DEFRAyed Sums

A smallholder friend was decribing his dealings with DEFRA.

His holding is really very Small indeed – he rents a little strip of field, not that much bigger than an allotment, on which he grazes a couple of goats.

Because of this, he is legally obliged to register with DEFRA, in exchange for which they send him annually a wad of glossy colour brochures, guides and forms; enough, laid end to end with the pages separated, to paper over the plot in question. Except the goats would eat the paper.

In his first year of registration, DEFRA sent him a cheque for £3.24. Not, apparently, in recognition of any good work done by the goats, or by him. They didn’t even know about the goats, or ask what he was using the land for.

After a period of silent contemplation, DEFRA then announced that he had been underpaid for whatever they were paying him for, and forwarded a cheque for a further17 pence.

Last year, DEFRA sent him £103.44. He still has no idea why.

This means that either:
a) Whatever he was doing in the first year that so pleased DEFRA, he is now accidentally doing a great deal more of.
Or:
b) This increase represents some form of standard practice on the part of DEFRA.

If (b), then the British Smallholder has never had it so good.

Just look at the sums:
Year 1
1 x tiny strip of land = £3.41
Year 2
Same tiny strip of land = £103.44
This, if I’ve got my figures right, represents an annual increase of over 3000%
Therefore:
Year 3
Same tiny strip of land = £103.44 x 3000% average annual increase = £3,090
Year 4
Same tiny strip of land = £92,700

And so forth, until in around Year 8 he can buy his own Caribbean Island.

All this, of course, is not allowing for the profits on goats’ milk sales.

Anybody got a 30 acre field I could rent?

Affairs of the Heart - the Offal Truth

Number One Son has just asked for £6 to buy an ox heart. It’s for Art. GCSE that is, not St Martins Diploma, so he’s not going to staple it to a wall or marinate it in formaldehyde. Just paint its portrait.

Two points struck me. ‘What are you going to do with it afterwards?’

I was worried about decomposition: his art projects tend to go on for weeks.

‘ I suppose you want me to bring it home so you can cook it’ he said sardonically.

Which brings me to the other point. £6 for an ox heart? I can get a whole chicken for that, or a nice piece of sirloin.

‘Ox hearts are pretty big’ he pointed out.

‘And you only get one per ox’ I agreed.

When you think about it, the heart and tail are the only bits of an ox anyone eats. What a terrible waste of an animal.

I don’t like waste. Part of not being a vegetarian is not wasting the body of something killed for food. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall taught a group of initiates how to make three meals from one chicken, including soup.

‘Amazing’ said one ‘We usually just eat the breast and throw the rest away.’

Amazing.

The other day a TV presenter persuaded passersby to eat budget beefburgers, then told them the burgers were made from heart. His victims promptly spat them out, gagging.

The presenter then demanded the manufacturer come clean about the real content of these ‘so called 100% beef burgers’.

Hold on. A cow is 100% beef, and that includes the heart. What wrong with eating it? And what on earth do people think burgers are made of? Prime fillet?

The fillet of a cow is a pretty small strip along the spine – try feeling your own for meatiness and you’ll see what I mean. Rump, ribs, silverside and all the rest still account for only a modest percentage of a very big animal. The rest needs eating too.

My grandmother used to serve cow heel pie (it was appalling). My parents ate tripe (not bad, but cruel to apprentice butchers, who have to wash it). My father loved a stuffed sheep’s heart.

What would you stuff an ox heart with? A sheep’s heart, perhaps. Like those roasts at Tudor banquets, you could keep stuffing one heart inside another, from sheep to hare to partridge, right down to a teensy-weensy little wren heart right in the middle.

Ah, but who would eat the rest of the wren? Maybe wrenburgers could catch on.

Be Very Afraid....

The power of detention without charge is not exclusive to the Prevention of Terrorism Act. British Waterways are getting in on the act, with a draconian approach to improper mooring.

Counting Sheep

In the beginning there was Dolly.

The original Dolly the sheep was, you’ll remember, cloned. This Dolly’s genesis is even more impressive – she was immaculately conceived.

