Never have I felt the juxtaposition of town and country more acutely than a recent weekend dash to New York and back for a dear family member’s wedding. Saying goodbye to straw bales on the school run and green fields (plus two small girls) to be greeted by cabs honking, neon lights flashing and the whoosh of urban living was a far more epic contrast from our every day life than I could ever have imagined. Continue reading
There we have it. Our first year of living in the countryside. It’s simply bizarre to think that a year ago we left the Big Smoke and moved to Hampshire to begin a new life in the country. WHERE has the time gone, dear Reader? So many wonderful, funny, strange, downright mad things have happened to us in that time.
To name a few, we got some chickens……..we took on some orphans…….Jerry brewed his own beer and I foraged from the hedgerows with a good deal of trepidation – Primrose and Jerry telling me, rather helpfully, that I was destined to poison the whole family with my concoctions. Continue reading
Dear Reader, I can only apologise for the wall of silence from me of late. It has been one thing after another lately! Water coming through the ceiling, trees coming down making roads impassable, escaping chickens, 3 cracked windscreens (twice on my car, would you believe it?), 2 flat tyres, 1 pair of favourite trousers ripped and the week from hell when Poppy caught the norovirus and was very ill indeed, resulting in our first trip to a countryside hospital! I wish spring would really take hold, dear Reader. The four of us are sick of the rain as I am sure so many of you are too. Our school run route is under water and we can see sandbags are out, water is being pumped on to country roads and carpets have been taken up. Farmland is awash with water and the landscape is more brown sludge than green with flecks of white snowdrops and yellow daffodils. Still, we must be thankful we are not in Somerset. My thoughts go out to those poor people.
I found myself ever grateful for the wonderful nature of country folk around here a week ago. Trying to get home after dropping Primrose off one morning, I found myself face to face with rather a lot of water.
Ah….where’s the road gone?
Luckily for me, a very nice chap in a tractor (Poppy still hasn’t got over that a tractor stopped to talk to us) stopped me before I went any further. The road was in the process of being closed (no guesses as to why…) and there was even more water further down – only really just passable with a 4×4 and certainly not with a puny school run car. The ‘very nice chap’ looked me up and down and asked if I had any wellies in the back. I replied that I hadn’t but I did have a rather smart working cocker spaniel who enjoyed a swim. Judging by the bemused look I was given, it would appear, dear Reader, that Monty on this occasion would be of no use….and wellingtons would have been a more sensible addition to the boot that morning. Said very nice man then told me to follow him through the water and I proceeded to drive through the wake of a tractor until I reached a dry track again. I also received a very much needed lecture of the list of countryside must-haves for the boot of the car should I find myself in a similar pickle in the future. To the ‘very nice chap’ – you are my hero of the day!
I’m afraid it didn’t stop with watery incidents either that day. Jerry’s supposedly trusty Lanny giant got a flat battery and Jerry and I spent half an hour in the dark trying to extract the enormous thing from the car in the freezing cold before attempting to recharge it in the laundry room. I am sure that this sort of stuff only happens to us. It just hasn’t been our month. Still, as someone said to me this week, we must count our blessings and looking at all the flood water in the surrounding countryside, I have to say, our lot could be far far worse. There was even a hint of a rainbow this morning so that has to be a sign that things are on the up, wouldn’t say, dear Reader?
If you squint really hard, you can just about see it….
In all the recounting of chaos, I forgot to tell you dear Reader, that Monty, our gorgeous spaniel boy, turned 1. Any excuse for cake. He even got a feathery birthday treat when Henny, our little brown hen tried her special ‘escape from chicken Alcatraz’ number and shimmied under the fence. The birthday hound saw an opportunity to embarrass me further chasing her all round the garden whilst I ran after him in my dressing gown, pyjamas and wellies, yelling “Leave”. I imagine that our neighbours had a good old giggle at my expense that morning.
Pup all partied out
My silver lining finally appeared though……a couple of nominations in the Mad Blog Awards for Most Entertaining blog, Best Blog Writer and MAD Blog of the Year. Whoever you are – I could kiss you for nominating me. I got the tweets just as I thought the week was a complete dead loss! I hold no hopes out for winning but the nominations have cheered me up no end. So….THANK YOU! I raise a gin to you!
It seems so fitting to be sitting here writing this post in the first days of January after our first countryside Christmas, dear Reader. 2013 was such an eventful year: swapping kaftans for tweed and heels for wellies, leaving behind the Big Smoke for rural Hampshire, getting a gundog pup, Primrose learning to live with mud, Poppy learning not to eat it, Jerry living out his dream of driving his own Lanny, CHICKENS……I could go on. Not to mention the beginnings of Margot Tries the Good Life world domination in written form. So one couldn’t blame me dear Reader, for half expecting Christmas to be a bit of let down after all that! Amazingly, it wasn’t. However, most of December was rather bumpy with Poppy succumbing to a hideous bout of the hand, foot and mouth virus and the four of us having to live in quarantine with the sign of the plague daubed on the door. After two weeks of illness, followed by Poppy turning 2 and then the mad dash to prepare for Christmas, we were all looking forward to a bit of festive peace and quiet.
