Sunday, 6 January 2019

2015


41 Albion Street, Stratton,
Cirencester,
Gloucs.
GL7 2HT
Nov. / Dec. 2015
Greetings to one and all!

As the Rainy Season (squidge .. squidge .. squelch ..) blows in with a vengeance, and the lull-before-a-storm October perfection of mists and mellow fruitfulness gives way to the low-flying foggy murk of endless grim drip dripping wintriness, do you ever ponder whether it was a wise move for Homo sapiens to have left Africa?  Whilst us pasty-faced creatures hide under our duvets for the duration, crawling out only to snuffle, cough and help the bacterial / viral populations to take over the world, there are others waiting … damp woolly creatures huddling in the countryside … plotting … ever plotting … to (yes) Take Over The World!  Well … maybe Gloucester … or at least Aldsworth … “Curses!  Damn that lack of opposable thumb!” … “Um .. (yawn) .. must just nibble a bit more grass first  .. anyone fancy a pint?”  Moral : be wary of soggy, disgruntled, indecisive-looking woolly individuals propping up the bar this Christmas.

Whilst those Cotswold creatures may prevaricate; in Wales, the revolution has already begun!  For we have (gulp) … seen the signs!  Heed this cautionary tale, O best beloveds, for this is The Case of the Disappearing Farmer.  Last weekend, whilst idly staring out of the bathroom window across the meadow to the forest, squinting through the mid-morning haze of what was shaping up to be an actual sunny day (in Wales!), an unnatural white mist unfurled purposefully from out of the forest, swirling ever closer in a thin stream towards the cottage.  ‘How odd!’ mused I.  At around the same time, the early-morning consciousness detected a low rumbling sound coming from the direction of the field-gate.  “Ah, it’s the farmer … ”, we muttered to each other knowingly, as the vibrations of a quad-bike shook the cottage’s thin walls as it passed.  But why was he here?  Brows knitted in puzzlement, as the cows had been vacated from the field a few weeks previously.  After a second or two our eyes returned to our respective windows.  But where was he?  In a trice, there were no vibrations, no sound at all, and no sign of either quad-bike or farmer!  And crucially, there’s no other way out of the field!  The strange swirling mist had also disappeared.  A mystery indeed!  But never fear, for Joy is on the case (possibly avec deerstalker, definitely sans meerschaum … cough! … splutter!).  As suspected, it had to be evil rogue woolly escapees from up on the hill what done it!  That unnatural white swirling mist - this had to have been the smoke from their camp-fire.  And they have the motive (revenge for unmet demands … warm barn … lots of apples … no more lamb casseroles … cash to supply their gambolling (!) habit … a need for a quad-bike (???) …well, how else do you take over the world?).  So, now we know, Douglas Adams was wrong – it was not the white mice in control after all … 

From this tale of mystery and odd happenings, O best beloveds, you may have guessed that we have acquired this little cottage in Wales, in the middle of a meadow, surrounded by forest ‘… awooooooo!’  What was that?  She sensed eyes watching, blood was pounding through her ears, her temples, her chest … Her pace quickened .. was that a rustle in the undergrowth?  An evil cackle, perhaps?  She calmed herself with the knowledge that wolves had died out in Britain by the 18th century.  So, maybe an owl then?  Wildlife is all its rawness is all around, and it’s so different from being surrounded by the comfort blanket of urban existence … and then there’s the quiet … at times, discomfiting.  So this is Y Ddôl (Welsh for ‘in the meadow’), a wattle and daub cottage built about 20 years ago by someone who’d tried to get planning permission for the ruin on the site, failed, and then built ‘an animal shelter’ for his self-sufficiency small-holding business, which required him to live on site, but in a caravan.  The ‘animal shelter’ was converted into a home, and eventually retrospectively passed the planning application.  It is entirely off-grid, which means that we’re constantly aware of how much energy we’re using … ours as well as solar panel generated!  Chopping wood is a constant at this time of year, as well as planning what wood to cut for two years down the line.  Back up Plans B and C are necessary in case the technology fails, e.g., always have spare gas cylinders for everything, and petrol for the generator - it’s a long way to Aberystwyth … well … 12 miles … and the track is rough and being snowed in is a possibility.  Apart from that, it’s great!  Annoying, but uplifting!  Being surrounded by forest is amazing!  Seven acres are ours, by the side of the Rheidol river, and the rest is ‘sort of’ community-owned, actually by a Trust, which means that anyone can come and saw up any fallen trees with a chain saw to take home for their own use, which we have done, as it’s so much easier for us to get to than our own forest!  The ‘garden’ is a bit wild, is slightly less than half an acre, and is definitely hell-bent on the world domination thing.  The briars are busily knitting themselves into an impenetrable tangled pattern, whilst setting ankle traps for any mammalian life-form in the vicinity; blow-in mini- (so far) beech trees are setting up a second line of resistance (resistant to machetes, that is); and the self-seeded baby oaks marching in from the Trust-owned forest are successfully competing with the solar panels for whatever passes for sunlight.  We won’t stand a chance (sob!) … the telephone cable will be snipped by the evil vine … we’ll be trapped in a time-warp, until … in a hundred years, a handsome prince will come to rescue us … or maybe … just maybe … the rogue woolly creatures camping in the forest will ride to the rescue on the quad-bike (yay!).