The field behind Garden Cottage was rented to a keeper of rare-breed sheep. This spinster population, with its dark brown fleeces, white blazes, and long fluffy white-tipped bottle-brush tails, were virgin ewes. One, however, was later found to be mysteriously pregnant - father unknown. The resulting lamb was adopted, and christened, by Rupert and Jo.

In due course, and by more conventional means, Dolly begat Molly and Dolly and Molly between them begat Polly and Holly. All very Jolly, but then Holly (or possibly Polly) succumbed to a virus. Being a pampered pet rather than livestock, she received the finest medical attention, but perished.

Jo asked the vet how best to dispose of the remains of her Loved One, and he recommended a specialist. The specialist, having mistaken Holly for just another dead sheep, flung the carcase into a skip, causing Jo to go into hysterics. The corpse was duly rescued and given a decent Christian burial at home.

So now there are three: Dolly, Molly and (I think) Polly. Rupert has built a beautiful timber and brick barn, one half of which he uses as a Summer workshop and party venue; the other half as a sheepfold. A couple of hurdles divide the two activities, and man and sheep make a charming group as straw, wood-shavings, droppings and cigar smoke intermingle.

When they find time for a bit of outdoor living, the sheep stand together on the ridge of a strip of field acquired specially for them, simpering like Three Little Mikado Maids in a row, or in times of stress (sheep have a lot of these), taking turns to stand meerkat-like on sentry duty, eyeing me malevolently.

Having moved from quartet to trio, Rupert and Jo have decided three is enough. So, barring another immaculate conception, there will never be a flock.

This is a shame. I was looking forward to Folly the daft sheep, Solly the Jewish sheep, Bolly the classy sheep, Collie, the sheep that thinks it’s a sheepdog, and so forth. What a sad waste of names.

And, of course, of cutlets.

Elergy in a Country Churchyard

My friend C tells me she wants to be buried (once she's dead, of course) in a particular country churchyard. I was surprised, as her church of choice had seemed to me rather a monster - an ancient, barn-like structure servicing a tiny hamlet, the few parishoners huddling together round an oil heater in the apse of a Sunday.

But the countryside is spectacular, and C's words made me revisit the place.

She's right. The churchyard is special, a complete history of local families over 200 years and more - the names of local farms and farmers echoing through generations. Ancient snaggle-toothed memorials watch over more recent sadnesses. Like the shiny granite slab engraved with a drumkit: propped against it, the framed photograph of a grinning young man.

There's a fabulous walk from the church, down a long avenue of slanting young birches past a beautiful Elizabethan farmhouse (whose earlier owners are back in the churchyard: even in death I envy them their former home). I've been here before, but one thing is new. A cluster of bouquets by the roadside, and with them another copy of that same photograph.

How did he die in such an empty, solitary place? There's nothing to crash into, no buildings, never any traffic. Such a short distance, with a wide world of possibilities still in view, to travel from death to eternity.

C will travel a longer journey, hopefully a long time hence, but perhaps she'll join the young drummer here one day. She's very pretty and sweet: they should hit it off well together.

Walking By The Book

Why do I do it? Why do I buy books of guided walks when they always get me lost?

This walk featured a village famous for its water buffalo herd. I hoped to stumble across this (not literally, though these are apparently the gentler, oriental, ikebana-arranging variety, not the larger African ‘Big-5’ type than hangs out with lions and rhinos) en route.

The first herd I came upon was a mixed one: designer sheep, alpacas, ducks and, I kid you not, emus. I was clearly in silly farming territory, just the place to breed bonsai water buffalo. The Book then sent me through a barbed wire fence (‘Here you will find a stile’), down several wrong turns and into a farmyard. Here I found a notice saying the farm was closed for ‘Saturday Sabbath’ but that, otherwise, hikers and cyclists were welcome to come and look around – the equivalent, to most Warwickshire farmers, of inviting paedophiles to tour a primary school. Alongside, shaggy highland cattle were enjoying their Sabbatical before a magnificent red brick windmill. Perfect.

