The grass has turned to kindling and we have had no rain to speak of in weeks, and over the treeline, we see smoke. Matthew has dispatched me to the highest point on the farm to see where the smoke originates from and from where I now stand, I can see the plumes billowing into the sky from just beyond our boundary. There is a small woodland in the way so I cannot see exactly where the fire is but I phone Matthew who is already en route with a water tanker; we do not know if the fire is on our land or that of our neighbour, but either way, someone is in trouble. This is not unusual at the moment: the soaring temperatures and dry ground lead to numerous fires breaking out, and smoke can often be seen on the horizon, sometimes close, some further away; we see social media posts of fellow farmers who have lost hectares; news articles of fires that seem to be winning in the battle for control, but this is our first experience of one at home. The fire is located on the land of one of our neighbours where a mower has hit a stone and a simple spark has taken hold. As numerous neighbouring farmers appear with tractors with cultivators and water tankers, I sit in our most outlying field , separated from the blaze by the aforementioned woodland - on one side, the fire in jumping into the trees and undergrowth, tearing through crops and grass, on the other, I watch intently for any sign of it spreading to us - we have a field of cows just a few hectares away, and our neighbours horses are even closer than that; one flash of flames and I will be raising the alarm to move the animals. Matthew and Madi are in the thick of it, running the cultivator around the flames to create a firebreak in the earth, and dowsing whatever they can with water - the pompiers (fire brigade) are also there now but it takes a team effort and nearly three hours to get the fire under control. Our fellow farmers begin to disperse, one by one, returning to the jobs they all dropped to come to the aid of Patrick. Matthew calls me to tell me that I can stand down and we regroup at home. We return several times over the evening and and next day, checking for and dowsing any signs of lingering smoke… it would not take a lot for it to start again in these conditions. We have been lucky, we have lost half a dozen bales of hay, our neighbours have lost some crops and grassland but we all walk away a little more wary, a little wiser.

The heat comes in waves now. The ferocity of 40 degrees settles into a more manageable 28 and briefly we all relax into the joy and comfort of summer but within days, it starts to build again: 30 degrees becomes 32, 32 becomes 36, 36 becomes 39 and we are once again desperately trying to hide from the sun, sheltering indoors whenever possible from noon until the evening. The Prefecture once again places a ban on field work from 2 till 7and the grain-stores and silos all close in accordance to deter any inclined from carrying on regardless - it is a harvest in bits this year, a few hours in the morning, a few hours in the evening, and still the fires continue to break out around us, an almost constant display of devastation wafts on the skyline. The last of our hay is gathered up little by little, field by field, always with a water tanker in tow “just in case”. For us, for now, all field work stops at lunchtime when we all collapse in the shade of the house for a couple of hours before Matthew climbs back into a tractor to cart water around; everyone needs their water refilling when the weather is like this so it has become a three hour job each afternoon - the workday rarely ends before 7 or 8 at night but it is too hot to eat any earlier than this anyway, dinner has become a 9pm affair, sat in the garden as the sun begins to wane when we are joined by glow-worms who light our evening dog walk.

By the middle of the month, all of the animals have run out of grass. Nothing of note has grown in weeks and they have munched their way through that which hadn’t entirely burnt off; all the animals on the farm are once again being fed hay but they do not always believe our assessment of the situation and our young heifer cows start to take it upon themselves to locate the “good grass”, that they clearly imagine we are keeping from them. The first morning, they have discovered before we have, that the current in the electric fence has been weakened by a fallen tree, pulled to the ground by a mass of ivy that has smothered it over the course of the year. We find them nibbling the few stalks of maize that have managed to germinate in the drought in a neighbouring field. We return them to their rightful location, and continue on with our day. The next morning however, we are met in the road by our neighbour who has discovered the same group of heifers in the road several fields distance from whence they have come, exploring the wonders of the surrounding verges and hedgerows; we turn them around and walk them up the road with relatively little drama, only to spot two more heading in the opposite direction through our arable crops. I leave Matthew to walk the original group back to their home, whilst I intercept the others and turn them back upon themselves, my legs being whipped and scratched by the ripened oats that I wade through. It is a difficult time for us all, we are all fractious from the excessive heat and it is not unusual for the animals to try and find themselves a lush nirvana, an oasis in what has quickly become akin to the desert. All we can do is continue to feed them hay, keep their water topped up, and pray for rain.

And all at once, it is upon us. In the blink of an eye, the wind howls through the chimney, rattling gutters and banging windows - we hurry through the house closing every opening to the torrent outside. I run out to close up my propagator before its flimsy doors are ripped from their fixings - in just moments, I am drenched. The storm crashes around us, flicking the electric off and on again with sharp tongues of lightening and cracks of thunder so loud it feels as if the sky is breaking above us. In the aftermath we drive around the animals removing debris from fences and counting heads - all are present and correct and looking in a momentary state of relief after the heat. The coolness of the rain is short-lived but appreciated by all.

