Rural rollercoaster

It’s been nearly 18 months now since we moved to Wales and with that milestone has come the slow, dawning realisation that this is not just a long holiday, a sabbatical or half way through anything. This is it. This is for real. This is actually our life now. And with that realisation comes a whole host of ups and downs that can send you from euphoric, “couldn’t-ever-imagine-living-anywhere-else” highs to “holy f***, what the hell have we done, send me back to the city quick” panics, sometimes all within the space of the same hour.

For someone who has effectively made a complete lifestyle change geared around food, you’d think we inhabit a world of complete foodie heaven, savouring the fruits of our labours and convincing ourselves that nothing comes close to the taste of your own pork or carrots or eggs. And for the most part you’d be right. Sweeping into the kitchen (when we had one) in floaty skirt and oversized straw hat (in my imagination - in reality an old pair of dirty jeans and oversized fleece) with a basket of freshly picked fruit and veg over my arm like a Country Living pin-up, I genuinely couldn’t be happier. But then sometimes, just sometimes, you fancy spending a carefree Sunday afternoon in the pub with the papers, like the ‘good old days’, rambling on about nothing in particular (although who am I kidding, the chances of a lunch lasting much more than about 15 minutes with two kids under four is a minor miracle – but bless us, we seem to suffer temporary amnesia every time a pub foray is suggested and head out all enthusiastic). I also seem to forget that you can’t just haphazardly rock up at any old pub and expect good gastro-pub style food around here. In fact, seeking out the gems has become a new hobby of mine, tapping people for their local knowledge of foodie hideaways. But whenever my nostalgic Sundays get written off for not being anything like they used to be and I cuss the countryside for having a limited range of eateries I ask myself – what does it matter, you’re attempting (badly) to become self-sufficient, you hypocritical foodie cretin!

And that attempt invariably involves dragging the children along on our ‘grow your own’ odyssey. Ok, so they know where their food comes from but it doesn’t stop me having moments where I agonise about whether I am giving my kids the best start in life by having them trailing around behind me in the muck day in day out, bribing them with slug and snail quotas whilst I endeavour to put some kind of order on the vegetable patch. Should I not be out there taking them to self-improving galleries and culture-rich museums? Expanding their minds with trips to foreign shores and strange cities? My rational brain says of course it is all about the balance – as long as they are getting a bit of both what does it matter if they are happy.  But that still doesn’t stop me having a bit of a wobble when we get stuck into planting our 24^th packet of seeds of the season.

Then you have the emotive subject of schooling. Our eldest is now successfully enrolled in our local village school with a total pupil roll of 33 kids, two teachers, two classrooms. Whilst my friends in London and elsewhere in the country spend months of sleepless nights, gnawing their fingernails to the bone awaiting the dreaded school places decision, here there was never any doubt that we would get a place. They welcome newcomers with open arms, keen to bump up the number of pupils and keep the school open. The playground is surrounded on all sides by grazing sheep and the classroom windows look out onto the River Dee and the mountains beyond. It really couldn’t be more idyllic. So why do I still have sliding doors moments when I wonder what it would be like for our kids to be in a larger, urban school, exposed to different experiences and more variety of languages and musical instruments for instance (here we have piano, guitar and, of course it goes without saying, the harp – although I hope to God that one of mine doesn’t decide to take it up as it would be a right ball ache to schlep one of those buggers to and from school each day. Given the size of the case but we’d need to invest in a bloody van to transport it anywhere. Give me a flute any day of the week).  People keep telling me what a boon it is to be able to school your kids bilingually and how it supercharges their little brains ready for whatever languages and challenges life throws at them further down the track. I hope so.

For one thing around here bilingualism is just the most normal thing in the world. Farmers, tradesmen, teachers, doctors. Pretty much everyone around here is fluent in English and Welsh and switches between them without a second thought. Whereas where we lived before bilingualism was seen as an aspiration and something to invest time and energy in, around here it just the run of the mill. Everyone can happily converse, banter and swear prolifically in both languages, seemingly relishing the chance to flick between them just to whet the appetite of the eavesdropping “saesons”. I have moments where I get ridiculously excited and enthusiastic about the opportunity to immerse myself in a second language and become truly fluent and at other times I imagine that people are being deliberately obtuse and make me feel like an ignorant outsider and I really can’t be arsed with it at all. Fickle, moi?

And so to the biggest corkscrew of all. Since I started writing this post we have had the tumultuous decision for the UK to leave the EU. You’d think that living up here in the hills, far away from the nexus of power, the shock waves would be felt less. You’d be wrong. When I woke up this morning to hear the news I felt stunned and like things would never really be the same again. I headed out up the hill with the dog for our usual morning pipe-opener and the fields and hills and mountains that I have come to call home all looked the same, but different. There was something palpably different in the air today. Uncertainty, excitement, relief, horror. As the reactions and data points flowed into our lives from the radio and TV we tried to make sense (as I expect everyone was) of what this means for us. At times like this we all have an innate flight response to head for the hills but what happens if you are already there? Trying to make a business and potentially depending upon former EU subsidies and support? Raising two little children in a rural village in a small, potentially soon-to-be-fragmented country? Then I went out to feed the hens and to say hello to the cows with their huge trusting eyes and squishy noses and realised that life is what you make of it. The hens and the cows don’t give a shit who is in power and how our country is governed in relation to others. They just care about where their food is coming from, making sure their calves are ok and that they are in a herd, altogether. I’m guessing we’re going to be stuck on this rollercoaster for a fair few loops again yet but fundamentally we’re all still the same people, with the same resources and same values, regardless of what happened yesterday. Maybe it’s spending all this time around plants and animals and the cycles of life and death (not to get all Lion King on you) that make you more aware of your own mortality and give you a more grounded perspective in what really matters.  For all my ups and downs I’d rather be here with my nearest and dearest than anywhere else right now. Sure there are things which are hard and that piss me off but I don’t think any of us would reach the point of complete happiness without the odd niggle and wobble. Apart from perhaps the Dalai Lama. Oh and my dog Bru. He seems pretty happy with his lot. Although he is now slightly concerned about whether his dog passport to France will still be valid…. On verra.

