This farm road to Hisself's wind site brings a wedding dress to my mind. All the support [tonnes of rock], extra frills and a bit of padding. Costs a fortune and is going to be used once. But it is fantastic for the buggy. I used to walk along the main road but now we can stay on the farm, No5 can get down and run at will and the dog has full freedom to roam too.
The road is not quite finished yet and it has been another long stretch of starting early and finishing late. No1 son was away the first week of October holidays with school, landed on Glasgow 1 am Monday morning, was at home 6 am and started on the vibrating roller at 7am. On Thursday he actually spoke the first time wanting to know "What day is it?". The road crew might go away at 5 pm but Hisself and sons have all the machinery to service, livestock to feed and on bad days some combining and drying to finish.
There has been plenty to do at home but both sons have taken on a neighbour's holding while the owners are away on holiday. The money has been good. No3 son has been taking things more quietly and helped at home in between biking to his second job. No1 has rushed up the road during his breaks to keep all balls in the air and work on the road running smoothly.
Hisself has made sure the boys has stopped around 7.30 pm. By 8 o'clock both have eaten, washed and fast asleep ready for the next day.
I have been busy too. Doing all the jobs that need doing but no-one else is there to do. Lot of it is paperwork. But I have laid my share of geogrid, wielded the axe for firewood and run the farm. The main aim at the moment is to be able to sit down for a cup of tea.
During all this mayhem I demanded that everyone got dressed up and we went for a family photograph. I am yet to figure out what possessed me to make this appointment for the least suitable time and how we got Hisself there in time. To my great surprise the results are excellent. Several pictures where we all look reasonable and one truly brilliant one. We all look happy, relaxed and comfortable together. Maybe that will happen in the real life too. One day, when all this panic is over.
It has been several busy weeks in our household. No time to get online let alone write something. I naturally blame Hisself but No5 is partially responsible. She is adorable but also busy and prone to climbing. Not the usual sort - she has it down to fine art and uses imaginative steps like full milk cartons from fridge, wash baskets, toy boxes and in absolute desperation an overturned dog bed will do.
On my toes with her but what can I say, her favourite word is "happy" and when I cook she gets her stuffed pig [soft toy], crams it into her play oven with some plastic potatoes and after all the effort makes me a cup of imaginary tea.
Tea and sympathy have both been what the doctor ordered. Hisself did volunteer us for the sheep tagging exercise that is going on at the moment. I tagged and tagged and when the day went on tagged a bit more but that time with No5 in my back. Maybe not surprisingly my hip protested. A wrong turn and I had a nerve firmly stuck inside my hip joint and boy, was it sore!!!! I used to do that while pregnant so from the archives out came the giant elastic band designed to keep bodyparts together. On the bright side I still fitted into the smaller version....
The medical advice is to do physio, eat painkillers and keep moving. I did do my exercises, had no option but keep moving but instead of painkillers opted for a hot bath and a quantity of spirits. That would had been my dad's advice and as he lived to see his 80th birthday I trusted him more than the doctor. And dad was right.
Hisself's diversification project has moved from the office out to the real world. First stage has been new farm roads in rain. The rain has nothing to do with the road project but has made my life a misery. To begin with I was using the grass field to bypass the drive. It was nice and dry. Then it rained and I began to skid across till my journey was more of a sideways crab crawl than anything else. Never got stuck nor did I hit a gate post, but I was getting miserable about it.
Should had counted my blessings instead. The next stage was leaving the car across the main road and walking few hundred meters of drive. Piece of cake! Well, not when you have a toddler, handbag, shopping bags, nappy bag and on a good day a buggy too and it is soggy mud up to buggie axle, climb over the freshly delivered rock pile and a jump over the open culvert. That is the way out, on return journey repeat with weeks shopping for seven. For ten days my dream has been to be clean while awake for at least two hours every day.
Today is the day when credit crunch got under my skin. I have enjoyed the strong £, weak $ relationship for a while now by buying directly from USA. With kids clothes it made unbeatable sense. Well, not longer. There will be no 60% off winter sale this year come Xmas time. So here I am, caked in mud and nowhere to shop!