Category Archives: Village Life

Always have biscuits

Oooh COMBINE!

Oooh COMBINE!

Well, dear Reader, I do apologise for my tardiness in posting but things have been blissful chaos here of late!  Last week was the first week of Jerry’s daily commute back to the Big Smoke and the first week for the girls and I to brave it in the sticks alone.  Quite surprisingly, the house, children, puppy and pussycats were all intact at the end of the week.  I, however, needed a rather large gin!  Trying to get things done in the house has been nigh on impossible, not least because the girls and I have been very distracted by all the sights and sounds around our new digs.  Primrose, Poppy and I watched with glee as the combines rattled up the farm track and the fields of rapeseed disappeared.  The farmer (a stereotypically grumpy farmer as described by his wife!) must have been rather bemused watching us staring at him at the edge of his field as he carried on with his harvest routine.  An incredible thing for two small girls who are used to the hustle and bustle of city living.  I still haven’t tired of hearing Poppy whoop with delight and yell “Tractor” from her bird’s eye view of the countryside in the backpack, every time we greet farmland at the top of the bridleway!  Pure magic.

Our secret passageway towards glorious fields of wheat.

Our secret passageway towards glorious fields of wheat.

I know you are dying to hear all about the village, dear Reader and believe me, it really hasn’t disappointed.  I feel like I have walked into a scene from a Jilly Cooper novel most days.  Gifts of vegetables continue to flood in from the villagers, offers on cut price game birds and invitations to tea, lunch and drinks parties.  I feel more sociable here than I ever did in London.  Still waiting to spot Rupert Campbell Black on a sizeable stallion though….!

The slow gin looked very impressive...shame no tastings on offer.

The sloe gin looked very impressive…shame no tastings on offer.

The local village flower show proved a delight. The entries were suitably charming and the comments were hilarious……clearly a leaf taken from Paul Hollywood’s (Great British Bake Off) textbook of harsh judging.  A seriously competitive business and some impressively polished silverware for the mantelpiece at stake.  I hear, over the garden gate, that one year, pots of jam were marked down for lacking a doily.  I stuffed a rules and regulations handbook into my ridiculously townie-sized tote to give myself necessary ammunition for next year’s show.  I am determined to prove that Margot can give the bumpkins a run for their money in the jam stakes.

Monty pup has settled in well but has caused quite a stir with local dogs, landowners and has only just narrowly missed a run in with the gamekeeper.  Turns out that he is rather interested in the fat little partridge who taunt him at every turn on our walks.  Back to training for us and walks on a long lead for the foreseeable future.  God help us when the gamekeeper releases the pheasants….  In the meantime, Monty is happily decimating local wildlife on the doorstep and devoured a live toad last week.  WHOLE.  I leapt in to intervene but it was too late as I watched it still wriggling as it went down.  Deeply distressing but all part of nature as Jerry said when he returned from London to a wailing woman in the kitchen, worrying about karma and whether or not it might have been a prince in disguise.

As if butter wouldn't melt....

As if butter wouldn’t melt….

The house is starting to take shape now and finally we unpacked a few boxes of books and it felt more like home.  Dear Anthony Powell was quite right when he said “Books do furnish a room”.   Jerry and I really can’t wait to light our first fire and spend our evenings curled up in its warm glow.  Our life in the countryside so far seems to suit us well.

Most importantly, I have learned a few lessons in our first couple of weeks here:

1) Monty is not to be trusted off the lead here, no matter how much he gives me his best soppy spaniel face.  Farmers, gamekeepers and villagers with large fields and horses do not appreciate a cheeky spaniel.

2) Expect flurries of expectant villagers all dying for a look round the house and….

3) Most importantly, always have biscuits!  Seriously.  With a hamlet full of folk bearing welcome gifts, biscuits and cups of tea are a necessity here.

Good Lord, I really wish I had taken some baking lessons.  I seem to be constantly rushing to the next door village and will be soon know as the shortbread queen by the owners of the shop at this rate!

Hampshire calling!!!!

Boxes, boxes, boxes....

Boxes, boxes, boxes….

Dear Reader, I bet you thought I had vanished into the ether or had stumbled down a ditch!  Well it has certainly felt like it over the last week!  We left the Big Smoke a week ago now and to be honest, life could NOT be more different.  Everything is rather lovely here and Jerry, Primrose, Poppy and I keep having to pinch ourselves as it all seems too good to be true.  It is every bit the rural idyll we hoped it would be.  It was distinctly odd saying goodbye to the cottage but rather surprisingly I didn’t shed a tear (and I am well-known for being a tad gushy with the old water works).  Perhaps that was because the time was right for us to go?  The cottage seemed so small without all of our clutter and shutting the door, Jerry and I were more than happy to skip off into the sunset to try and retrieve the keys for our new countryside manor.