We bought Y Ddôl in a moment of weakness when both of us were heavily involved with the European Election Campaign in 2014.  We’d seen the place the previous year, but we’d procrastinated on whether to take the process any further, until the point where any decision had been taken out of our hands.  So a year later, out of the blue came this e-mail from the estate agent appealing to my inner romantic with the tempting line ‘You remember that little cottage that you loved so much? ….’  Well, how could I resist?  This time, I was taken in by the blue sunny sky (in Wales? in April?), the bluebells carpeting the woodland, the little steam train and the constant roaring waterfall on the other side of the valley, the rushing rapids in the river, the wide open sweep of the meadow and the trees beyond …. That was it!  I had to have it!!  Little did we realise then what the evil vines were plotting … or how the cottage would retaliate for five long months of neglect …

Living off-grid requires a steep learning curve.  One day last February we arrived rather gung-ho at Y Ddôl, unlocked the door, and ….. (curses!) …. couldn’t get in!  Joy manfully (personfully?) placed her shoulder to the door, and heaved.  Nothing.  It was time for the boot.  Again nothing.  Then suddenly … bam! .. creeeeeak! .. whoosh! .. Joy and associated baggage flew through into the hallway.  Two seconds later, the all-pervasive cold and damp had penetrated even unto the long-john layer.  The inside temperature registered 6°C!  This was coolth the like of which Joy had not been exposed to since the dawn of central heating .. or Piet’s house in Portugal (see last year’s missive).  However, never fear folks, for we had our trusty matches to hand … we’d soon have a roaring fire going in the Rayburn in next to no time.  The manual was quickly perused, instructions were followed and …. (cough! cough! hack! splutter!) … despite slamming all possible doors, thick blue-black smoke was pouring from more orifices than we realised was possible in a Rayburn.  “Quick, open a window!”  “Oh ****ing hell!  Shut that window, it’s freezing!”  The air in the room increasingly turned blue … at this stage, not entirely the fault of the smuts … with particulate levels that would fail any emissions test, as, with eyes tingling, and with tears streaming down our grimy faces, we approached The Beginner’s Guide to Placating the Rayburn once again.  Surely, a whole box of matches and half a gas-lighter’s worth of fuel, together with a mountain of ex-newsprint and dry kindling should be sufficient to appease the beast?  But no, it was demanding something  other .. (gulp)!  What had we missed?  The Rayburn glared balefully at us from under its newly-acquired grimy creosote layer.  We lit the gas heater.  It had won … for now.  A miserable cold night beckoned … even a hot-water bottle was little comfort in a smoke-filled room in a smut-filled bed, pinned down with as many clothes as we could muster.  Remember back in the days of yore how difficult it was to heave oneself out of bed in the morning?  Now just re-imagine this, and shudder, dear friends … the coffee freezing in your cup … no hot water … and … and .. (wince)…. no toast!!  Never had the heater in the car seemed so inviting, as we sped off down the road to Cirencester ….. and warmth! 