And the village, when I finally found it, was glorious – tumbling down the steep hillside in a confusion of gable ends, jutting bays and terraces. At its base, as instructed by The Book, I set off down a cart track.

The next bit was my fault. ‘You come to a gate’ The Book said. I came to a nice gate, on the left, and went through it. ‘You come to another gate’ it continued. I came to a stile, but decided that counted. Next came a pool ‘where cup and saucer lilies can be seen’ said The Book, forgetting it was January. Then I found another, then another, then some anglers and a great many brambles and was clearly in the wrong place entirely

The village loomed reassuringly above me throughout, and I now found myself, Alice-like, heading inexorably back towards it. Resigned, I started again the cart track.

This time I found the correct gate. And the second gate. And another pool. And was utterly lost: the countryside had clearly undergone some sort of tectonic shift since the author of The Book last visited.

I abandoned The Book and relied on instinct, stumbling through field after field of cattled-churned mud, wading through brooks and straddling fences. I must have trespassed through every field in the area, without coming across a single water-buffalo herd. Though by then I was well past caring.

Eventually, plunging through a hedge, I reached a lane – civilisation at last. There, parked by a solitary house, was a white van with ‘-ton Buffalo Herd’ painted on its side.

I hadn’t seen the Buffalo, but I know now where their road crew hangs out.

Back home, exhausted, I replaced The Book on its shelf. We’d had our differences, but we’d had fun. Next time, I’ll try a different walk. I never do learn.

Of wheels and water

Thos. Beeching and James Brindley - the lazy cyclist’s friends. Beeching created nice flat disused railway cuttings: Brindley constructed nice flat canals. Thanks to them, I can travel goodish distances through beautiful countryside with hardly a gear change.

Which is as well, because my handlebars become clammy with fear once I hit the towpath. I’m frightened of falling in the canal. Again.

I’d got the idea from somewhere than anyone falling into a canal is immediately sucked under lock gates, and drowns. It doesn’t help that bridges over canals are so very low. They have to be, of course; bargees would lie on their backs and ‘walk’ their craft through the tunnels. So for me, there’s always the debate – get off and push, or cycle under the bridge, horribly close to the water’s edge, wobbling with nerves. When alone, I push. When anyone’s watching, I cycle. That’s how I fell in.

The bike, remarkably, managed to pitch me head first into the water whilst itself remaining safe and dry on the path, sniggering. The stranger whose presence had caused me to brave the tunnel in the first place was not young, but strong-ish. He had to be, as, whilst I wasn’t sucked anywhere (I wasn’t even out of my depth) I couldn’t climb out - canal walls are wedge-shaped, narrowing at the top, and unscaleable. The poor man had to haul me out and land me like a salmon. So undignified.

I had no option but to remount and cycle, my white shirt and jeans dripping blood and slime, several miles home. It says much for the British character that not a soul, on that busy, sunny day, raised an eyebrow as, filthy, wet and bleeding, I pedalled past.

So the other week I faced my fears. It was an icy day and the canal was frozen, which felt safer, until an icebreaking barge ground slowly through, exposing its wintry depths. I cycled the frozen, rutted towpath, my rear wheel slewing beneath me occasionally, terrifying but never quite jettisoning me. At each tunnel, I dismounted, remounting shakily on the other side.

I made it to the railway cutting, and home, without falling off once. I think I have beaten my fears; the canal system is my oyster once more.

And still it snows....

Day 5. Still snowing. This morning we ate the last of the huskies. Sent a dove out for emergency supplies, but it came back with an olive branch. Must have mis-read the shopping list.

No good, I’m going stir-crazy. Have to get out. With nothing left to pull the car, I head off by bike.

The woods are perfect, a glittering white crust coating each filigree twig, like Narnia under White Witch’s spell. The big evergreens are shaped into the pointy triangles of a child’s drawing, branches dragged downward under the weight of snow.

Out of the woods, only a single set of footprints crosses the biggest field as a stretches over the horizon in a waste of white. So now at last I know for certain where the footpath runs. I follow the prints, Wenceslas-like.

