They're all going on a summer holiday

Things I've learned

1. Farmers are adept at diversification. 
2. I like salted caramel ice cream. I was pretty sure of that already but it's always good to check these things. 

I've been thinking a lot about holidays this week. It's partly the weather - which has been scorchio - and partly the increase in traffic on the roads. 

Dumfries and Galloway is a region that relies heavily on tourism. According to Visit Scotland, British travellers alone made over 750,000 overnight trips to the region in 2018, spending 2.5 million nights and £141 million. 

Of course, this is a mixed blessing. It means that when we have visitors ourselves, there are plenty of places and events to take them to. But we've also all come across drivers either braking for every bend (or puddle, which was my particular favourite) or going far too fast on single track roads and overtaking on blind corners on the A75. 

It's not quite the onslaught that Edinburgh usually has every year. When I lived there, I really enjoyed the fact that I passed Edinburgh Castle on my morning bus route and that I could walk to some of the best art galleries in the world but it made going about my day to day life in August absolute hell. It's certainly experiencing a quieter summer this year due to covid cancellations and, although that has a massive impact on businesses that rely on festival audiences, I'm sure there are many that are breathing a sigh of relief and enjoying the quieter streets. 

Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

Which brings me back to D&G and the farm. Before I lived here, the tourism sector was something I only really thought about in a work setting. Having worked for Spring Fling and the Wigtown Book Festival in the past, I've been involved in a lot of audience surveys, reports to funders and the like but it all felt a bit more abstract. 

Spittal Sunset
Photo by Ivie

Now the view from my bedroom window includes the two holiday cottages on the farm and if I'm sitting outside I can hear people on the cycle path and the gates opening and closing. 

I really like it. I love living somewhere that other people want to come and visit and it stops me taking these glorious views for granted. A friend of mine came to visit last week from Wiltshire and stayed in a nearby AirBnB (Spittal Cottages were both booked!). Her and her children arrived one drizzly, overcast afternoon and woke up the next day surrounded by the Galloway Hills and Galloway Forest Park. They were all captivated by the views, the wildlife and the peace and quiet. It was great to see the place through their eyes and it made me fall in love with D&G a little bit more, if that's possible. 

Photo by Julia

While they were here, we went to Cream o' Galloway on a sunny Saturday. It was my first major trip into the outside world since mid-March so it was all slightly strange. But as numbers were limited to enable social distancing it meant that it was quiet, we barely had to queue for ice cream (salted caramel since you ask) and the kids could explore the adventure playground and go karts till their heart's content. 

It reminded us of a previous visit around six years ago when they'd come to Auchencairn to stay with me. As we waited for the tractor ride (little did I know I'd be able to do that every day if I wanted in a few year's time), the chap said, "now remember that we'll be driving through a working farm. There will be machinery and equipment lying around." We thought he meant from a health and safety point of view and keeping the children safe. "We've had complaints from visitors that the place looks untidy." I'm not often speechless...

Everybody was Multi-tasking

What I've learned:

1. Everyone around here has more than one skill
2. Farmers' skills involve hitting things with a hammer

We've been having our bathroom refitted this week. It's been a long time coming. We started talking about it before Christmas then finally got round to ordering everything in March. Then lockdown happened. And shielding was extended. So, we've now got a beautiful, almost finished bathroom. 

Work in progress

We've been really lucky with the guy that's doing it for us. Technically, he's a joiner but he's done the plumbing, plastering, as well as the joinery work and fitting the new window. I know everyone knows everyone around here but it makes things so much easier because you're not just opening the Yellow Pages (yes, I'm showing my age) and choosing someone random that a) might turn up when they say they're going to and b) might do a good job. 

You're allowed to be excited about new windows when you're over 40

Along the way, I've learned that farmers are also mult-talented. I've mentioned before that I didn't really know what Ivie did all day. Aside from complicated mental arithmetic, Ivie spends his day problem-solving and fixing things. His days rarely finish up as planned due to any number of unforeseen circumstances involving the weather, temperamental machinery, animals escaping, animals dying, animals giving birth, or any combination thereof. In a lot of cases - animals notwithstanding - these circumstances are 'moulded' with the aid of a heavy object and a lot of force. 

Talking of multi-tasking, something I noticed when I first moved to Dumfries and Galloway is that a lot of people have more than one job. Their week might be made up of two or three part-time jobs or they might make money from their arts and crafts skills over and above the 9-5. In some circles, it would be called a 'portfolio career' but for normal people, it's just life. Before I lived here, I'd always worked full-time without questioning it and it was the norm amongst my friends. In fact, the people I knew who didn't work full-time outside the home generally had small children. 

As I've got older, I've really appreciated time over almost everything else and, aside from a six-month blip in a job that wasn't right for me, I've worked part-time since December 2013, often made up of two or more contracts. It was a great way to get to know more people, too. My first part-time contracts were with Spring Fling and Wigtown Book Festival, two of my favourite D&G cultural icons. I got to know a lot of people who are now close friends and I might have bumped into someone special at the 2017 book festival opening party...

Going back to the bathroom, I did get slightly confused by the multi-talented joiner earlier in the week. He mentioned that he would only be there the next morning as he had a funeral in the afternoon. I made my, "oh I'm sorry" face but didn't have time to say anything else as he had already moved on to telling me what else he still had to do. Later, as I watched the van leave down the farm road, I saw the tell-tale words on the back doors, "Ian Broll. Joiners and Funeral Directors". 

