smallholderwannabe

This blog is mainly a rambling kind of diary of the transition from smallholderwannabe to smallholder.

Saturday, August 26, 2006

Well, the holidays are nearly over. Just this last week and it is back to work again for another 11 months. There are so many jobs on that to-do list which have been left until this last week... And there are lots of jobs that have been done because that list was really long this year.

We've just come back from being away camping. We spent 3 days in Devon with family and then went to mid-Wales for 10 days. In between we came home for 2 days and had to rush out and buy a new washing machine because the old one finally threw an enormous wobbly. It is 16 1/2 years old and parts are no longer available so we just went out and bought a new one. In all those years we only had to mend one part, so that old machine did us really well. I can almost forgive it for chewing up and ruining all those clothes in the last two loads.

It was good to catch up with family for a bit and great to be away camping. We stayed at a farm which had a little field for tents (New House Farm, Rhosgoch). They just had 5 pitches but one night there were 7 tents. It was really quiet - apart from the cockerel on the neighbouring farm. He had a really raucous crow. Our farm had a cockerel whose crow was really polite and restrained in comparison. They had hens, ducks (khakis) and highland cattle. And 8 horses, one of which was in foal. They must pay an awful lot of money to the blacksmith every year.

There is lots of moorland near the farm - several different areas - and we spent most of our time out on the moors. We'd take a flask and have a cup of tea at the car, with nobody else in sight for the most part, and then go for a walk. We met a lot of sheep but saw hardly another person at all. We are so busy for the rest of the year that I really appreciate the chance to be antisocial and go off completely on our own.

We went to look at several properties but didn't like any of them. The estate agent's details and the reality of a property seem to be very different things! We'll maybe get the chance to go and look at a few more potential homes in February again.

We've just been out to do the shopping and I've had a sit-down and a cup of tea, so I'd better go and see if I can cross one more job off that list today.