‘Aha, a Dunlop Acifort Ribbed Size 11, if I am not mistaken, Watson. You will remember my monograph on the subject. A large man, no longer young, unused to exercise, right-handed, whose wife has very recently been murdered’

‘Remarkable, Holmes. You deduce his size and health from the depth and spacing of the footprints, of course. But right-handed?’

‘You will observe a pattern of dashes and dots to the right of the footprints, Watson. They do not appear initially, but as he tires he lowers his walking stick and uses it for support. Either that, or he has suddenly been joined by a friend on a pogo stick.’

‘And the murdered wife?’

‘Simplicity itself, Watson. We’ve just observed him murdering her’

There are other prints. Foxes and rabbits, playing life-and-death tag across the landscape. And less readily identifiable spoor.

‘My God Holmes, but surely these are the tracks some gigantic sheep!’

‘More probably a Woozle and two, as it were, Wizzles, walking in close formation, Watson. Calm yourself - the Ram of the Baskervilles remains the stuff of legend.’

There’s no sign of the animals who normally graze here. Perhaps they've been taken into the adjoining Hall, now a management college. That should up the overall IQ a bit.

Later, I find them. The sheep have been herded into a single field, where they are picking over a heap of mangle-wurzels and complaining about the catering. The cattle are penned behind a barn which is stacked solid to the high roof, Rachel Whiteread style, with rich golden hay. Must feel like living next to a sweet shop or a gingerbread house.

This reminds me. I’ve forgotten to buy supplies. But I have a tin of anchovies and a freezerful of raspberries at home still. I too shall feast tonight.

The Giant Plastic Robin Strikes

Nemesis. Atilla II is dead. Utensil, who we don't feel is suited to extended widowhood, will be rehomed up the road tonight. Three Light Sussexes are going to get the fright of their lives when she wakes amongst them in a fury tomorrow.

In Rupert and Jo's courtyard this morning we saw a large and handsome fox, red-gold against the snow and looking straight through the kitchen window at us, bold as brass. Rupe grabbed his gun without much hope, and we hurried outside.

The fox had gone into the walled garden, and not to the back where Jo tends the National Herd of Indian Running Ducks (Jo's ducks breed like rabbits - except of course they have ducklings, not bunnies - making her largest breeder in England, by default). I hurried back through the field to Garden Cottage and ran about our gardens making anti-fox noises ('Oy, fox, go away!' and similar - all very embarrassing) whilst the chooks regarded me balefully from under their usual hedge.

Then I went indoors. An hour later, we noticed that Utensil was alone. A couple feathers, white against the white snow, were the only sign of anything amiss. It had been soundless and, apparently bloodless. Atilla was fox-food. And Ute could not have looked less bothered. So much for the sisterhood

So that's it. We are no longer chicken owners. The giant plastic robin of fate as struck. We have skiied right off the cake and are in free-fall.

U

The More It Snows, Tiddly Pom

Laugh and the world laughs with you: cry, and something or other interrupts you just when you want to wallow alone your grief.

How can I mourn the loss of Garden Cottage when we are suddenly snowed into it, sons and all (the schools having meanly evicted them at the first snowflake). True, our landlord could still technically wade across the lawn and, twirling his moustaches in true Victorian melodrama style, cast us out into the icy storm, but as we’re on six months notice it’s not really likely.

So here we huddle, snowbound.

Outside, my elderly car is hunched like a leveret in its form, wing mirrors flat against its head, under a tarpaulin weighed down with snow. In an ideal world the poor old dear would be indoors in this weather,, but the garges are needed to store detritus including our award-winning collection of power saws, two broken wardrobes and a dead Range Rover. Clearly these valuable objects take precedence over my cold but faithful Citroen.

So I set off for a walk, mainly because with so very much snow you feel you ought to do something about it. Number 2 Son had already shown enterprise by sliding down the front slope on a black plastic bin liner. Number 1 Son had gone to earth with a pot of tea and Jeremy Clarkson – his response to most situations, climatic and otherwise. So it was up to me.