Our friends have arrived for a week. Driving down from Kent for a week of outings and eating - it gives us a nice opportunity to play tourist as well, exploring places that we haven’t visited yet, and returning to some favourites like the morning market at Felletin which never disappoints: streets lined with archetypal French stone houses are taken over by stalls selling local vegetables and cheeses, meat being sold direct from the farmers, artists, potters, jewellers, olives, books, baskets, clothes, hens and ducks…. it is a market still heavily utilised by the locals and remains busy and active throughout the year - I dream of having my own stall there one day but for the moment, I take any opportunity to wander its busy lanes. We swim in a local lake, walk around a village dotted with statues and gargoyles, buying goodies to eat wherever we go but the week passes quickly and before we know it, it is time for them to leave again. We return to our usual routines on the farm as the weather peaks into another heatwave.

The fires around Bordeaux burn relentlessly, 280 kilometres away, but even here, nestled in the hollows of the Creuse, the smoke hangs, suspended in the air as a reminder of the devastation these fires are causing - the smell is faint but undeniable, a smog, encasing us. Matthew moves slowly and intently as he utilises the cooler mornings to gather in the harvest; all work stops by lunchtime so as to minimise the risk and the water-tanker stands, like a Centurian, in every field that is worked - ever at hand in case the disaster of a spark should strike. The harvest this year is weak, damaged by the unforgiving drought that continues to plague us, but it is brought in without any drama and signals the end of the years yields. Combining and hay-making complete, we are aware, but unsurprised by the shortfalls of our feed stocks for the year and all we can do is hope for a better year next year, and make contingency plans for the future: more land, more organisation, more drought tolerant crops….plans a, b and c come into formulation as we stare at a forecast, still deficient in rain.

Above our heads, two dozen kites circle; a stork takes considered, elongated strides; a skylark flits to her nest in the undergrowth; butterflies balloon into the air in clouds of colour; field mice and voles scuttle to shelter; cicadas flutter, bewitchingly, from seedhead to seedhead; the hares give up their afternoon doze and lollop into the distance….. the tractor is out, the mower is on; it is feasting time for the predators and relocation time for the creatures that have found shelter under the billowing prairie grass. Our farm is not certified as organic but we endeavour to farm in organic ways and this is one of the reasons why - the symbiosis of flora and fauna is enchanting, a privilege to observe. A few days break in the weather and we are out making silage at last. Better late than never….. as always.

Blankets of cleavers cling onto the fencing wire, dragging it down into the underworld like Hades, claiming it for their own. A group of cows need to move and so here we are again, battling against nature to resurrect our field. The fence stood strong and clear back in the autumn when I cut the hedges, but this run of warm and wet weather has turned on us. It is tiring work, pulling and yanking against the might of a thousand green strands, knotted together as if pulling through rope. But the walnut trees that tower over us give off an incredible verdant, clean, woody smell which lightens my workload and engages my olfactory senses so as to always place me back in the sunshine on a clear blue day, gentle breeze on my skin, and clean, early summer air in my lungs.

Clearing fences, moving cows, clearing fences, moving cows - we are chasing the fresh grass and trying to keep ahead of the drought that is starting to gain on us. It is not even the middle of June and hosepipe restrictions are in place and we can see the grass starting to dry up before us - in just a matter of weeks, the farm has turned from a lush, flourishing landscape, to a scorched, crisp terrain where the last remaining clutches of freshness are resided to the shades, and the heat just keeps building.

