Rob’s CV diaries 4: On the lighter side

In an attempt to inject a little humour into the dire shadow created by the Corona Virus, I copied a few friends in on this modified first line of The Hobbit: In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. He planned to stay there indefinitely in order not to make the lives of essential healthcare personnel more perilous.  

I did not invent that modification to Tolkien’s book, but I thought I might have a go at his magnum: The Lord of the Rings. Here’s the modified first line: When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, he received a visit from the Hobbiton constabulary who explicitly apprised him of the recent restrictions on social gatherings.

Parody is one way of keeping the spirits up and a take off of Queen’s famous song certainly made me smile – and it ends with a serious message. See and hear it as Corona Virus Rhapsody.

And then, for me, it was April the 1^st. Back when we had our smallholding and children of varying ages I made a great thing of that day. My favourite prank was to create what looked like a hand part submerged in our pond holding a notice. The notice said something silly like ‘Save me!’, and I think I found it funnier in the execution than the kids did when they first looked out of their bedroom windows. Isolated in Stow and with children now mostly far away and with kids of their own, I am spending some time clearing up  my garage (really my shed, no room for a car) and came upon a golden egg. No idea where it came from and why I kept it, it’s made of brass I think and looks like a chicken egg, but golden and heavy. So, when I let the chickens out on April Fools’ Day, I placed it amongst the hay in one of the new nest boxes I made for them. I then waited for a scream from my wife when she discovered it. Sadly, there was no scream, just a bland aside later in the day: “Oh, I saw the egg. Very funny”. Ah well, who was the fool?

 Back at the farm, well not quite – still no sheep and no eggs - I dig and I rake the garden in preparation for the biggest crop I’ve ever grown since we had the smallholding. In those way gone days I did have a little help: in particular my old, but game, grey Ferguson tractor and all the bits to put on the back (including a potato planter and spinner). Nowadays everything I do is by hand and on a smaller scale. Nevertheless I’ve seeded purple sprouting, cabbage, radishes, lettuces, carrots, turnip, swede and, well, quite a lot of stuff really, not to forget a few rows of early and maincrop potatoes. Now we need warm spring weather, but Stow-on-the-Wold (where the wind blows cold) has lived up to its name over the past few days, so the seeds are biding their time.

Rob’s CV diaries 3: Isolation relieved by four young and pretty birds

I suppose we transgressed the social isolation rules by collecting the chickens, but at least the lady at the cash desk wore gloves and wiped my credit card with an antiseptic tissue.

The chickens were subdued as I drove more placidly back to Stow-on-the-Wold, but they did not know that they were now homeless. Fortunately, I knew what I had to do. I left them in their cardboard box and entered our small garden shed. I removed the two bicycles, many buckets of hand tools, the recycling containers and no end of bags of stuff for Margaret’s flower garden. I then cut a small door into the rear wooden wall which faced the back garden and started to make a run for our guests on the garden itself. Luckily I have lots of stuff for this sort of thing. I made the run from beanpoles, surrounded it with some rusty chicken wire I had stored in the field and then covered it with netting from an old fruit cage. After that I used an old gate and other stuff to section off the chicken area of our little shed. I then placed the cardboard box on the hay-strewn floor and opened the lid.

And what happened? Nothing! The girls had either taken to the box or were terrified of entering their new home, perhaps both. I tipped the box up a little, the poor things hung on for dear life. Then I tipped it right up and three fell out, fluttering and squawking. The last one, Blackie (they suggested their own names) would not budge, even with the box upside down. I had to give it a sharp tap and then she too fell out with a resentful squawk.

It took a while before they ventured into the run. Whitey was first. She stepped very cautiously down the drawbridge which also serves as their door to the outside. Taking a quick look around, she presumably decided that she did not like the place and re-entered the shed. The others watched in wonder. However, after some time they all ventured out and did what chickens do: they pecked away at the ground searching for edible morsels. It felt nice to have them.

Then I had a thought. This corona virus thing will not go on for ever, things may never return to what we now regard as normal, but, assuming that we do survive, we will be able to associate again. I will return to Oxford to resume guiding and my other pursuits and we will be able to visit our home in Spain. But what about the chickens if we do all that? This is the moment when I started work on my prototype automatic chicken feeder.

I am still running every other morning. There are not many people about and those that are look worried, as if I might transgress the two meter rule. On the other hand it can be difficult to avoid close encounters, especially on narrow pavements. This morning I ran away from Stow towards the village of Broadwell, then took a footpath back towards the town. As I turned a corner towards home there was woman just in front of me, walking in the same direction. I could smell her perfume! Social distancing had been transgressed!

Perhaps I should run around our field where the only person I might meet is the woman I sleep with! Be a bit dull though, the running that is. That morning I saw the three llamas that live in a field near Broadwell. As usual they looked shocked to see me, like giant rabbits caught in a car’s headlight.