I got as far as the village, where I found several neighbours, rarely seen outside their natural habitats, wandering dazedly about like lost souls in Parkas, clutching plastic bags. Strange how the knowledge that you really are genuinely snowed in creates an immediate urge to acquire provisions, regardless of need. Owners of freezers full of lamb and arders stuffed with homegrown vegetables are suddenly filled with a primitive urge to venture out like Scott of the Antarctic, foraging for frozen peas and tinned ham.

Having admired the ham, I broke to my neighbours the sad news of our not-very-immenent departure. They immediately suggested clubbing together and purchase Garden Cottage; not, as would have been appropriately touching, to present it to me, but to stop the previous occupants from moving back in.

These occupants, christened (not by their mothers, I’m guessing) ‘The Witch and the Warlock,’ were of unspecified but frightful awfulness.

‘They went off to live opposite Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’ One neighbour added ‘Next we heard, he’d sold River Cottage and moved. We knew just how he felt.’

For a micro-community (two dozen at most) we manage an impressive level of hostilities. The current blood-feud, a complex matter centring on a potential balcony overlooking a hot tub, threatens run through generations.

On into the innocent fields I stomped, the crisp new snow crunching underfoot, burying the ploughed earth and plopping in lumps off branches.

There is a mouth-watering quality in the tart crunch of deep, virgin snow. It reminds me of childhood Christmas cakes, with their scenes of Father Christmas skiing downhill through thickly ruffled white royal icing.

The skiing Father Christmas figure took advantage of the natural gradient of my mother’s homemade cakes At the bottom of the icing sugar hill, his arrival would traditionally be keenly awaited by a red plaster pillar box with a yellowing snow roof and a crusty base of last year’s icing, and a brown plastic robin the comparative size of an Alsatian.

Crunching back to the warm glow my soon-to-be-someone-else’s home, I reflected that, for me, as for skiing Father Christmas, life is full of unpredictable developments. Even in our most carefree moments, the brown plastic robin on Nemesis awaits us all.

At the Turning of the Year

Twelfth Night, and its snowing again. This is the most beautiful winter I can remember. Cycling along the frozen rutted ground. I watch the low slung sun turn the silvery frost-spiked world all fierce bronze and dusky pink, a scene as improbably vulgar as a Christmas card painting, but magical. In the garden Jonathan, his face two red cheeks sandwiched between a startling turquoise bobble hat and many layers of leather and knitted collars, his glasses glinting with snowflakes, attacks the snow-capped evergreens flourishing amongst gaunt, bare fruit trees.

Twelfth night, and I am disentangling withered ivy and dusty holly from light fittings and picture frames. The Christmas tree, still as fresh and festive as ever, will nevertheless make its way to the bonfire tonight. And as I strip it of lights and tinsel, I am crying.

Because it’s over. Not Christmas, or the year, but everything.

We have to leave. The landlord is selling our cottage. He wants the money, and the land, to extend his own land which marches with, and is now muscling in on, our own.

We’ll find somewhere to go. The children must live somewhere and so, I suppose, must I. But not like this.

And the tears just don't seem able to stop. I had thought I was braver than this.

It was to be A Year, you see – the diary of one annual cycle of the Warwickshire countryside. I was looking forward to blogging about spring bulbs, apple blossom, the Horticultural Show, the Summer Fete and, eventually, the glorious climax of the Harvest Festival, where churches round here as stuffed fuller than at Christmas. I’d even got my name down for a half-allotment (a sort of ‘starter-allotment’ for the nervous amateur) and together we could have planted leeks and broccoli and sat in potting sheds amongst broken flowerpots watching them fail to flourish and contemplating other, more successful patches.

But I cheated. I didn't tell you that this place was not really mine, that I was just a tenant, living in a dream world, pretending this could be forever.

I have lived too long.

But at least I have lived. I used to wonder what paradise could be like, and whether I’d actually enjoy it much anyway. Now I know. Paradise is a garden, the garden of Garden Cottage. And I have enjoyed it very much indeed.