It is 10 o’clock in the morning. It is already 33 degrees celsius outside. I have been cutting flowers for the house - sweetpeas, cosmos and achillea adorn the dining table, the coffee table and my dressing table. But now I have escaped the escalating heat for the coolness of the house; it is on days like this that the big stone houses of France , which their half metre thick walls, make sense, they ward off the elements in all their extremes. It is set to be the hottest day of the year so far. I set off to check on the sheep and the rams before climbing into the air-conditioned comfort of a tractor to go and row up so Matthew can bale it for hay later, just 10 minutes checking everything is well first, but the animals have their own plans. Matthew has done his rounds already, counting heads and checking water, and all was well when he left to help Adam 90 minutes ago. I start with Reggie the ram and his friend, Alf - they reside in their own small pasture, isolated from the ewes at this time of year and they are quietly eating grass in the shade of the oak trees, plenty of water and all is calm except for the Angus heifers on the other side of the treeline, Angus’ that have taken themselves for a walk. I phone Matthew and call him back to the farm as I establish where they have come from, count heads, secure the escapees - only seven out of ten, where are the missing three???? I race up to the field where they have come from, casting my eyes over adjacent fields as I go, always praying that they have not wondered onto the railway line that runs through the middle of our farm, I find them laying, chewing the cud, completely nonplussed, exactly where they should be. By the time Matthew returns, I have fixed the gate that they broke and we can quietly walk back up the chemin to their field, by this time they are thirsty and happy to return from their adventure. Content with the ease of their repatriation, I cheerfully tell Matthew that I am just going to check my sheep and I’ll be back for a drink in 10 minutes…..The field is worryingly empty and quiet when I enter but the sheep often lay under the shade of a large oak tree on the far side, obscured from view, so I call them, “Morning girls”, often this is enough to at least illicit a bleat in response but nothing, “Sheep”, “Sheep, sheep, sheep”, “Come on my girls”, but I already know where they have gone. They have slipped through the fence in exactly the same place that they did last year, the battery of the electric fence has died, someone has taken advantage, and in true sheep nature, the rest have followed. It was only a couple of days ago that Matthew and I were discussing resurrecting the fence in their second field to move them but it seems that they have decided that that time is now. For the second time this morning I phone Matthew as the sheep all come running through the hedge to my call, “we’ve got to move the sheep”, and so we set about pulling fence out of the clambering cleavers, calling the sheep back (again) to follow me across the road, moving their fencing unit and fetching a new battery for it, lugging wooden hurdles down the road to further secure the gateways from lambs who can easily slip under the fence…. as I return to the welcoming coolness of the house, all animals finally secured, it is 12.30 and 38 degrees outside; that was not a morning to be running around after misbehaving animals….. why do these things always seem to occur on the hottest, wettest, or windiest days??????

For three days now, the thunder has rolled around us. We can feel the rain in the air - the humidity thick with anticipation and still it passes us by. We hear tell of great downpours to the north, east, west and south of us but it is starting to feel like folklore; mere whim of man to hope for such an occurrence. We are also seeing signs of fires in surrounding communes; fields and hedgerows blackened. We still have hay to make but the work now has to take place in the early hours, before the ferocity of the sun really takes hold and always with fingers crossed that we are not next. It is 40 degrees and it is only midsummers day - surely the season cannot stretch out like this - relentless, unforgiving, enduring. The prefecture has now officially declared that field work is only to be done between the hours of 7pm and 2pm, and we further secure our work by trailing the water tanker to each field where hay is being made - it is slowing progress but is a necessary precaution.

Sam has arrived for a few days - we spend most of the time fighting off the heat. He comes on the morning animal rounds with me, acting as chauffeur so that he can drive the Land Rover, he is a lover of cars and a 4x4 has its boyish appeal. We eat croissants and pain au chocolat, saucisson and pate, it is nice to indulge in those little things that one comes to France for but soon get pushed aside in the day-today; pastries for breakfast, buying fruit and meats and vegetables at the market, wild-swimming….. As the temperatures continue to bounce around 40 degrees, Sam and Madi decide that the sensible move on a Friday afternoon is to adventure to a local lake designated for swimming, Madi has visited this particular one with friends recently and has been telling of its virtues, and she was not wrong. A 30 minute drive is rewarded with a quiet lake, only a handful of other pilgrims worshipping at the cooling waters edge; a small sandy shoreline welcomes us as we eagerly dump our towels and water bottles and venture into the vast pool - the water is surprisingly warm with refreshing pockets of cool and it is only after several minutes of appreciating the relief the water provides, that I look up and out: the surroundings are spectacular - the lake is long and thin and disappears around a bend and out of view, it is the soul resident of a valley and so is encased on all sides by steep, forested hills so that all that can be seen is water, trees, and sky. I breath in the peace and nature for a moment before being pulled into the simple joy of my, now adult family, playing together like children. Matthew swims out to the middle of the lake and along its shore a little, I watch him cutting through the water , it is the most at peace I have seen him in a while and it reminds me of the importance of getting away from the farm at times; on the way home he jokes that he is enjoying our “little holiday”, but that is how it felt…. we promise to return on Monday before Sam leaves, another little moment of silliness and vacation before he goes back to work in the UK and we have to get our heads down to finish haymaking.

And just like that, the weather is torrential. Last night we sat out with friends, eating steak off the barbecue, and now I have been drenched within minutes, having run outside to rescue my seedlings that lay unprotected in the battering rain. April’s rainfall was down to 30% of its average. I have a shed full of lambs that are running to their mothers having never experienced this bizarre twist in their atmosphere; the ground had turned to dust under our feet, but now it pours, in welcome sheets, onto my head, into my eyes, and making me cold for the first time in days. We need the rain. We cannot cope with another year of drought, another year of eking out food supplies, praying for an early spring with plenty of grass to put the cows to because the shed is already looking bare. We moved to La Creuse because, amongst other things, it is a little cooler, a little wetter, a little greener than the Allier; the grass goes a little further, but last year went against this trend, and so far, this year is not looking any better.

