leaving my hill
Going away... leaving my hill is more of a military manoeuvre - oh but its worth it!
I’ve been away…
Visiting old friends for a few days in their gorgeous old French farmhouse in the Tarn et Garonne (dept 83) are the five days I look forward to most throughout the whole year. Whilst this is only a very short trip both in terms of distance and time, since we have lived in France it is nonetheless one that has become a much loved tradition for myself and my two children. As we count the days the excitement mounts, as does the stress and the fear that something will happen to thwart our departure, not least because it’s the only holiday we take.
This year was our nineteenth trip!
Days off from our small holding and the incessant work it entails are hard fought for moments though, and as such very precious, especially when spent in the company of much missed and very dear friends. The preparations necessary to make this possible are seemingly endless but if not achieved not even one day away would be possible, at least not restfully — I refuse to spend such coveted moments of special time in a constant state of stressing that on returning days of work await.
According to Mr M, who doesn’t accompany us, this comes under the heading of;
the life you chose
and
self sufficient chaos
AND indeed, he is not wrong because it is the life I chose, it is invariably chaos but I wouldn’t change it for the world. And, leaving it does take some doing! I have to be exceptionally dexterous, in fact make that ambidextrous because the process of departure from the hill, the vast list of necessities in order that I may leave with offspring in a working and reliable vehicle (that was a biggie this year but she made it) to relax for just five days is comparable to a military manoeuvre and not a matter to joke about.
First and foremost, the menagerie; all animals and their respective abodes have to be checked and cleaned…
All except two guinea pigs!
Two years ago a family decision was made to release Jacket and Jeans, two sterilised female guinea pigs, inherited from a friend who was overrun, from their miserable life in caged quarters into a far more agreeable and free range life with the chickens. Truthfully, we didn’t hold out huge hope for their survival due numerous predators airborne or otherwise but they seem to be craftier than we anticipated and adapted well. They tunnelled under the coop and made runs through tiles leaning up against the timber walls to serve as escape routes and are now so feral I can no longer catch them.
Good for them!
Our two cats, Sasquatch — because she has big paws — and Grey Cat — because, well… quite simply she’s grey — are the easiest, they are almost completely independent, especially at this time of year when field mice are numerous after being disturbed by harvesting machines rumbling through and disrupting their homes. The only occasion they will return to eat the food I leave out for them is if they smell chicken and can appear quite literally from nowhere at the slightest whiff, the dried food however, which I leave every day, is eaten by every stray carnivore on the hill. Sassy and Grey Cat voluntarily live outside except on the hottest of days of summer and the coldest of winter which they spend curled in front of stove, when it behaves of course! At night they hunt, no matter the season and leave me delightful little gifts of mouse and rabbit offal on the door step. I worry about them less than any other animal we own. Although, on the day we left Grey Cat had been missing for almost three weeks, which was very unusual and more than a little worrying.
The chickens, we have eight ex prison convicts (rescued from a battery farm) are also not hugely problematic, a quick muck out, clean hay in their nesting boxes, clean water in the bowls and sawdust on the floor, check the fencing for holes in case foxes have the idea of a chicken dinner on their minds and that the humane trap is set just in case one or more of the numerous pine marten on the hill decides to be curious et voila!
And Wolfie… what to say about a dog who killed my favourite and only surviving hen after the last pine marten came calling, five others were not so lucky. And, had to be wrestled from my old ewe’s throat after cornering her in their cabin, both unforgivably bad behaviour. I try to believe he was just being playful but he chases everything that moves; sheep, cows, donkeys, horses even wild boar and tractors. And cars and cyclists, he is mortifying! As such he is chained at the bottom of the steps at all times, walked twice a day and fed, groomed (under duress), treated as part of the family but he isn’t forgiven — not by me anyway!
Next come the most work intense animals, my sheep! Sheep, in common with goats — been there, done that, had the goat in the kitchen — are great escape artists and they know well the hands that feed them and when those hands change and when its possible to be as naughty as hell. Every year while I’m away I get a phone call from Mr M, filled with expletives, as he tells me how long it has taken him to round up the sheep from the neighbours field. He knows the call I use to bring them in, ‘lilou-lilou-lilou’ but either his voice is too deep and they don’t hear him or they choose to ignore him which is by far the most likely. Hence the message from home is never a mellow one. With this in mind, determined, as I am every year that this will be the one without the heated call, I spend an entire afternoon patching up any hole in the fencing that just might look adaptable enough for a sheep to squeeze through and a possible escape route. I change their water, their bedding, I measure out hay for each day because there is no grass left even after all the rain at the start of the month and I check their feet too, just in case and I leave explicit instructions in case of emergency.