Boxes piled high in the ‘new’ cottage, Jerry and I spent our first night eating bread and cheese and drinking champagne from the girls’ plastic beakers.  Utterly exhausted but very happy indeed.  It wasn’t until Day 2 that I remembered what my lovely friend Bee had said to me about how I would feel in my first week.  Then the sudden realisation hit me that there was an EXTRAORDINARY amount of unpacking to do, that the puppy still needed to be walked, girls still needed to be fed and that I was amidst farmland with no phone, no internet and no mobile signal as BT had crossed our lines with a dear old lady in the village who was housebound and now unable to use her phone too!  Apparently the countryside has no need for that new fangled invention: the internet or indeed a phone line!  So I can tell you, dear Reader, that I have so far spent the week unpacking boxes, yelling at BT, organising where everything is going to go, yelling at BT, shouting at the computer and phone, more yelling at BT….I am sure you get the gist, dear Reader.  Margot without the internet it would seem spells mini breakdown.  This combined with Monty the dog shredding a 12 pack of loo rolls, eating one of Jerry’s shoes, making himself sick gobbling up a dead mouse found in the lane, the girls refusing to go to bed because they want to watch the sunset from their bedroom window , the fridge and washing machine being too large to fit in the utility room despite being the standard size and did I mention no internet ?!  To be honest, there is not enough gin in the world that could have mollified my black mood.

I am not sure that Minty would have approved of the plastic beakers...but needs must!

I am not sure that Minty would have approved of the plastic beakers…but needs must!

HOWEVER…..with every cloud comes a silver lining……..I can wholeheartedly say that never a truer word was said as we have been truly welcomed into the village with open arms.  Villagers have left cards and bunches of flowers, invitations to drinks and all have greeted with the warmest of smiles and firm handshakes.  The postman even ventured that he thought we would bring some much needed life to the village.  So we may not be totally unpacked, we may not have any telecommunications (I am posting this from the top of our nearest hill as hanging out of the bedroom window was deemed a bit too dangerous by Jerry) BUT we all LOVE it here and feel very very much at home.   Big Smoke – where’s that?!  Our adventures in the countryside have just begun…..!

Sweet peas left on the doorstep!

Sweet peas left on the doorstep!

Waste not, want not!

Who knew rubbish could look so fabulous?! Thanks to Garden Trading.

Who knew rubbish could look so fabulous?! Thanks to Garden Trading.

Last week, I received a rather wonderful countryside accessory from the lovely people at Garden Trading – a compost bucket.  Not just any compost bucket but a beautiful specimen in the perfect colour to match my new country kitchen.  Never one to shy away from a challenge, this started a whole lot of kitchen and garden thinking in the Margot household!  We have never had the space, time or inclination to think about creating our own compost heap but, coincidentally, it turns out that our ramshackle garden at the new cottage has not one but two compost heaps.  So, it would seem that the compost bucket has arrived at just the right time!

Composting is, of course, the most environmentally friendly way of recycling your kitchen and garden waste, not to mention the best way to get wonderfully enriched soil for the garden.  Although most won’t have the space for a compost heap of their own, it would appear that kitchen waste recycling is on the up in the Big Smoke as its inhabitants try to do their little bit for the planet.  With the likes of Zac Goldsmith championing the ‘Go Green’ mantra, it would seem that recycling has become terribly fashionable dear Reader!  Even here in our little corner of suburbia, I was surprised to find out that the local council provides a caddy which one can use to deposit kitchen waste and it is collected alongside the ordinary rubbish – incredibly simple even for the laziest amongst us and cuts down the number of full to bursting black bags each week.  Guaranteed to earn one a place at Zac’s supper party table!  With that in mind, I thought old Margot should give it a go and make a start with a little bit of recycling – rubber gloves at the ready!

Visions of raking through the bin trying to pick out the bits that could be composted, have always put me off doing this in the past.  I hadn’t a clue of where to start with the whole composting lark!  According to the garden gurus, the first job is to know what can go into a compost bin (apparently wayward children and bitey puppies cannot be composted…).   So, just for you, dear Reader, here is what can be thrown on the heap!

Kitchen waste – coffee grounds, tea leaves, tea bags (cut into them to help break them down), vegetable and fruit peelings/scraps.  NO meat, cooked veg or dairy products.

A peep at the peelings!

A peep at the peelings!