We are putting cows out. We have had them in to have them scanned for pregnancy and now we are putting them back out on a new block of fresh grass. It is me and Matthew as Madi is in the UK, and as running them out on foot would involve running them through the village and over the railway track, we have decided to load them into the livestock trailer, and trailer them out two by two. It is a slower job than it otherwise would be but far less stressful. We are on the penultimate load, and about 90 minutes into the entire job…. the cows that are already out have beaten the boundaries and are back next to the gateway, peacefully eating, all except one calf who is nowhere to be seen. There is one black Angus calf out here, amongst a crowd of ginger Limousins, and we cannot see him anywhere. We drive around the fence - they often tuck themselves up in the shelter of the hedgerow for a snooze, but still no sign of him; we scour the neighbouring fields as we pass them - nothing; we trudge through the adjoining field, my legs aching as I wade through the silage grass, so tall that it tickles my shoulders as I go - still nothing; his mother continues to mooch along, ripping great clods of grass up with her tongue, not a care in the world…. but the grass is so long that a calf could easily disappear into its shady underbelly and be hidden from sight - we hope that this is the case, and experience tells us that his mother is too calm to not know where he is so we decide to collect the last load of cows, giving mother and baby some time to decide that they would like to see each other again, and do the searching out for us; When we return however, there is still no sign of him. Resided, we turn around to fetch the quadbike as it will be far easier to search with than the Land Rover with cattle trailer attached, when a sudden movement catches Matthew’s eye, and there he is, not even 150cms away, laying in the grass, his sunlit snooze disrupted by the noisy, inconsiderate farmer…. it is a relief as his mother wonders over as if suddenly remembering he exists. We can spend hours looking for calves at this time of year, they are still quite small , many of them have only known the winter, indoor accommodation, and they are easily camouflaged behind a bramble or in two feet of grass. This won’t be our last ride around, cursing a nonchalant mother for not calling her baby to her side when we appear.

The middle of May comes looming and with it Les Saintes de Glace, the last supposed chance of frost. This is the point at which potagers around us will suddenly start to fill with young tomato plants, peppers, aubergines, courgettes and other tender plants being pulled out from sheltered and protected nooks and crannies, to take their place in the landscape of summer, but we still don’t have our potatoes in the ground, and time is starting to slip by. The rain is coming. We have managed to acquire an old potato ridger from a neighbouring farmer who is retiring, this will make planting the 240 seed potatoes that I have chitting in a spare room easier but they still have to be placed and covered by hand and we are now in a race against the storm that is rolling around us. Fat raindrops plop on the ground as I am bent, trying to place the potatoes in the trench as Matthew hoes the dirt back over them and mounds them up…. one drop, plop, then another, plop, another and another, soon our clothes are clinging to our bodies, soaked from the building deluge, thunder claps as we reach the end and grabbing our tools, hurry indoors just as the storm breaks in full with a downpour so heavy, we can barely see the field where we have just been standing; at least our seeds will be well watered in.

A shadow casts itself across the farm. Rain and cold; an icy wind and grey. Daffodil has died. My old matriarch lays, as if sleeping, in the shed. We knew the time was coming, she had been looking older and older with the passing months and years, and now the time had come. She was the last remaining member of my original sheep flock - always at the front of the bustling crowd for food, with a distinctive baa that could be heard upon approach. She had been subdued and less forceful of late, old of character and wisened. I draw peace from the knowledge that she has been cared for well, and smile at the sight of her daughters in the shed, now mothers themselves.

The swallows are trying to nest in our house. Everyday, all day, they are swooping in and out, landing on a window frame, clothes airer, curtain pole, and chittering and chirping, surveying the area for suitable locations - the cats and dogs have stopped paying any attention to them and appear to have just accepted them as a normal part of the household. The windows are all flung open as the temperatures begin to climb once more, and each morning we are awoken by the loud arrival of a swallow in our bedroom, noisily communicating the days news to us like a town crier. They are beautiful, and a welcome announcement of the warmer weather every year, but I soon have to close the window when I discover that a nest has just begun to be formed behind my curtain, only the beginnings of one thankfully, so the squatter has plenty of time to find a new location as I set about removing the mud like substance from the back of our curtain pole.

Once more the weather has turned and summer announces its proximity. Days of glowing clarity and 30 degrees gather around us, and from every direction can be heard the low humming of tractors pulling mowers through thick meadow grasses. Silage is being cut in every corner of our world, and we are no exception. Matthew goes out tentatively into a field that we know is scattered with great granite boulders, now no longer visible through the billowing fauna surrounding them. He is taking the job on single-handed; if a boulder is going to be struck, he wants to be the one to do it, after all, he is then the one who has to fix it. Two fields are cut and baled and wrapped with no issues - a job well done, but where other farmers are pushing on into third, fourth and fifth fields, our agenda shifts. We still have to plant our maize and that has to take priority. So, after the bales are cleared, Matthew sets to , ploughing the very same two fields, having laid them thick with muck for fertilisation; and that is when the trouble starts. A sheared bolt, overheating, bursting hoses and windows blackened with oil…. a two day job turns into a week and all plans of making more silage fall away as the forecast draws closer to rain once more. It arrives in a blustery surge of downpours and showers just 12 hours after the maize is finally, successfully sown.