However, as the feet thawed out, the Irving resolve hardened ... the Rayburn would be subdued.  It was time to call (no, not ghost busters) .. the chimney sweep!  Questions.  Questions.  What did we not do?  What does a Rayburn desire (.. within reason)?  Is it dead?  Can we resurrect it?  As he worked, it was revealed that, no, the chimney was not full of birds’ nests, dead birds, witches’ knickers, or even creosote.  Indeed it was as clean as a whistle.  So what was its problem?  Ennui?  An existential crisis?  A hatred of non-metallic life-forms?  Actually very simple.  The poor thing was suffering from neglect.  Within the main body of the beast, there was this one vital grill which was so totally clogged with soot, we couldn’t actually see a single hole within it!  Since this had been slowly building up deposits over some time, it was obvious that the previous occupants also hadn’t noticed this obscure, but vital little cleaning job!  Oh, the embarrassment!  But hadn’t we read the manual?  Where was the reference to this crucial little piece of hardware?  Eventually, in some obscure little section, we found the briefest of references (sigh) ... manual writers, eh?

To say that Y Ddôl is idiosyncratic would be an understatement.  House manuals and useful e-mail addresses / telephone numbers come as part of the package, since getting to grips with the technology can be challenging, in more ways than one!  Luckily, the solar panels work well ... even on light grey days (yay!).  Just as well, as at this time of the year, there’s only about four hours of sun (!) before it sinks below the mountain (click! .. “who turned out the lights?”).  Meanwhile, back to feeding the Rayburn and its compadre .. the rocket stove sofa!  This is a ‘sort of’ off-grid version of central heating, in that it enables you to think about the possibility of creeping out from under the duvet in the morning, as opposed to actively avoiding it!  After having stoked up the earthen mass for about six hours in the evening, feeding it long thin (no fatter than your arm) branches or off-cuts of wood, it will then deign to emit the odd bit of heat overnight to keep the chill off the place.  This process is obviously more efficient if you keep up the burning night after night, as then the mass positively glows!  Mmmm .... warm bum!  Cold hands clamped around the rapidly cooling coffee mug .... but definitely warm bum!

As spring turned to summer and that Welsh soft greenness turned to ... more Welsh soft greenness, we realised that we had to get to grips with (gulp) .... power tools!  Even though there was sunshine (yes, even in Wales), and we had finally managed to replace the interesting (!) home bodged-together, though currently non-working, 12-volt pump for the solar hot-water panel with a similar water pump from a VW car, this was not enough to produce sufficient hot water (at least, not this summer), so we had to resort to burning the rapidly-diminishing precious stash of 2-year-old logs left from the previous occupants.  We had inherited this petrol-driven chainsaw, which had been sitting in the shed, semi-forgotten, since we had acquired Y Ddôl, and that now (gulp) we realised .... it was time ... !  The intrepid Irvings approached the shed .. the door swung open ... were we expected?  A frisson of anxiety passed between us.  We eyed the beastie nervously.  We eyed each other.  Were we ready for this?  Despite having read The Manual of All Things Chainsaw, nothing had prepared us for the reality of the moment ... alone with .. The Chainsaw!  After much dithering (erm ... rationalising ..) and handling of said item, we decided on a tactical retreat from Chainsaw Fortress .... but we’d be back (um .. sometime .. possibly ... maybe ..)!  We needed a Plan B.  Our secret weapon was a cute light-weight cordless chainsaw .... even Joy could manage one of these!  Confidence is everything .. ha!  There was no stopping her ... small branches ... bigger branches ... small trees ... where next?  Thinks : must finish cutting up this tree .. curses! .. battery must be running low .. Extra deep thinks: erm .. actually, it’s not really designed for anything greater than 25-30 cm. diameter ... oh, bugger ... too late ... back to the Chainsaw Shop for a free sharpening under guarantee .. so soon (oops!).  Hazy thinks : must curb crazed mania for chainsaws .. (cackle!).  Meanwhile, slightly nervous husband chews fingernail(s) ... and not just because the big beastie awaits! 