Green garden waste – grass clippings, prunings, fallen leaves (that sort of thing).  You can add stinging nettles to your heap to add extra nutrients apparently.

Some top tips for getting started on Garden Trading’s blog and the Recycle Now website has a great step by step guide to the perfect heap here.  Not ready for that quite yet but I am pleased to report, dear Reader, that I have been dutifully using my new bucket to recycle our kitchen waste.  I added a bit of newspaper to the inner removable liner so that the sludgier peelings and leftover scraps wouldn’t have me scrubbing out the bucket every time I emptied it out.  Newspaper is compostable too so this will just add to the perfect heap.  Scented candles are already working overtime on preventing the house smelling of dog so the air tight seal on the lid is a godsend when it comes to preventing any unwanted whiffs emanating from the bucket!  So far so good, our bin bags have been considerably lighter and we intend to keep it up once we move and have our own compost mountains to maintain.  Although, saying that, Jerry is already mithering about how my fruit and veg compostable compote will no doubt spoil the perfect bacteria equilibrium for his grass clippings heap!  He also mentioned watching out for rodents.  Surely he can’t mean…..RATS…..dear Reader?   Rats in Margot’s perfect bit of countryside?  I should jolly well hope not!

A little wobble

A wibbly wobbly mess.....

A wibbly wobbly mess…..

Making a mad dash from London to Hampshire for a meeting at Primrose’s new school one evening last week, I had one precious hour in the car to contemplate life, the universe and new kitchens.  Having sold our house in the Big Smoke, we are waiting for solicitors to let us know when all is set with the new ‘cottage’.  Moving is tantalisingly close now yet still we are in limbo.  Patience I know, dear Reader, is required….  However, I am ready to get packing and start carving up kitchen cabinets and fitting an Everhot!  Bombing down the M3 with music blaring, I was lost in these very thoughts as I passed field upon field of glorious oil seed rape all sunshine and dayglow yellow in the evening light.

Turning off the motorway, driving through windy lanes and then up the long school driveway, I wondered what Primrose’s new school might have in store for me that evening.  Stepping into a room filled with exceptionally well turned out mummies, I quickly breathed a sigh of relief that I had decided to leave my Barbour in the car.  Thank goodness I had also dusted the cobwebs off my Portobello Market ‘Mulberry‘ handbag.  Where were the ladies in wellies and tweed?  This was, after all, a countryside school.  A sea of double barrelled surnames rather than shotguns….I felt cheated, dear Reader.  Talk turned to our relocation, choice of village and profession and I felt instantly sidelined – a ‘townie’ in their midst.  What was I doing?  I was never going to fit in in the countryside if these über-mums were anything to go by.  Everyone seemed to live within ten minutes of the school and they all knew each other in that rather annoying “Do you remember when little Johnny did such and such at the May day fair?“.  It was like being on the set of Mean Girls.  Where was the industrial sized gin when I needed it?!  Suddenly I could see that our school run of 25mins each way would probably result in no one wanting to come and play with Primrose after school.  Too late to do anything about it now though…..as we were about to exchange on our new house and Jerry was set on living a 15 minute drive away from the best commuter station.  I drove back to London and went straight to bed, convinced that moving to the countryside was all a massive mistake.

'Walking is Man's best medicine' - Hippocrates

‘Walking is Man’s best medicine’ – Hippocrates

To make matters worse, Primrose had her own wobble the following morning and decided that she wasn’t going to move.  Tears and wailing ensued and cries of “You and Daddy are very mean taking me from all my friends…”  Our usual morning chit-chat was replaced with sniffs and blowing of noses as I tried gallantly to save the situation and talk up the advantages of having a bigger garden.  Neither of us were convinced to be honest, dear Reader.  Nursery drop off completed (tears at the door for the first time), I armed myself with strong coffee and the advice of some very sweet friends and headed off to the park with Poppy and the pup.  Woodpeckers, bluebells, a serene herd of deer, giggly toddler and a happy hound…..amazing how a good walk and the sights and sounds of nature at its best can restore a troubled soul.  Just enjoying moments looking, listening and being able to marvel at all the things which somehow the hustle and bustle doesn’t allow time for.  The countryside makes you want to slow down, take stock and enjoy the simpler things in life, like a good walk.  With that mantra firmly in hand, I decided that I was not going to let a little wobble about moving stand in our way, nor the cast of Mean Schoolmums either!  Turned out that Primrose had had a change of heart too as she skipped out of the nursery doors with a drawing of our new house in Hampshire in her hand………and despite our little wobbles, we are both smiling about our new life in the countryside.

A little glimpse of how Primrose sees our future.

Primrose’s little glimpse into our future in the countryside!