No eggs yet. Yesterday we went to the nearby supermarket to purchase supplies in the hour allotted to over 70s. The place was packed, almost every trolley was taken and the car park full. People were waiting outside in a spaced-out, highly-organised queue. Surely that spoils the whole point? This arrangement created a false peak in shopping. We did not wait. Fortunately Margaret, after much groaning at her phone and general frustration, managed to acquire a slot for deliveries from the Sainsbury supermarket. Phew, my small emergency beer hoard remains intact.

There is some light at the end of this strange tunnel though. I see that scientists from Oxford are recruiting healthy people to sign up as guinea pigs for a potential coronavirus vaccine. And someone else is working on the use of infected blood as short term method of training our immune systems. Worrying news from the USA though where the death rate seems to be running high.

Rob’s CV diaries 2: Isolation

I am, by nature, a little bit of a list maker so, on arrival at Stow at the commencement of our social distancing, I began. I managed to list twelve things to do of varying duration, complexity, cost and creative content. The priority, it seemed to me, was to plan ahead with regard providing food for ourselves on the assumption that things might get worse, an assumption reinforced by the then daily anxious pronouncements of our Prime Minister and the news from Italy, Iran and Spain.

The gardening year starts for me on or about 21^st March which is the vernal equinox and potato planting time. However, this year I began more seriously than ever: digging over my vegetable plot and bring more of it into use. I also surveyed my seed tin. In some ways this did seem like moving the deck chairs of the Titanic since the immediate problem was empty shelves in supermarkets created by the irrational but increasingly hysterical hoarding hordes. But there was little that I could do about that - except join in! Hence I was taking the long term view: I ordered more seeds. Of course there are some foods that you cannot grow in the garden particularly meat and eggs, and so I added sheep and chickens to my action list.

Margaret was not keen on the sheep idea, partly because she doesn’t like the meat but, I suspect, more likely that she did not savour the thought of the wooly ones eating her carefully planted wild flowers – sheep are however still on my list. On the other hand she was delighted with the prospect of keeping chickens, she wanted them anyway. This is of course déjà vu for us. In our smallholding days we kept many things including: sheep, pigs, goats, chickens, geese and peacocks: the sheep and the peacocks were the least successful.

So, chickens topped sheep and I set to. First, I thought, better get a chicken coop and a run to go with it. No good getting birds if they have nowhere to live. So I advertised locally, but got no response and began searching the web. The coops advertised were too small, too expensive or already sold. I began to panic, if coops are in short supply, what about the chickens themselves?

I think that as you read this blog during the current crisis you might think us a little uncaring and petty. I was beginning to feel that myself, was I doing my bit? I had offered to work from home for Samaritans, but the rules do not allow that (so far) so I then offered my services as a trained listener to the RVS who are handling the spectacular tsunami of NHS volunteers, but have heard nothing back as yet. I also laid some vegetables on my ageing neighbour’s doorstep and she phoned her thanks – from a distance.

But, back to the chickens. On the morning of Sunday 22nd March I began searching the web for chickens - coop or no coop. I called a number of local dealers and began to panic. People had already begun to hoard point-of-lay pullets it seemed. One lady from Gloucester sounded very tired, but kind. “I’m expecting some Golden Comets on Tuesday afternoon, but it’s first come first served and I’ve no idea of price”. Most of those I called had sold out and had no idea when or if more would be delivered. Then, at lunch time, I struck lucky. I called Cotswold Chickens and a very distracted lady shouted down the phone.”We’ve just had a delivery of 200 and there are ten cars waiting already.” The line then went dead.

I’m not sure that Iverley House has ever seen such a rush. We were falling over each other searching for a cardboard box, money, keys, and coats and were out of the door and into the mini in no time: lunch entirely forgotten.  As I sped north up the Foss Way we both giggled, this was rather fun. When we arrived the car park was full, no room for a mini amongst the Range Rovers and such, but an ample lady walked over and gave us a torn off piece of paper with the number 34 on it and said that someone would be leaving soon and we could park and wait in the car. Thirty-four! There were only ten waiting when I called a half-hour before! Would we get our birds? Panic had abated a little now that we were at least in the queue, though any concern about price or breed had flown out of the car window. We were desperate for chickens.

The ample lady occasionally wandered over to a car whose number was up and they were led to a hut around the corner. Ten minutes later they walked proudly back with their chickens: one person had three boxes of them: a real chicken hoarder! If she had peered through our windscreen our look of disgust would have persuaded her to give one box to us – or not, probably not.

After nearly two hours our number 34 was reached and we were so grateful. There were still about twenty hybrids left and we chose a black, a white and two pretty greys, paid £20 each (a lot) and bought up what little was left of the food plus a chicken drinker. We had made it. We had chickens, but where were they to live? In the kitchen?