The New Normal

A beautiful weedling

Every now and again at Pilsdon you find yourself doing something you had never imagined anyone doing, let alone yourself. For example on Sunday I had to search in the workshop for a crowbar to attempt to jimmy out of a freezer a five pound bag of minced beef that had become ice-welded to its neighbouring bags of meat and the freezer floor.  Last week I was trying and failing to keep an effective head-lock on a boisterous calf to stop him eating the feed of the younger and slower calf, Oscar. And on Monday I had to drive four eight-foot-long wooden stakes back to Axminster, attached to the truck like rocket-launchers, only to have the ratchet snap give way whilst driving at 60mph along a single-lane B road (thankfully they stayed on, I was able to re-attach them, and reached Axminster in time for Grainne* to catch her train, just).

The main polytunnel has broccoli, cabbages, salad leaves, kale, pak choi, spinach, chard, broad beans and peas growing.
Not bad for January.

A single day can encapsulate such varied activities as milking the dairy cows and mucking out their quarters before the sun has risen, taking communion before breakfast, making pats of butter from our cows’ cream, preparing soup for 22 people from a tray of recently dug-up turnips and an obscenely large parsnip, marking out two new garden beds for strawberries, showing a four year old boy how to find middle C on a piano, driving to Bridport as the bright low sun lights up the whole of Marshwood Vale to collect those who have been to an ADCAP meeting, chatting to Stan** who joined Pilsdon recently who says he’s happier now than he has been for six years, and preparing this blog post.  That was just some of yesterday.

The obscenely large parsnip

After the extended celebrations and feasting of Christmas and New Year, things are now returning to normality. The three-course candlelit meal of New Year’s Eve followed by a terrifyingly tricky quiz (sample question : “Which country would be the second largest in the world if you don’t include their lakes?”) and a hilarious selection of homegrown talent offering songs, skits, poems and musical numbers, is sadly now just a memory. All those who went away over the festive period have now returned. The weekly rota has settled back into its usual routine. People are breathing a collective inward sigh of relief. 

Outside is a different story, but there's still some parsnips, swedes and carrots out there.

It’s time to face the fact that 2015 is really upon us. The things we hope to achieve this year, we had better start to make them happen. The lessons we think we’ve learned from 2014, we need to begin to put them into practice. Whatever befalls us all this year, both good and ill, the attitude with which we face each day will ultimately affect how we experience it all.  

One thing we do know, at least those of us living in the UK, is that we will have an opportunity to elect a different government. As I’m on the electoral roll in West Dorset but will be living in my caravan in Wales in May, I've arranged to have a postal vote. As West Dorset has never had anything other than a Conservative MP, chances are slim that my vote will topple Oliver Letwin from his comfortable seat but I’m still ready to have a go. How about giving the Green Party a shot at power, shall we?  Or at least a bit of media coverage please, BBC.

* Real name used by permission

** Not his real name