JBRiy7qrVUZvHuxV/s1600/reapa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="148" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLTHfKxndJB-YO6VrCFITa4wiZuFPhrJCV8JJaRrM6NSVgubcSAD_Ek0yfgzGXs2AdkE7Ev1_RWeZpmhBnxNpKdV0G0wDnH36suuUdKLV72utvEiTJe_r126aJfGk4JBRiy7qrVUZvHuxV/s200/reapa.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Toxic Reapa – rubbish at ballet.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div id="AOLMsgPart_1_6fc27541-cabf-49cb-9187-e57be1449904"><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: black;">Earlier this week I was highly amused to find our Lego Heroes partaking in a dance class. Lego Heroes, in case you do not have small boys – or girls for that matter – are ugly things that liberally litter every available surface of our limited living space. Their saving grace, as with all Lego, is that they offer some sort of engineering opportunity and keep the kids amused for hours. Other than that they are a pain, particularly when stepped upon in the dark.</span></span></span></div><div id="AOLMsgPart_1_6fc27541-cabf-49cb-9187-e57be1449904"><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></span></span></div><div id="AOLMsgPart_1_6fc27541-cabf-49cb-9187-e57be1449904"><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: black;">Anyway, as I watched the latest addition, Toxic Reapa, being put very thoroughly through his petit-jetes it occurred to me that life doesn't get much richer, and that's worth an enforcement notice any time.<br />
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</span></span> </span></div></div><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"> </span>Charwood Farm Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863491237964202263noreply@blogger.com0