Final Run In

I am now on the final run in to my short break in the UK. I should be packing a bag really, so this post is a displacement activity. Liz is out at 'Knit and Natter' so I have rustled up myself some supper, walked the dogs in the rain, shepherded the geese home to their house and I have some Christy Moore burbling away on the speakers. It's actually been a lovely day, breezy but very warm, cloudy but with no rain (up till this evening).

We decided to indulge ourselves in a bit of blackberrying. I had already spotted some superb looking berries on the western and southern boundary hedges of John Deere Bob's silage fields but was giving these a while because only the apical berry of each bunch had turned black. Bob was happy to let us plunder this crop having no intention of picking them himself. We also have access to Vendor Anna's berries but we have not started on those yet.

Sungold tomatoes from the Poly Tunnel

It was easy picking and lovely companionable entertainment. Both of us can remember blackberry picking missions in our childhood. Mine was mainly in fields alongside the road where we grew up; it is all built on now, of course! I remember we had hooked walking sticks to help pull down the higher up bramble stems. Liz recalls going into the 'scrub' behind Portmarnock Beach's sand dunes, the whole family going out including Mrs S as a baby in a push chair, who they'd park under her own sprays of hanging blackcurrants so that she could 'help'. "She'd eat her own weight" recalls Liz. I am not sure how many berries made it to the communal collecting bucket and the journey home.

We managed in an easy hour, to collect 5.142 kg of good, plump, black fruit and Bob came and found us (on his tractor, inevitably) when we were almost done. He invited us back to his house for 'tay' and told us to keep coming back for more berries as often as we want. He has diabetes, so the really sweet blackberry recipes would be no good for him, but he is looking forward to a low-sugar, sharp, blackberry tart which Liz has promised him. The rest of the fruit has gone into the freezer for now but will be used in baking and possibly some blackberry wine. I sidelined a few this afternoon to have with a block of ice cream. Superb.

Newest neighbour, this Charolais calf, only days old

My third picture here is of some lovely yellow/orange "Sungold" cherry tomatoes now coming ready in the poly tunnel. I have three varieties of tomato in there, including a red cherry tomato and some self-seed 'volunteer' plants of uncertain parentage, scrounged from Mentor Anne's poly tunnel. We did not get the poly tunnel erected very early this year, nor prepared for planting, so these plants all had a bit of a late start. They did well through the heat of June and July generating a good show of flowers but did not seem to set much fruit. Then when we went all cloudy and cool in August, they seemed to suddenly go for foliage and height rather than fruit. I gave them a good prune a week or so ago leaving plenty of set fruit exposed to the maximum light and this, in the case of Sungolds, is now ripening well, but I still have no colour break in any of the red tomatoes. I am not sure why this is, but perhaps we can do better next year with an earlier start, sowing in March or April, perhaps. We live and learn.

Gig Driving and Pony Rides

You'll have read in earlier posts that we are currently entertaining the Silverwoods on a week's 'holiday'. Just Mrs S and the children this time, as Mr S has to work. They arrived Sunday afternoon and are here for this week till Mr S comes back this weekend to collect them all up again. Not much time, then, to post on here; the usual run of farm based entertainments and front lawn games.

We have been getting to know animals and poultry, training sheep to eat from buckets and to come up to the gate for food at meal times, helping Broody Betty to scratch up worms for the ducklings and giving the baby bunnies a good amount of handling practise. We have played tennis, badminton, soccer and GAA football. We have lost shuttlecocks and balls all over the shop. We have built wooden toy sailing boats and bird houses. The sailing boat is exhausted from many voyages on the pond.

The highlight of the week (for me at least) so far was a session we arranged with Charlotte the mini-horse owner to come down and let the kids have a go at driving the gig pulled by Romeo or just riding in it and, for the two smaller ones, a bit of bare back riding on Bob. The older children and adults also went for a spin down the lane, dicing with the local traffic.

The horses were due to arrive at midday, by which time it was raining quite hard, so we retreated indoors for tea and to let it stop. The rain obliged by about ten past and we got a lovely hour or so of sunshine to do our stuff and to get some lovely pictures.

The kids, Mrs S and I all took a spin round the front lawn on the gig being shown the reins and the very soft-mouth, gentle action steering of Romeo. Charlotte, of course, drove him in some of the shows where they won all the awards, so she can make him reverse, turn tight round, go slow and fast, but we were just beginners so we were on the very basics.

Mrs S and I both had a go and took pictures of each other but the camera chose that 5 minutes of the day to mis-fire, so we have dozens of lovely pics of the children but none of the grown ups.

We had a whale of a time and everybody loved it. We all thank Charlotte so, so much for doing this for us. She was quite enjoying being able to do some actual training on 'sensible' horses. Round here, she tells me, all the riding schools are for specialist work like show jumping using highly strung, competitive thoroughbred horses which are 'away with the fairies' and not really for inexperienced children. Hence, she says, none of the children are ever into horses.