The last weekend of May has become the weekend in which neighbourhoods, villages and communities across France gather to enjoy each others company - a fight against the ever increasing isolation of modern day living. Our village has not partaken in some years, but with several new families having moved in, ourselves included, it has been decided that it is a tradition that should be resurrected, and we are the hosts. Originally we were asked to hold it in one of our barns in case the weather was bad but as the time drew closer and the weather grew finer we decided that it would be far nicer to host it in our garden, under the shade of our large, old oak tree; a tree, it transpires, is a focal point of the evening, as discussions ensue as to its age and how it is the oldest oak in the village, apparently admired and treasured by all, not just ourselves. It provides a beautiful canopy for the soiree. Nearly the entire village is in attendance and it is a traditional long French evening, with aperos, and several courses taken over conversation, laughter, and old and blossoming friendships. We feel a part of something beyond us, greater than us, a place that is full of history, stories, lives, past, ongoing and yet to come; four generations of people sit and enjoy each other with promises of reinstating La Fete de Voisins in the years to come.

The first of April throws us back into winter like an April Fool’s joke. It is cold, a bitter breeze with shards of icy rain. I am walking around one of the sheep fields, checking the fence in order to move them. We are removing the ram and putting the ewes back out on some fresh grass in preparation for lambing at the end of the month. We have already suffered one abortion, so I am keeping a close eye on them; if we have another, I need to go and talk to the vets in case there is a problem in the flock. Although it is cold and I am getting increasingly wet, the fresh air is reviving me; I have spent some time in the garden trying to move and dig in a large pile of manure, but I have very little stamina and strength and have become increasingly frustrated and angry at my own limitations - walking around fields helps to settle me again. This is the last of the cold weather for a while; I hope for the foreseeable but realistically we are only in April and at 500 metres above sea level, the cooler days of spring can drag on.

There are Barn Owls nesting in our chimney. The house has two chimneys, one on either side and they appear to have taken up residence in the one that we currently don’t use. When we bought the house, all but one of the fireplaces had been blocked and walled in, we have always intended to open the others, but in the meantime, the owls appear to have taken advantage. An adult owl swoops out from our roof as we sit in the warmth of the Spring air, screeching as she goes off to find food, but she isn’t happy that we are there and she circles, screaming at our presence…. we leave her and go indoors reluctantly, departing from the awakening bats and chorus of frogs. Fencing the next day, I disturb a deer from the undergrowth and a hare from its slumber in the long meadow grass, I marvel at these creatures and note that nature is waking up. Everywhere I turn something new is coming out of its dormancy- hazels and oaks begin to burst forward, the blossom of the blackthorn is turning to leaf, the dandelions and daisies suddenly cover every pasture. It is a time of coming to life, and I feel it too.

We are hit by a run of beautiful clear, sunny, warm days again and we take advantage of them. The asparagus bed is planted, and strawberries are nestled in between the crowns - I have read so much about the best way to establish an asparagus bed but every time I read of how strawberries can be interplanted, it inspires me and so we are trialling it…. what is the worst that can happen? Fields that went unused last year are grappled back from wilderness and fenced, ready for cows to move into them; we meet with neighbours to discuss the plans for various plots that they are lending us for hay or grazing; Matthew sows spring barley and spreads fertiliser on it as it breaks ground; the farm is alive with activity and life. The woodpeckers chitter and knock in the trees around us, the frogs provide evening song, hares lope through the fields, and everywhere I turn orchids, forget-me-nots, and soloman’s seal spring from darkened nooks, throwing light and colour into every corner. The oaks have broken into leaf, much sooner than the ash…. “ ash before oak, in for a soak; oak before ash, in for a splash"…. we hope for a fine summer but equally dread another drought.

The ewes are in the shed, ready for lambing; fat and heavy with milk. Any day now, the first of this years lambs will arrive bringing with it a frivolous joy. We only keep a small troop, just enough to pay for themselves and put some hogget in the freezer but they always bring a smile to my face, well nearly always…. in moments of breakouts, I am less keen on them but for the most part they bring me a lot of jubilation; Matthew, less so. When we left the UK and he sold the last of his flock, he waved them off cheerily and muttered, “never again”, in a way that appears common amongst ex-shepherds but by Christmas 2020, barely 18 months later, as I recovered from my first mastectomy, a jumbled flock of sheep arrived, a motley crew of varying ages and breeds, and they have been a little daily delight for me ever since. Only one of the original flock survives? Daffodil, an elderly Texel ewe, much loved and always vocal; I cling to her as the last of the wise old ladies, her companions now, all born and reared on the farm - she serves as the matriarch and I shall miss her when the inevitable day comes, but for now, she gets a little extra food, and a little extra attention as she whiles away her golden years.