Back in the real world, Tamsin suddenly announced in September that she was coming to see us for a whole fortnight en route from Portugal to ‘a new life in Guadeloupe’.  Guadeloupe?  Why Guadeloupe?  Apparently, she really doesn’t want to go through another cold winter in Portugal.  You might think that the Algarve is considerably warmer than this rained-soaked little island, and you’d be right .. most of the time.  However, even if you have a roof over your head, this often lacks central heating, and so it’s easy to see how one could feel colder than we do here ... and Tamsin was at first living in an unheated borrowed van followed by a cramped unheated little room.  After this, I’d want to go somewhere warmer!  Leaving was ... almost straightforward ... in that she managed to sell most of her (few) possessions.  However, she couldn’t carry everything, so apparently, she made an arrangement with the next occupant of her rented rooms that she could stash her trumpet and a harmonica (amongst other things) in a cupboard, until they could be collected by her Israeli friend, Yuval, on his way through the following week from visiting his parents in Israel.  When Yuval turned up to collect everything, then the crazy woman at first denied any knowledge, and then finally admitted that she’d thrown everything out, as she’d mistaken it for rubbish!  Since this was quite valuable stuff, the real story is likely to be that she’d sold it.  Tamsin also wanted to give some of her (ex) possessions to another friend, and apparently when her friend turned up at the little flat, she was given the same story! 

So, she arrived with an almost-three-year-old Manué, who babbled away using language that we almost managed to understand ... though translations were often necessary as Portuguese mixed with English mixed with ‘baby’ are hard to decipher.  Next time it’ll be French, but with a Creole twist ... unless she departs for South America (sigh) ... but more on that story later.  Luckily, the weather for late September / early October was amazingly warm ... I say luckily because Tamsin had given away most of Manué’s wet-weather / warm clothing in anticipation of the hoped-for heat which was to come.  After a week of lazy warm days, and walking at the Manué speed of 0.1 m.p.h.(on a good day), it’s surprising how different becomes the mental map of your neighbourhood, as you resurrect that mother-and-toddler perspective on those small details of the street scene that have been semi-buried for a few decades.  This usually involves knowing where you are in relation to ... free food (various fruit and nut trees) .. children with scooters (latest Manué toy craze) .. barking dogs (scary) .. Man with Angle-Grinder (fascinating male role model) .. sheep (latest Manué animal craze) ... ah, a boy after my own heart (sigh) .... oh, and of course ... play-parks (preferably inhabited by the ever-patient Uncle Rupert!).  The enduring legacy of this whirlwind visitation is that we now know exactly where the best foraging is to be had ... and have discovered .. The Field of The Crazy Sheep!  Up on a windswept Cotswold hill above (!) Cirencester, with the most glorious view of the old Stratton mill, lives the sheep addicted to ... salt.  In the corner of the field, menacingly chewing on a blade of grass and eyeing up the opposition was this mean-looking critter (cue : banjo music .. twang!).  Nothing and no-one would get past this feisty lady.  Spitting out the blade of grass, she got down to business ... the salt lick.  Mmm ... it tasted good.  Suddenly one brave ewe made her move.  The feisty one glared at her .. meanly ... and then rushed in to head-butt.  The brave one sneaked in a couple of licks, but was rebuffed.  The other sheep turned away.  The feisty mean one had held on to the object of her desire ... her salt lick.  No one would take this away from her.  Half an hour of constant licking later, and with her desire for salt showing no signs of abating, we had visions of this little tiny shrivelled and wrinkly prune-like creature lying upside down with her feet in the air, clutching her four stomachs and groaning ‘water! .. water! ..’ (translated from : ‘baa! .. baa! ..’).  Hmm .. mini salted prune-like sheep in packets anyone?

