Growing up, old socks, bedtime kisses and change.
I’m growing up. No, honestly I am!
When we look at our children, we see how fast they grow and how quickly they become independent of us. If we look at ourselves it is easy to think that we haven’t changed, now we have ‘made it’ to adulthood.
We are who we are. In reality we are still changing every day. I understand you will know that, but I do have to remind myself!
I was looking back over my website and the content that was written when I first started this ‘bloggers’ journey. Almost two years have passed, and I can see that so much has changed.
Not besides the fact that two of our wonderful ‘Team Sheep’ have crossed over to that big field in the sky. I haven’t had the heart to change their ‘CV’. Time moves on and we all change with it. Even the dogs in our lives.
I started the website and my Instagram page, @myexmoorstory, because I was stuck on a little temporary bed in my farmhouse kitchen. I had a back injury and was waiting for an operation. I had always been a very active person, running, yoga, horse riding, working and training my gundogs and, of course, farm work. All alongside being a mother to three equally active children. Suddenly I was stopped dead. Unable to drive or walk further than across the kitchen with the help of crutches. Let’s just say that I was pretty miserable!
Strangely though, I wasn’t as miserable as I thought I would be. I certainly had a lot of time to think! It ultimately led me to realise some surprising things about myself.
1. I will not quit.
I will try my very, very hardest to succeed. Sometimes I will win. Other times, I understand now, there is no shame in admitting defeat. You did your best. You didn’t quit, you fought to the end.
2. I am resilient.
Life is a shocker sometimes! I have learnt my own coping strategy. I dream of how the future will look. If I can’t sleep, if I’m stressed, anxious or perhaps in the dentist chair! I flesh out my dreams of what life on the other side of this ‘shocker’ will be. It may be as simple as imagining the next gallop along Woolacombe Beach, I imagined that often when I was injured. If I really need to transport my mind away, when everything feels too much to bear, I build a picture in my mind of how my life will be after the waves have ceased to crash on my head, when the waters are calm. I imagine the peace that will be there. Then I shake myself down and carry on with whatever needs to be done.
3. I am patient.
Recovery from any injury can take a lot longer than expected. It can be extremely frustrating! Patience is definitely a learnt skill. A very valuable one too. Breeze taught me that.
I had bought the little Working Cocker in Wales, at nine months old, from a trialling man. She was a completely blank canvas, and arrived in the February, only months before I was struggling to walk. I worried that I would be wasting our valuable training months, and was devastated when I finally had to accept that her first year with me would be a right off.
Only, it wasn’t!
Breeze and I bonded over a pair of my old socks, rolled along the kitchen floor. Early retrieving lessons, from my bed in the kitchen, led to calm cuddles and an awful lot of stroking! Which was wonderful for both of us. Lessons progressed in this way. Small, short and fun, with the socks changing to dummies, and feathers and fur occasionally. We both learnt that sitting side by side, was exactly where we preferred to be. I finally had the operation on my spine in the December. I was able to walk Breeze out(still on my crutches) to the back of the shoot drive, on beautiful Exmoor, at the end of the following January.
She sat calmly by my side, listening to everything I said, just as if I were in my kitchen. We quietly watched the events unfold. Bloody hell!! What a day! I was so happy to be back. When the guns had stopped firing, I sent her for a few easy retrieves, and she delivered the pheasants to my hand, looking a little surprised that these old socks were so heavy! We left the field with my fabulous shooting friends carrying Breezes birds for me. What a feeling!
Nothing was ruined. No time had been wasted. She was a better dog, having been given time to mature, and we had a greater bond, than if I had steamed on with her training. Patience won the day.
Little Breeze is still a treat to work. Calm, clever, always off a lead and never far from my side.
After this special day, I waved cheerfully goodbye to my shooting friends, with yells of ‘See you next season!’ Promptly slamming the car door shut on my finger. Aaaarrgggghh! What an exit!
4. I can embrace change.
Now Breeze, Flo, Torro and I are back working on the partridge and pheasant shoots for the Winter. How odd it feels in this strange year. Masks worn in the shoot vehicles, rubber gloves to pick up the birds with, and the worst part is that the beaters and pickers teams are kept separate. Such a shame. Camaraderie and friendship(plus a good soup!) is what makes the day so enjoyable. At least we are out there, getting wet, and making the very most of it!
Soon enough the days will be even busier, as the cattle will soon be moved back into the barns for the Winter, and we will be putting the rams in with our ewes and looking forward to lambing. Some things never change. Farming, moving slowly with the seasons, stays at the heart of our lives on Exmoor.
The country’s enforced ‘slow down’ has been beneficial to some, not so for others. It has certainly led to some reflection here, of what might have been. Especially because my lovely Dad finally passed away after a long, and terrible, battle with dementia. We were unable to see him, as he was ‘locked’ into his care home, for many months. When we finally did see him, at the end, he didn’t know us anymore. He was finally laid to rest, after a service celebrating his long and happy life. Although it was not without it’s trials, as in every life. Seeing the men that he loved, son, grandsons and son-in-laws carrying him into the church and laying him in his final resting place was so touching. It felt as if we were looking after him, as he had done us, to the very last act. Tucking him up and kissing him goodnight. It was a good, long life, but it still felt too soon for him to go. A life without him in it looks very different now.
5. I am brave.
Looking back on one of my early blog posts: “How dreams, self belief, looking for adventure…and ferrets…led us to Exmoor”(I don’t go for short titles!) I re-read the final lines: “Searching for a better way to live how we choose, and having faith in dreams and adventure.” However much we, or our world, are changing, I want to hold onto this.
So don’t be frightened of what might be coming! You could be pleasantly surprised. Remember that change can be positive too. Just imagine what could be on the other side??
6. 7. 8. 9 etc etc…… aren’t such desirable personal qualities, so we will gloss over those. No one is perfect!!