Tag Archives: countryside

A time for harvest

Ah autumn, there you are!

What a busy few weeks it has been! Harvest celebrations, dinner parties in the village, Primrose’s birthday, her party complete with farm animals in our garden and a hilarious moment in the dark changing a Land Rover tyre with Jerry and one of the villagers…… I am definitely ready for a rest in the dark with a large gin and tonic, dear Reader!

Autumn is rushing around too it would seem! Our little landscape is changing again and walks have become muddier and leaf-strewn. Everywhere you look, you can see that the harvest has well and truly been brought in. Gathering with all the villagers to celebrate the bounty in a neighbour’s barn, Jerry, Primrose, Poppy and I felt rather like we had stepped into ‘dreams of foregone times’ last week. Hops hanging from the ceiling, checked tablecloths and wine flowing, homemade shepherd’s pies made by the ladies of the village (and of course, yours truly) as well as crumbles galore, the whole village sat together following the Sunday service to eat, drink and generally make merry! A time honoured tradition, made even more special by the whole village singing “Happy Birthday” to Primrose. Primrose was mortified, slumping further and further down her chair until she was almost under the table! Poor love! Mind you, Primrose wasn’t the only one to blush with embarrassment that day. Asked by the village harvest committee to create a floral display for one of the church windows, I had no idea of the brief and ended up creating a rustic autumnal wreath to sit amongst a sea of really rather elegant blooms. One villager called it ‘charming’. I wondered if this was village vernacular was ‘a pile of old rubbish’. However, I did at least manage to make it all from things in our garden and although it wasn’t the most beautiful tribute to the harvest in the church, it did have a bit of Margot charm. Well, at least Jerry and the girls thought so!

Let’s hope they don’t ask me to do anything for Christmas!

Best of all, was the amazing haul of vegetables we were given as we left the harvest lunch. The village is awash with fantastic kitchen gardens, orchards and flower gardens. I shall to have to up my game seriously for next year. Squash, artichokes, potatoes, courgettes, purple and orange carrots….I could hardly carry my handbag as it was brimming with veg! Dear Reader, I had no idea that pattypans really existed outside of Beatrix Potter but here they are..

I am not sure that this is the same pattypan that Duchess was worried about eating in the veal and ham pie though! WHAT is a patty-pan?

From harvests and growing your own food……we even managed to parade (albeit briefly) as a smallholding for Primrose’s birthday party. 2 donkeys, 2 goats, 2 pigs, 2 sheep, 2 turkeys, 2 bantams, 2 call ducks, a mini colony of guinea pigs and rabbits and one extremely well behaved dog (note, dear Reader, that it was most certainly not Monty, who was kept inside for fear of him devouring a duck). A veritable mini Noah’s Ark and all in OUR GARDEN! A huge hit with children and grown ups alike. I was happy to play farmer’s wife and it did get me thinking about how marvellous it might be to rear a pig next year when we are a little more settled. Jerry nearly had a coronary when he heard the farmer who brought the livestock to the cottage, saying that he would happily give us the Kune Kune weaners he had brought that day. Apparently they do make the most delicious sausages! Considering that I have finally managed to persuade Jerry to let me have some chickens, I think that asking for a pig for Christmas might be a step too far. For now, dear Reader, for now…….!

I suppose I shall have to make do with this little piggy!

Always have biscuits

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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.

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….

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!!!!

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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!

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!

Almost there…

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A day old calf at Acton Scott Farm earlier in the year.

Do support National Countryside Week – we owe so much to the countryside and it needs us too!

This week is National Countryside Week and also our last in the Big Smoke. Dear Reader, quite frankly both of these things have been horribly upstaged by the birth of a certain little prince!

Despite the distraction of #RoyalBaby or perhaps my personal favourite Twitter hashtag (from the farming community) #Katescalving, Margot and Jerry HQ is finally a hive of industry as there are only 4 days left in our little corner of suburbia. Jerry’s Lanny (Land Rover) purchased, an extortionate amount of money paid for a parking suspension for the removal lorry, 4 bags of clothes, toys and 6 pairs of shoes to the charity shop……it would seem I am on a roll now! Panicking a little, I phoned the removal company twice just to check that they do actually pack EVERYTHING and to add to the list of jobs done, a new house ration pack has been ordered to arrive on day 2 of the move too. Well, I have to make sure that there is plenty of gin in the cupboard….however even I am now worried about the level of efficiency I have managed to achieve, dear Reader!

To stop myself from getting too carried away with coloured stickers, labels and a nifty floor plan of the new house courtesy of Jerry, I decided that the only way to mark the last week in the Big Smoke was a glass of champagne at The Ritz…..would you expect anything less from Margot?! In 1777, when Mr Johnson wrote “No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford“, he was probably supping a small glass of something in a well-known London drinking establishment too! Jerry and I can’t be sad as we have enjoyed so much of what London has to offer for over a decade and the time is certainly right for pastures new. So when the boxes arrive on Wednesday and we leave our dear little cottage for middle of nowhere ruralness on Thursday, I shall be ready for another glass of bubbly. This time though, our surroundings will be somewhat less grand than The Ritz. Jerry and I will be in our new country home and probably drinking our little bottle of fizz from paper cups after the colour coding on boxes will have inevitably gone wrong! I am sure it will be bliss though, dear Reader so….please Thursday, would you oblige this batty townie and hurry on up?! I am looking forward to having to negotiate vehicles like this on the school run in the mornings!

Beats sitting behind a row of cars in town any day!

A little bit of news…..

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Ooh little bubbles of gorgeousness!

Last weekend saw the Margot and Jerry brood visit the new digs in the countryside. The current owners (a very sweet couple who have lived there for 13 years) invited us down to measure up and chat about the village. With only 30 houses and a church, it is a close community and everyone knows each other. I didn’t spy any twitching curtains but I was sure we were being vetted for our suitability! Jerry and I fell in love with the house and our new hamlet all over again and it was useful to talk through some of the practicalities of village life! No mains gas or mains sewerage certainly will take some getting used to and I was thoroughly grateful for all the advice given on cess pits (it’s a whole other world having the contents of the loo in your garden!) and oil fired heating.

From loos to locals, Sunday lunch proved a success too as we tested out the nearest pub in the next village along. Anywhere that can accommodate a small puppy and 2 little ones is a wonder in my book – there don’t seem to be many child friendly pubs in the countryside so this was a gem of a find and only a mile from the house! Jerry and I could see ourselves propping up the bar happily or enjoying a swift half on a Sunday after church. Everyone was very friendly and people actually said “Good afternoon” to each other – we were definitely far from London! So far so good….village life was looking idyllic!

Well, dear Reader, we must have passed muster as we have FINALLY exchanged contracts on the new house! Champagne all round! Immense relief washed over us like a tsunami when we finally heard the news and both solicitor and agent contacted us to let us know that all was set for completion. Jerry and I have been grinning like Cheshire cats ever since! In 6 weeks’ time, we will be surrounded by boxes in the ‘new’ (well actually rather old…17th century) cottage in rural Hampshire. Is the village ready for Margot and her capers? Most certainly not. Are we all set for leaving the Big Smoke? Well, with a view like this literally a few yards from our front door, how could we not be ready to move to the country?!

The view a few yards from our new back door

Blissful buttercups and fields for miles and miles!

Margot Tries the Good Life

A chronicle of the transformation from self-confessed townie to country bumpkin