Lambing commences towards the end of the month; ewe after ewe giving birth to large single lambs or spritely twins. Mary, one of my favourite ewes, hand-reared several years ago, births a pair of ewe lambs, just as I appear to check on them. It is an affirming experience to be present during a birth, and even more gratifying when it is one of your favourite animals, but we are soon in disagreement when she rejects one of her daughters. Mary has only had single lambs until now, and it appears that is all she is prepared to rear. The first born, a pretty, spotty faced lamb, is the apple of her eye, but the second, she is largely indifferent towards - she cleans it half-heartedly and returns to the other; it soon becomes clear that the second twin is going to be mine to rear and so the powdered lamb milk and bottles clutter the utility room for another year….. luckily the rejected lamb is bright and eager and is quickly nicknamed Piglet, as she comes hurtling through the pen at the very whispering of my voice. Sometimes lambs can be tricky to get onto the bottle and can take days and days of coaxing, but Piglet latches on instantly and Matthew sighs as he realises that this is another sheep that will never leave the farm.

The cows continue to calve. It feels like this is the year when calving never really gets going, and never really ends in equal measure. Historically, we had one calving season, starting in September and ending around Christmas - 80 cows calved in 14 weeks - it was always tiring but there was a definitive calving period. Now, due to the fertility issues we have experienced through the move, we have found ourselves in a situation in which we seem to have a small amount of calves due each month. Dribs and drabs, here and there. We thought we would be coming to an end around July to start a fresh in September. We had purposefully split our calving into two seasons when we moved to aid cashflow on the farm; autumn calving as before but expecting around 40 calves, and the same again in early spring but it appears that the cows still have not quite recovered, and as we scan our autumn calving Limousins for due dates, we realise that they are still spread out, and a third of them are not in calf again….. we reside ourselves to another bitty season and put the empty cows out with the bull again, hopeful that their mineral treatments, some fresh spring grass, improved condition and acclimation , will put them back into line soon. Everyone told us that it would take three years for us and the business to recover from the move; it seems they were correct.

the last day of the month we spend delivering Aberdeen Angus meat boxes. Many of our customers are regular now and it is nice to quickly touch base with them all. We have changed butchers as our old butcher was close to the old farm but is now a three hour round trip away, and we have found one in the neighbouring commune, but with that comes an anxiety that our customers will be disappointed. It is impossible to please all people at all times, but our repeat customers have been loyal and supportive, recommending us to others, and finding us new business all the time, we would hate for the product that they have so strongly supported to disappoint. I await for feedback, any feedback but as none comes, I hope that in this situation, no news is good news.

The weather continues to be changeable. We dive outside in dry, mostly overcast moments. It is cooler again but that isn’t unpleasant when physical work is required. Matthew and I jump into the Land Rover just as the rain rolls in. We have watched it moving closer to us from where we are refencing a field, the skies in the distance have been counting down the time we had to get finished, challenging us to be back indoors in front of the fire but we are soaked to the bone. With a glance backwards, we note a small moment of progress: this field was one of the first that we fenced and got cows out into when we moved here 18 months ago; we fenced around the brambles and fallen trees, losing entire chunks of pasture, just desperate to get something ready for our girls to graze, but today, as we pull away, the hedges are cut, fallen trees removed, brambles topped, the field looks cared for - it is a good feeling to start to move slowly from the farm just functioning to something that we can be proud of, that we can cherish.

I walk around the perimeter of a collection of fields. The sun warms my face and neck as I stroll, checking yet another fence for winter damage, ensuring it is still secure for when we put cows out in the coming weeks, snipping back wayward briars and removing storm blown branches as I go. The grass has grown noticeably in the past weeks and with every step it seems, a creature rustles in the undergrowth: voles, shrews, mice, sparrows, weasels, blackbirds, all scrabble to get away from the human trudging through their territory; quickly it becomes the norm and stops startling me. I mooch on, enjoying the spring sunshine with nothing around me except for nesting birds singing, the low buzz of early bees and the breeze rustling through the new leaves above me… suddenly a great flapping, clacking and squawking erupts in front of me as three pheasants take flight from the undergrowth - we do not see a lot of pheasants here, where we lived in the UK they were a daily encounter but have become a scarcity to our lives in France, it always makes me happy to see them now. I am hopeful that they may have been nesting and am careful as I walk around where they were not to disturb anything, but all the time harbouring a childish excitement at the possibility of discovering a clutch of eggs in the tall grass but nothing today; I continue my work.