Hmm…
I’ve waffled on a bit there and that’s just the animals!
The garden also takes a day to prepare, all ripe fruit and veggies have to be harvested and either packed ready to take with us or frozen, made into jam or chutney, whatever is necessary in order that they are not wasted and I don’t return to a mountain of food that is either over ripe or worse, already rotten. All land not used by the sheep and hens is mowed and the brambles, which, as I’ve mentioned several times before in previous letters to you, are completely out of control and cut to within an inch of their lives, hopefully!
And so to the house, my home, the place that’s always good to return to even if the holiday just passed has been the best ever, and this is really, really important, mainly due to — my very well known to some — obsessional behaviour and as such my problem. In other words not important to anyone but me because everyone I live with is oblivious to the mess, regardless, the house has to be spotless. The laundry basket must be empty, everything washed dried and folded — ironed if possible but I have a permanent mountain of ironing it being my most dreaded of all housework, so not essential. All rooms must be dusted and vacuumed and all son paraphernalia which is somehow scattered liberally through every room despite the fact he has a den of his own, tidied away. The fridge is also emptied and cleaned to contain only food likely to be consumed by Mr M, which is very little because I leave meals for each day, labelled in the freezer ready to be defrosted and reheated. All the bed linen must be changed. All administrative work has to be filled in, filed, and posted so that I can forget about it. Mr M never accompanies me and uses just two of the ten rooms while we are away, so I know for certain that at least eight will be untouched when I return. I close each door as I finish — job done!
I know all this sounds slightly deranged, it probably is but surely I am not alone in my madness?
I think what surprises me most is that I ever get away at all, I do though, usually exhausted by the preparation but…
I do eventually pull up — after a middle sized vehicle panic, a quick and long overdue visit to see my uncle and aunt en route and a diversion to a pottery market in Caylus to buy a birthday gift — in front of my second favourite house in the whole wide world to spend five very wonderful days, filled with laughter and too much sun with almost all of my favourite friends.
The first night, at a concert in Lauzerte, we dance wildly with glitter painted on our faces, the air heavy with the lingering heat of the day and the heady, musky scent of weed, to deafening music, a sort is African hip hop, rap with a very fast pace, definitely more suited to the younger generation but as William W Purkey wrote;
You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching, Love like you'll never be hurt, Sing like there's nobody listening, And live like it's heaven on earth.
And we did!
We celebrate an important birthday and eat huge amounts of food, drink even more rosé and play games until well after midnight while sitting under the catalpa watching storms in the distance and the night sky in the drunken hope of catching sight of at least one last shooting star from this months meteor shower.
And when we sleep, it’s to the hum of cicada… and a thousand mosquitoes but nobody cares…
They are always halcyon days which I hope my children will remember with as much love and joy as I do.
The game we played (mostly) this year was the inspiration, in a rather roundabout way, for my 100 word story this week, if you haven’t already read it just click below…
Nina
I’ve just returned from five days spent with some of my oldest friends, lazy days reminiscing, eating fabulous food and drinking probably — definitely — a little too much rosé. I make the same trip, to see the same beautiful people every year and every year I return with new memories and old ones renewed during days that pass all too quickly.
I don’t hear a word from Mr M so when I call him I don’t expect to hear of anything untoward relating to sheep or otherwise but inevitably, one lamb escaped, it just wasn’t a recapture worth ranting about! Small mercies…
Grey Cat returned from what ever adventure she’d been having, unharmed, one hour after we arrived home — a relief all round.
I like it when people don’t NEED a dozen far-away-holidays a year to be happy❣️
This sounds like me on the rare occasions that I can go away for a few days♡ I can so relate! But we have goats (we had sheep once, never again) and rhe goats need milking while we're away. It's always a bit complicated, and it's not unusual that something goes awry while we are gone. Has Grey Cat returned???