Luckily for us, the week of Christmas proved less fraught. Never have we felt more at home than here in our little old country cottage. Rather spectacularly, the village seems to have well and truly embraced us and the whole of the festive period felt as if it had been stolen from The Archers’ airwaves. My contribution to the church flowers was infinitely better than my first attempt at Harvest time, Poppy and Primrose dressed as angels to form part of a tableau around the crib with some dear little village shepherds and everyone roared with laughter when a grumpy Poppy yelled (rather loudly I might add) in the middle of the prayers “I don’t love you Mummy” when I ran out of sweeties to bribe her silence. I turned my hand to Christmas wreaths and even managed a bit of countryside recycling when my dear Pa turned up with this……
Roadkill
and I fashioned it into one of these!
A triomphe de plumes!
Jerry’s family – I do promise (truly) that I did not feed you what was left of the pheasant when you came to lunch….thought I had better declare that……just in case, anyone was worried….!
Our dear little tree!
Moving on… We enjoyed the hospitality of several villagers and settled in to the swing of all things Christmas. I was accosted to form an impromptu choir for the service – only to find that there were quite a number of villagers who have been hiding their musical lights under a bushel. One even turned out to be a recorded artist and entered the choir practice in full voice, trilling vocal warm ups. Amazing, the things one doesn’t know about one’s neighbours. Christmas Eve proved to be a wonderful evening with Ma and Pa in tow, children snug in their beds, stockings hung by the fire and a magical walk along the starlit lanes to Midnight Mass. A goose from our local farm shop went without hitch and I even managed to churn out a cake with the girls.
Edible glitter and edible gold spray in the hands of a 5 year old!
Say nothing about Robin Pinkbreast, dear Reader – Primrose was utterly delighted and I spent the whole time telling Christmas guests that it was all the children’s work…
With 2014 ushered through the cottage door, I have had time to think on resolutions and wishes for the new year. More tweed is certainly on the agenda, learning to shoot a gamebird is well and truly up there and tackling the awful jungle of a garden has to be priority number one. Meeting one of the organisers of the New Forest Show over lunch, I was almost persuaded to enter and ‘show’ my chickens. Oh and the vicar already tried to twist my arm to join the Parish Council to represent the young people. Not quite sure that I am ready for the challenges of either of those yet!! Apparently, Jerry says we have to start sorting out the cottage and redecorating too. Perhaps now would be a good time to lock myself away in the study and pretend to pen a little chapter of a book or two? Sounds like 2014 is going to be just as hectic as 2013…. Dear Reader, I do wish you and yours a very happy and prosperous 2014. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading, supporting and telling others about my little blog. Without you, 2013 really wouldn’t have been half as brilliant!
Happy New Year from the countryside!
The shooting ground!
Well, dear Reader, I got my hands on a gun…..or a 20 bore Beretta to be more precise! The day arrived when I finally made it to a fabulous day of clays and cake with the even more fabulous Chelsea Bun Club girls. A lovely group of ladies who enjoy shooting more than shopping and who can bake cakes that would put Mary Berry into serious baking retirement!
I arrived nervous and sure that I wouldn’t hit a thing. For moral support, I decided to persuade a lovely new friend from the village to come along. However, I quickly realised that it was possible that with all her years of country experience, she might well be the best beginner shot! Having listened to the safety briefing, picked up my hat, ear plugs (oh the glamour!) and a box of canary yellow cartridges, I made my way with our group to the shooting ground. I was in shooting awe of the smart ladies with elegant looking black cartridges. Wonderful to see all the gents look twice as 60 ladies emerged out of the club heading towards the shooting ground. Be warned chaps – lady guns and plenty of them. Surely the ultimate in countryside girl power!
Determined that I was not going to hit anything, I opted to go last in the group. Rob, our first instructor was brilliant – his catchphrase for where to place your hand on the gun “Wood is good” had me in fits of giggles…. Poor Rob, he did blush rather profusely! The dear new village friend was predictably good and we all whooped and cheered for every clay hit. The ladies in our group were jolly good fun and not at all the sort of stuffy shooting set I had been dreading an encounter with. My moment of truth arrived as I uttered for the millionth time that I wasn’t going to hit a thing before holding the gun and shouting “Pull”. To my surprise, I hit not just my first one but the four subsequent clays too! Rob rescued my virgin cartridge as a prized souvenir and then said that I was clearly telling fibs.
Get your ammo girls!
I promise, dear Reader, I really had never shot anything until that moment. Thrilling! The morning continued and we had a chance to try out plenty of other clay shooting thingies (very technical shooting term, I will have you know, dear Reader), firing every which way at you and some bouncing along the ground like rabbits. All the instructors were brilliant and I managed a rather respectable 16 out of 30 on the score card. Onwards to tea and cake – a welcome end to the day. My feet and hands had just about turned to ice standing around in the cold.
Clays and cake- what a marvellous combination!
Might have to persuade Jerry to invest in a new set of Le Chameau boots for me in order to ward off the cold next time?! That’s right, dear Reader, there will be most certainly be a next time and a time after that!! I am truly bitten by the shooting bug and cannot wait to book another day with the charming Chelsea Bun Club ladies. I am so very glad they convinced me to come along. Let me loose with a shotgun and a load of clays any day. Countryside beware – Margot wants a gun!
My first cartridge of the day – first ever smashed clay!