Spring calving has started in earnest. Every time we pass through the yard or leave the house, the shed is checked for signs of new life. The beginning of the season sees big healthy calves but with a run of troublesome mothers. One Angus cow has enormous udders, too large for the calf to grapple with, so for the first few days of its life, they are penned up and Matthew milks her to feed her calf but soon enough the baby gets the hang of it himself and that job can be put down again. Then another calf is born to a mother who is very keen on it, every aspect of it except when it wants to drink when she pulls her leg up to gets in its way; we pen them up together and stand guard whilst it drinks to stop her pushing it away. Another cow and calf is penned up next to them as other, larger calves are too hungry for her milk and her own calf is not yet big enough or strong enough to fend them off…… it feels like every calf born needs isolating with its mother for one reason or another. The nightly dog walk has become a passing of chores in the shed as one night we stand in the middle of a hail storm guarding calves from kicky mothers and ensuring all little bellies are full before we settle down ourselves; we curse the bitter wind that wrapped itself around mid-March; spring calving sounded gentle in principle but right now, autumn calving seems more welcoming. We watch the forecast eagerly, counting down the cold days and silently praying that the promise of warmth on the horizon, is not an empty one.

A mound of dirt lays before me. I have measured and dug out what will soon be our asparagus bed, it doesn’t look big enough but I have calculated and measured over and over again and this 4x1.2 metre bed is the result. We have been talking of establishing an asparagus bed for the last 10 years but always knowing that we would be moving on, we haven’t taken the leap until now, but now we are settled and grounded it is time. I have dug the bed little by little, always aware that my body is still recovering from its last operation, but also becoming joyously aware that it is managing the work I have set it. Having dug around the edges, I stand discussing my thoughts on the bed with Matthew as he digs out a couple of bricks that I have snagged upon; we discuss how I want to amend the soil heavily with manure, my aspirations to build a low wall around it and how this might have to wait for now, and as we stand there talking, it occurs to me that the two bricks now laying at Matthew’s feet may not be the only ones and that I would have to now dig over the entire thing a little deeper to see….. two afternoons later, a further 30 bricks lay at my feet - and the bed is a further 30cms wider having not been able to let go of the notion that it wasn’t big enough. Stiff from the digging, the labour that my body has been so denied recently, making me ache and twinge in old familiar places, I am satisfied with the job and now have a pile of bricks to utilise for my retaining wall. The asparagus crowns are en route so I have to move on quickly but for today, I am pleased with my mound of dirt.

I am skirting around another set of fields in the tractor, hedgecutter whirring. The government has announced a small extension on the season so I am tackling a few more fields before the hedgecutter is retired until the autumn. I trundle along having walked the perimeter pulling the fence out far enough to be able to get the hedgecutter behind it, able to run along the ground, cutting through the undergrowth so that the fence can run clear of debris when it is put back. It is surprisingly time-consuming. In the field below me, Matthew and Madi are harrowing a field of metail, a mix of triticale, oats and peas, all growing together to provide a feed for the cows. As Spring really gets hold, we begin to come out of our winter slumber - energised, as is nature to be out, working the fields, beginning preparations for another years feed; this job is always looking forward to the next season, the next year so as we begin to embrace the lightening days and the promise of warmth to come, we always have a foot in the unquestionable return of winter.

The end of the month sees us advertise our next round of Aberdeen Angus meat boxes - 10kgs made up of various cuts of our home-reared Angus. It is a little niche in this area; the French are very proud of their cattle breeds and their production so the majority of the meat comes from continental breeds: Limousin, Charolais, Aubrac, Blonde d’Aquitaine….. and although they all make good beef, the French are curious about Angus. It is something that is seen in restaurants in Paris and Lyon, and its reputation goes before it, and despite the regular interest our direct sales are met with, it is always with a little trepidation that we announce its availability. We have some regular customers now, customers who often wait for the next sale , and for this one particularly as it has been a year since we were in a position to be able to offer this service, but there are never any guarantees that it will sell, so it is exciting for us when the orders come quickly in and we are sold out inside a week. We start to register interest in the next one before this is even out the door, and as is so often the case in this job, our heads are instantly planning months in advance, always working today, with an eye on the future.

As February trundles along, my strength begins to return and with it a renewed sense of drive. It is amazing how two months of convalescence can spur one into action. Everywhere I turn, I see things that I wish to achieve and Matthew is constantly reminding me not to “over do it’” but the body is a miraculous thing and it finds ways to tell me when I have done enough. So between bouts of rest when I read, write and answer queries for our accountant, I set about making sense of the garden that has remained untended for the last two years - the chickens have done a good job of keeping it clear of too much growth, but it stands as a compacted memory of a ‘potager-gone-by’ and so I slowly weed , and dig and plan. Little by little the new emerges in my mind, but littler by littler it begins to emerge in real life too. I prioritise the asparagus bed ( a long standing aspiration), and planting the blackcurrants that struggled through last summer in pots. My body however screams back and after a few days of what I thought was doing “just a little here and there”, I have strained my stomach muscles and have to halt work. It is a situation that I am finding increasingly frustrating, and frustration is not an emotion that I deal well with. It had been 11 weeks since my last operation, surely I should be able to partake in my life as usual by now! But apparently, the universe has other plans for me at the moment - I am back to sitting around the house feeling increasingly unproductive.