Flitting and Stripping

What you should know:

• if you keep reading you'll see a photo of Ivie stripping

Ivie has had two addresses in his life; I'd had two by the time I was 8 months old. I've moved house twice in the last year come to think of it (it made sense at the time, honest). 

I've been thinking about moving house this week - not that I'm planning on doing it again anytime soon. But we're getting ready for a new bathroom so have been taking down shelves and stripping wallpaper and there's now that strange echo that you get when you start to pack boxes prior to a move. 

Move 1, July 2019

Move 2, Dec 2019

Housing on farms is something that seems quite complicated if you haven't grown up in that environment. For example, Ivie's two addresses have been the farmhouse (where he grew up) and the farm cottage (where we live now). It takes less than a minute to walk between the two so he's never had to bother setting up mail redirection. 

When Ivie's brother and sister-in-law got married they moved into the cottage. So far, so straightforward. When their third child was on the way, they moved into the farmhouse. That's when Ivie moved into the cottage. The end. 

Except it's not the end. If one of Ivie's nieces or his nephew decide to make their life on the farm, they'll probably move into the cottage so we'll move out. And if later they have a growing family, they'll probably move into the farmhouse, meaning Ivie's brother and sister-in-law will move out. And so the merry-go-round continues. 

It sounds harsh from the outside looking in but it's practical and follows the circle of life, a bit like farming itself. 

I used to think that would make me feel quite insecure and transient about where I lived but the old adage about home being where the heart is, is absolutely true. We're middle-aged so we're looking forward to choosing paint colours and flooring and have been saying things like, "it'll be so much easier to keep clean". 

Decorating doesn't feel like a waste of time because this is the home we're building together today. I could repeat all sorts of cliches about living in the here and now but it's something that kind of happens on the farm anyway. Every day is a new day and, although what happens today has an impact on the future, none of it is set in stone. 

For instance, Ivie is supposed to be at silage on another farm today but it started tipping down as soon as he got there so he'll head back and find another job that needs doing. Like stripping wallpaper. 

Two Baths Fisher 

Sheeting the Pit

Here's what I've learned:
1. It's sheeting the pit not pitting the sheet (but try telling my brain that). 
2. Apparently it was really easy this year (but try telling my body that). 

For a few weeks now I've been hearing rumours that I would be involved in sheeting the pit this year. Like many things in life, I didn't give the reality much thought (I once agreed to walk 500 miles across Spain in my summer holidays without thinking about what that actually meant. Luckily it turned out to be amazing, despite being proposed to by an Australian and an Austrian. But that's another story). 

Somewhere in Spain, 1994

Last Thursday after tea, I was instructed to don my boilersuit, leggings and wellies and join the Wacky Races to the silage pit. I ended up as a hanger-on on the loadall after turning down a lift on the quad (I didn't think Ivie's brother and nephew would appreciate me clinging to them the way I do to Ivie) and in the loadbed of the pick-up (I didn't want to embarrass myself in front of Ivie's sister-in-law, niece and two of her friends by tripping on the way in and on the way out). 

Another member of the team was already up the hill (via tractor) so that was us up to nine. 

This is how the pit looked by the time we'd finished. 

It looks that way for five or six months of the year. 

I've walked past it often in the last couple of years. 

I've never once contemplated how it gets like that. 

For the uninitiated, the pit consists of three concrete sides and an open front. It is filled with cut grass then covered in two layers of plastic, a layer of green mesh and weighted down with tyres. 

BUT the layers of plastic aren't just two single massive sheets. Because that would be too easy - and too difficult (imagine trying to transport a bin bag that size). So, there are side sheets that are rolled in from the sides then the main sheets are rolled down in sections and weighted down at the seams with tyres. I didn't quite grasp which sheets go under and which go over but Ivie seemed to have it under control. At one point, I was sure we were folding French seams Patrick and Esme would be proud of. 

Socially distant teamwork

This was us rolling down the last sheet. By this point, I was sweaty, out of breath and had aching muscles. And we hadn't even started chucking tyres around yet. It was a rude awakening from my 14 weeks of shielding where I haven't ventured off the farm. Apart from a fantastic online Pilates class (thank you, Di), there hasn't been a huge amount of lockdown exercise. That certainly changed last Thursday...

I probably did a bit less than everyone else, partly because I was always one step behind, standing on the wrong sheet or putting a tyre in the wrong place. Frequently all three. But it was one of those occasions I'd have been sad to miss (but don't remind anyone I said so this time next year). It felt like I was making a contribution, however small and unskilled, to the people and place I call home. 

Home Sweet Home

Things I Know
It feels like home

I've lived at the farm for about two and a half months now. Not very long in the scheme of things but in some ways it feels like I've always been here. 

My brother came to visit last weekend. It was the first time he'd been here in daylight so we went for a walk around with Isa the border collie. My brother has always taken loads of photos and is good at spotting the little things that make up the day. 

My wellies and leggings at the back door

He sent me a few and one of the things that struck me was that I looked relaxed and at home. I'm not just visiting, I live here! 

I mentioned in an earlier post that I never thought I'd live with anyone again. There was lots about living on my own that I loved and my independence was hard won. But then Ivie came along and changed my mind. 

It's been a while since either of us has had a housemate so we're figuring it out as we go along. And every day I realise how lucky I am to live: 

• with someone that makes me laugh every day and puts up with me laughing at my own (hilarious) jokes. 
• next door to Ivie's family that include me in things and don't make me feel stupid when I don't know about farm life.
• somewhere with views like this a few minutes' walk from my back door (with a borrowed collie).

So, it looks like Ivie and The Spittal are stuck with me for a while. Even the cat's decided she's staying.