To be or not to be... 

Tunnel vision

This post has been a long time in the making. We started clearing and levelling for our polytunnel back in March and only this week can we be so bold to suggest that it is now ‘finished’ (give or take a few minor fixtures and fitting details...). For the uninitiated amongst you, officially a polytunnel is the next level up from a greenhouse, a tube of plastic fixed over metal bars for (allegedly) growing veggies all year round. Unofficially it’s basically like trying to erect the world’s largest condom in your back yard and about as bloody difficult. And I’ll tell you for why…

For starters, you’ve got to measure up to ensure that all of the poles are in EXACTLY the right position to make sure that the thing is square, peddling out all your schoolboy mathematics, soh cah toa and all that, to get those corners just right. It would take the average person about say, oh I don’t know, an hour tops to get this to a point you are happy with. For my husband this took the best part of a day, getting the measurements to the finest millimetre, not helped by our three year old’s best attempts to use the tape measure as a lead on which to take her imaginary dog for a walk throughout the proceedings. Finally, FINALLY, we were able to set the scary looking ground anchors into concrete and then spent the next 24 hours attempting to banish children and animals from leaving their indelible mementos on the surface.

Digging out... it's a family affair

Then you have to assemble the startling array of poles and metal with an even more baffling set of nuts and bolts and washers. For anyone who has ever had the pleasure of assembling any flat pack furniture from Ikea, this was like that, on speed, times ten. The instruction manual rivalled a tome from Dostoevsky to give you a clue as to the complexity of this task. And as if that wasn’t hard enough, we gradually realised over the course of a number of weeks and much head scratching and swearing that some of the critical bits were missing. You know that feeling you get when you have finally managed to get a child engaged in a jigsaw puzzle only to realise that the vital pieces have been lost behind the sofa long ago…? So it was back to the supplier, let’s call them Acme Polytunnels to protect their sheer ineptitude, for the missing parts, not once, not twice but an unbelievable SEVEN times before we finally managed to get the full complement of parts. And apparently they are still using the Pony Post wherever they are based as each delivery took on average two weeks to arrive only to find it was the wrong bit. Unreal. This goes some way to justify why it has taken us longer to build this sodding tunnel than it took them to build the entire Walkie Talkie building in the City (that I watched going up with great interest from my desk overlooking the whole thing in the building next door). Although, even though it is bloody hot with the plastic on, we have fortunately so far managed to avoid setting fire to any Jaguar cars from the reflection on its roof. (Google it).

Erected in less time (feels like)

Structure complete it was time for the plastic. There is a snobbery among polytunnel aficionados (we have since discovered) around how tight you can get your polythene. It wants to be, and I quote, “as tight as a drum” but you then have to play Russian roulette with the stuff, stretching it to the limit without letting it rip and then having to go back and replace the whole bloody lot at huge expense. You will be pleased to learn that we did indeed manage to get it pretty tight and we now can’t go anywhere without comparing the tautness of our tunnel with everyone else’s. Ah, what it takes to keep up with the Joneses' around here...

How toight is your tunnel...?

And then, just like that, we had this whole new wonderful space, casting a lovely light and warmth over everything and protecting us from the rain and the wind. We set about creating raised beds from some galvanised steel panels which we picked up for nothing somewhere along the way and which we fixed to the ground using solid steel pegs courtesy of my dad’s trusty welding set. I tell you what, when the house and all of the barns are long gone, those raised beds will still be standing, nuclear war, next ice age, you name it. They are completely indestructible. Then all that was left to do was to fill the beds with manure and compost et voila. A whole new area for veggies and a whole other level of watering commitments to add to my growing list of dependents and to dos.

You're indestructible. (Always believe in)

Not that I really mind though. Working up there in the evenings when the heat of the day is still lingering in the tunnel, it’s like being in a cocoon, far away from the stresses and strains of it all. Some women plump for these crazy flotation tanks for their ultimate relaxation therapy. For me it’s some obscure evening programme on Radio 4 to give the brain a bit of an intellectual workout whilst physically beasting the body barrowing shit and digging holes. All accompanied by the calming pitter patter of raindrops on the roof and the symphony of evening bird song. And if I’m really working the relaxation vibe, possibly an ice cold can of Kronenbourg 1664 to top it all off. And that, my friends, is just the kind of classy bird that I am.  

Best place for a well-earned sundowner