Family, farming on Exmoor, and a little taste of perfection.
Trawling through all my photos on my laptop recently, my mission was to sort them into labelled folders…dogs, farmhouse, nature shots, family etc… so I could access them for my writing. But I couldn’t stay on task!
The pictures of my family brought such rushes of emotion when they popped up on the screen. How small and very blond my children were! How windy that walk, with my father, at Putsborough beach had been. I could taste the salt air and remember vividly the sudden whoosh of quiet as the café door had closed behind us. It’s magical how images can bring senses and emotions back to you. Wonderful.
This all prompted me to change the picture on the lock screen of my phone. I chose one of my three children in the first year we lived in Devon. Such happy, crazy, beautiful little faces. I love it also because I can see their closeness to each other. They love each other. How great is that. Yes, they bicker now and again. Well, let’s face it, Alfie and Martha can be terrible! A famous quote from a car journey…
Alfie:” Martha, stop breathing so loudly!!”
Although, in his defence, everything Martha does is loud! But when the chips are down, someone’s hurt or sad, or just because. There are hugs on offer all around. They are very lucky to have each other’s support.
Alfie, Martha and George.
Nothing is better than sitting around our kitchen table together. The teasing, tales of the day and re-living funny or favourite moments together. Family time. Uninterrupted. Just us. It doesn’t always work of course. We are a very ‘normal’ family! At times someone could be feeling low, grumpy (could be me, but I’m not saying!) tired or just not up for family time. Whatever is happening we can allow for that and still be together. Time spent together is so important.
If you have seen my Instagram account, you will know that we are lambing on the farm right now. What a time to have been gifted. The weather, on the whole, has been spectacular! Starting with glorious sunshine, a fresh breeze and the moor never looking so beautiful. The last week has been a little more challenging, with freezing air from the Baltic and wintry showers. We have tried to keep the youngest lambs in the barn for as long as possible in this weather.
Martha in her pyjamas feeding lambs before school. With little Mole.
I love this time of year. Not just because the lambs are so cute…which is undeniable! But because as a family we all pull together to help. Not only the five of us, but my brother and sisters and dear friends too. We used to have lots of visitors coming to stay during lambing. I found I was having to think of making cakes for tea, cleaning the house, ironing sheets and cooking up a storm for our guests. Not anymore! It was too exhausting and horribly, I started resenting our guests.
We now only have our ‘crack team’ coming to visit. My brother J (my siblings and I are all known by our initials. It makes life easy and, I think, is a definite sign of affection.) and his wife Louise, (also affectionately known as Looby!) are here for five days this year. I begged (it’s true!) for them to come for longer this year. As I’m still struggling to regain my fighting form after last years events. Stamina, not only my back, is a problem. I REFUSE to believe it’s anything to do with age! So don’t even think it!
Looby and J. Part of my top lambing team
My dear friend, Sue, and her daughter were here last week. I have known Sue since our first children were born eighteen years ago. She has been my aggravator ever since! Apparently, she took an instant dislike to me when we first met. Thought I was snooty. Haha! I think she just can’t read superior character in a person. But there you go…! I think of them now as family too.
There is nothing like working together as a team. But it has to be the right team. There is a real joy in working with people who have a passion for the job too. I love to share that feeling of satisfaction when it all goes well. But sharing a disappointment is sometimes even better. Consoling each other and lifting spirits by companionship eases the pain. Being able to talk about something that has gone wrong, with someone who understands, really helps. There is also nothing better than a bit of team laughter to make the day rock along!
During lambing we all work as a well-oiled machine, well…maybe a little creaky at times, but you get the idea! It isn’t rocket science, but you do have to know what you are doing to make the system work. At the busiest times every person’s role is important. From Martha filling up the water buckets, no clean water means no milk from the mamas, to My Farmer making the final decisions on the welfare of a ewe with complications.
All team members are well practised in ‘lookering’. A term we use for when you cast your eye over the flock to look for anything unusual. Such as a lamb that’s wriggled out of its pen, one that’s alone in the field with an obvious empty stomach, or a ewe showing the first signs of labour. All eyes for ‘lookering’ are valuable when there is so much activity. It’s a bit like a family looking out for each other. What one person misses another picks up and acts on. Are you ok? You look a little poorly. Anything I can do?
I don’t live near my family now, and I miss them. Our adventure to Exmoor has changed my life and I love it, in more ways than I can explain. But if I could have all my family living within ‘popping in’ distance, it would be heaven. I have an identical twin sister who I am very close to emotionally…physically, for the past four years, we couldn’t have been further apart. She was living in Singapore! As children we swore that we would always be together and dreamed of being neighbours, with pretty houses and cousins growing up together. It wasn’t to be. But Facetime has helped a lot!
What I have now is also special. It enables me to have family here to stay where I have them captive for a few days. We can walk together, work together, share the chores, (I’m a dab hand at always having a ridiculously large ironing pile. Someone always takes pity on me. Thank you J!) and sit across the table together. I love to cook for them all. It all makes for very special times. Exmoor has given us that.
As our parents are all getting older and trips to visit here are less, it is becoming frustrating. It is hard to leave a farm and all its occupants. They are a needy bunch! On a traditional working farm, an extended family would live and work together. But it is less the reality today, with current farming incomes it is impossible to support several generations, it’s hard enough for one.
I didn’t know much about farming until I met My Farmer. We actually met in London. He was running his own successful advertising agency and I was working in fashion, designing and buying.
My Farmers vision was to have his own farm one day. It all started with his grandparents Northumbrian farm. He spent as much time there as he could as a child. Working. Not playing. He has always loved the feeling of a good, hard, physical days work. He relished being part of the team too. Turning up every morning to share breakfast with the farm labourers and be there when the jobs were handed out. Listening and soaking it all up as plans were made for tomorrow, next week and the year ahead. His grandmother, Mom, cooking and caring for everyone. Helping raise the many grandchildren living in cottages on the farm.
A picture hanging in our farmhouse kitchen of My Farmer, as a four year old, on his grandfathers Northumbrian farm.
As time moved on there wasn’t room for a job for him on the farm and his parents moved south for his fathers’ job. He moved on through many types of jobs, looking for a career to stimulate him. He found it in advertising, but his love for farming never dimmed. It led us to our own farm.
It was my childhood growing up on the North Cornwall coast, and holidays with my girlfriends and our young children, that brought us to search for a home in the West Country. It had been a magical way to grow up. Such freedom to roam in the most wild and beautiful countryside and exploring the stunning coastline and beaches. It really stirred my imagination. So although I had never lived on a farm before I have a love of wild places, natural beauty and the sense of freedom those places bring.
It would be wonderful if I could step back in time to a slower pace of life, where families live close to one another and we are more in tune with our natural surroundings.
Exmoor has brought me most of the things I wanted, offering them to me when I hadn’t realised I was looking for them. Having my family share a little part of our lives here, through their lambing visits especially, gives me a little taste of perfection.