No more time for musings ... chop! chop! .. wakey! wakey! .. only five days to go!  Poor Yuval ... he stepped off the ‘plane from Portugal into the waiting car, which sped off into the night towards every single bloke’s nightmare ... the meeting with as many relatives as one can muster in as short as possible a time ... and he wasn’t even Tamsin’s boyfriend!  Luckily he survived ... though us crumbly types nearly crumbled, as we slogged up and down motorways, cursed, dodged lorries, cursed, were diverted, became lost, cursed, became found again (halleluja!) ... until finally ... finally ... z .. zz .. zzzzzz .. the crumblies crumbled into little piles of crumbs.  But wait!  Revival was at hand!  Legend has it that a few drops of the magic brown liquid known as .. ‘TEA’ ... will do the trick (drip! drip! .. fizz! .. glug! glug! .. creak!).  So what does that Popeye know?  Spinach? .. pah!    zThere is a species of superbly well-designed indoor play-park, known in Cirencester as ‘MagicLand’, where Rupert, Jess, Yuval and Tamsin took Manué once the weather had started to become a bit more gloomy.  We hadn’t realised that it was a franchise until we visited my Mum and took Manué to a differently-named indoor play-park, and found that it was kitted out in exactly the same manner.  However, there was one obvious difference ... commercialisation.  Here in the relatively-rich Cotswolds, the café sold good quality food, with veggie options .. fruit, fruit juices, whole-grain bars, and the sweets were discretely displayed.  Just outside of Spalding, we were shocked to find how ‘in your face’ was the whole consumer experience.  Not only was it a fruit / fruit juice desert, but customers weren’t allowed to bring in their own!  Everything was meat-based and sweets / Coke was all that they could conceive of a child wishing to eat / drink!  What were you were supposed to do if you wanted to bring up your child healthily?  Luckily, there was a helpful person on the desk who subversively hid us out of sight while we ate our own stuff ... vegans? .. vegetarians? ... you mean you don’t eat meat??  It was such a different world, and one wonders which came first : the demands for such low-standard fare from their customers or the lower expectations of the franchise operators.  Why is it assumed that poorer people don’t care about what they’re eating, or where it comes from?  (Sigh).

So Tamsin, Yuval and Manué departed for Guadeloupe via Paris, and are trying to find their kind of ‘community’, which I sincerely hope that they do, otherwise, there’s talk of going to South America.  Now we know that there are eco-villages in Colombia, but that’s a mighty dangerous place ... and as for the rest ... well .. travellers beware!  Since they were going to the Caribbean for the heat, it’s ironic that they ended up WWOOFing on a farm in the mountains, where it was .. shall we say .. a little chilly at night ... and Yuval had given away all of his jumpers!  Tamsin was determined to travel lightly and had left most of Manué’s jerseys behind as well!  Hmm .. perhaps a little more research?  Despite finding the farm in the WWOOF on-line list of authorised organic farms, it turned out that the farm wasn’t geared up to cope with WWOOFers until January (due to a family illness), but allowed them to stay until they could find somewhere to rent.  So now they’re ensconced in an ex holiday cottage, with basic facilities and a garden, which gradually becomes the jungle, and crucially a short walk to the sea, which means ... warmth! (actually  .. sweatiness .. we’ve lived in Papua new Guinea ..).  Tamsin has just discovered the down-side to living in tropical islands ... it’s hard to dry your clothes (which then go mouldy .. yuk!) since the humidity is so high .. because .. it rains a lot!  Another rain-soaked little island .. only stickier!  One of the up-sides is that there’s a hydro-thermal spring, fed from the volcano, flowing into a natural pool on the beach, where you can take a bath, and locals do .. it’s free hot water!  Another bonus, is that Tamsin and Yuval can use their ex neighbours’ washing machine and broad-band (yay!).  The reason being that all services can take so long to connect in Guadeloupe, that, even though the neighbours moved out just after Tamsin arrived (no connection!), they keep returning to use the broad-band and washing machine until such facilities are up and running in their new house!  Tamsin seems to have discovered the odd friend or two for Manué, and has become friends with a musician and instrument maker, whereupon the two of them have put on ‘a concert’ at a local ‘white’ market, i.e., it didn’t appear to be a market where locals normally go to shop.  So far, so good ... though we’re steering clear of the topic of South America. 

Rupert’s life since graduation doesn’t seem to have changed much, except that since his girlfriend Jess moved into a shared house with friends in August, we see even less of him than when he was a student!  Suddenly he has all the advantages of living with someone without actually living with them!  What a perfect life of unchallenged existence!  So, how has he impinged upon our lives this year?  Mostly as brightly-coloured blurs.  “Just need a change of clothes .. byee!”; “O parents ... can I borrow your car .. mine’s a bit dead .. again .. and we’re playing this gig and I need to move stuff .. yes? ... ta ! .. byeee!”; “I’m just going to sleep .. got a night-shift in a couple of hours ... byee!”.  Which pretty much sums up Rupert’s life in a nutshell.  He’s also a pretty cool Uncle ... Manué thinks so, anyway .. And he has now bought a van to move his band gear to gigs (yay!) .. though it’s not quite legal yet, as it was imported from S. Ireland (sshhh!).

Bob is still doing his 3-day-(in theory)a-week job at Oxford Brookes as a (ahem) ‘Research Associate’, otherwise known as an up-market slave.  And just when we’d both decided to give up on all treasurerships of the SW Green Party .. guess what? ... he’s now Treasurer for Gloucestershire FoE, (... no! no! please don’t make me! ...).  As for myself, Joy-to-the-World, I’m still volunteering at the OUMNH, one day a week, when I’m not trying to organise repairs and insulation for Y Ddôl from afar ... or indeed near at hand (blub! blub! blub! ... and another wellie-boot sinks without trace in the mire ... erm .. garden).  
   
And now, O Best Beloveds, a story will be told which has been unfolding since the year’s beginning .. yeah .. and probably even a longer time since.  One day, as I was slogging it out to Jane Fonda (only 30 years since her exercise regime was popular .. I don’t get out much!), I felt a crunch whilst doing a shoulder stand, felt some pain, and as is normal, went to the osteopath (osteopath reaction : “are you crazy .. at your age!”), pain went away.  After another six months of failing to heed the osteopath’s advice ... another crunch in exactly the same place .. “.. aarggh! .. can’t breathe! .. ow! ..ow! ..ow!! ..”.  Now this was a bit hard-core, so perhaps a visit to the doctor?  The X-ray machine showed a partially collapsed T5 vertebra, and something ... fuzzy and indeterminate .. (how did that mini shrivelled salt-addicted sheep get into the X-ray department?).  MRI and  bone density scans followed in quick succession; osteoporosis was diagnosed, and the faces and actions of the MRI staff confirmed that the evil fuzzy thing was still an evil fuzzy thing ... though not a word was said (shhh!).  At this stage, O Gentle Readers (end of August), you’d think that some sort of treatment would be imminent ... at least for the osteoporosis, but no ... the stage was set for a bit of a farcical muddle,  involving my doctor going on holiday, an obfuscating locum sowing the seeds of confusion with consequent delays, and assumptions about who knew what .. or not.  A whole month later .. finally ... I get to see a consultant! (yay!) ... who tells  me nothing that I didn’t already know, but who is, crucially, the only person who can order the next phase of scans.  The next couple of weeks saw me ‘hotter’ than a caesium-filled N. Wales sheep after the Chernobyl fall-out, as CT scan followed bone scan followed the imbibing of various ‘interesting’ substances labelled ‘Drink Me’ (or words to this effect).  No shrinking or becoming bigger ... so not that sort of mind-altering, then?  Zzzapp!! ... (drat .. another brain cell ... ).  A month passed.  The bone scan highlighted a few extra mini evil fuzzy things (boo!).  Another month passed.  The CT soft-tissue scan showed only the original evil fuzzy thing (yay! and double yay!).  ‘I’m not going to be poisoned’ .. ‘I get to keep my hair!’ mused I inwardly, though excitedly and somewhat relieved, having known what the treatment options would be for the previous two months.  “Hmm .. that’s good.” was what I actually uttered (consultant probably thinking : ‘a bit of a cool customer, this one ...’).  Now at last, thanks to the aromatase inhibitor, those cunning little rogue breast cancer cells will be starved of their daily fix of oestrogen (“Shrivel and die, O evil ones!”) ... assuming that the evil fuzzy thing, sitting in its command centre at the T5 vertebra plotting (yes, you’ve guessed) to Take Over The World, is what we think it is.  Or maybe it isn’t ...  but that’s another story yet to be told, O Best Beloveds.   
                
The parental home has now become just a storage facility and distribution hub for one child ‘en route’ between one existential crisis and the next, or one for whom an existential crisis might be a good thing, since he appears to have ‘found himself’ too early .. life being just one giant comfort blanket.  I wonder ... could it be that adulthood only truly arrives when you accept responsibility for (i.e., when you have somewhere to stash) all of the accoutrements of your previous lives?  Hmm ... we could be twiddling our thumbs for a while yet! 

So now Christmas is a-coming .. less than a week to go ... (ah, the tyranny of dates) ... time to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Lots of love and Best Wishes from Joy, Bob, Rupert, Tamsin and Manué

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