The weather has turned grey and wet again. The continuous rainfall even puts paid to hedge-cutting for the time being as water lays in every crevice of land; streams break their banks and anyone would be forgiven for believing that we had a plethora of ponds dotted around the farm in places that just days ago, were fields. The rain continues steadily into the month and the cows outside look sad plodding around in the mud, the dogs lay by the fire whimpering intermittently at the downpours, and the cats take turns jumping up at the windows to see if the deluge had passed - none of us are enjoying this time, we all turn to each day with hopes of Spring. The snowdrops are doing their best to stand up to the showers but even the their heads are dipped as if hiding from the endless days of precipitation. In spite of the first sightings of daffodils, nothing appears to lift the spirits. The forecast continues to show sun and warmth on the horizon but there comes a point where one begins to loose faith in the predictive powers of France Meteo.

Our frustration at the relentless deluge that has become February, leaves us rooting around for things to do indoors so once the cows are fed and everyone has water, Matthew starts work on the utility room. The broken tumble-dryer is removed, making room for a sink and worktop - this will be the farm sink, where oily, greasy, mucky hands are washed and lamb milk is mixed - the messy jobs that we try and keep away from the rest of the house - every farmhouse needs a farm sink and workspace. In a couple of days the first stage of the new utility room is complete. I have aspirations of removing the large wall cupboard and having new cupboards built, painted in bright soul-uplifting colours, but these things all take time, moments stolen from the farm on grey Sunday afternoons - filling the house with colour to fend away the heavy clouds.

By the end of the month the warmth has returned. The early Spring sunshine is invigorating and everyone is full of its energy. I sow my early seeds: onions, chilli peppers, marigolds as the cats frisk around my ankles; I pot on autumn sown sweetpeas, young apple trees grafted last year, achillea; my little cold frame is soon full. Matthew drags out the muck spreader and begins to repairs it ready for use, a job that he has muttered about throughout the winter, but like so many jobs, is so much more appealing when the sun is patting you on the back. I am able to return to the hedge-cutting as the ground beneath us begins to firm up in its dryness; the end of hedge-cutting season is looming, we have to finish by the 15th of March unless the government issues a derogation due to the excessive rainfall, extending the season, but as it stands at this moment, I have just two weeks left to complete what we can. There are certainly fields that we will not be able to finish as there is still too much water laying in them - I focus on the fields that we can access and wait to hear news of an extension. As I tractor around the farm, the impact of recent storms and blustery weather becomes apparent, numerous trees and their limbs lay on top of flattened fences - we have an extensive fencing job ahead of us in order to prepare for the Spring turn out. As the daylight hours begin to stretch out and the temperatures creep up, we start to turn our minds to putting the cows out onto the fresh Spring grass after the long winter indoors - it has become one of my favourite moments on the farming calendar, watching the cows and calves skip out into the open air, and so the preparation work is exciting, knowing that those days are almost upon us.

Days of bitter cold follow the New Year. Matthew works hard to melt water, keep animals satiated and the fire indoors lit. Early mornings see temperatures of -10 and -12 degrees Celsius. The cows that are still out in fields come in happily and easily, trotting into the shed, pleased for the shelter. But it is beautiful. The skies are bright and the sun is warming on the skin, negating the frost that is nipping at our extremities. I am still on light duties, a little cooking, standing in the road to direct the cows as they are moved around the farm. There is a lot to do and it is beginning to become frustrating for me to watch Matthew and Madi go from one job into the next with no aid from me. I start to take a daily walk, making the most of the sun and working towards building my strength, the air, even with its undeniable chill, is a tonic for me after six weeks almost exclusively indoors.

The days flip flop from brilliant, bright and blue, whispering of spring, teasing of its early arrival, to grey and damp mizzle surrounding us all, the kind of days that always make January feel so long. Our neighbour Guy, a retired farmer who has lived here all his life and whose land we now own, assures us that spring is coming, all the signs of its early arrival are present - we wait and observe with baited breath, but there are days where we have to remind ourselves that it is only January and we cannot expect too much too soon, but those sunny spells, when the birds are chirping and the light bounces off the grass, making it shine with verdant green, they breathe new life into us; hope.

Amongst the changeable weather, calving starts again. A little earlier than expected as a slightly premature Angus x Limousin calf arrives in the shed. She is strong and skips around making us all smile at her playfulness, it won’t be too long before she has some friends to play with, but for now she darts between the legs of her mother and aunts, happily turning circles in their paths. She steals all our hearts and it is quickly determined that she is to be kept. Madi names her Cocoa Bean and her long-term fate on the farm is decided.

The freezing temperatures once more give way to a premature spring day, suddenly 15 degrees celsius - sunlight gently dappling the still bare branched of winter but the air is different, altered momentarily; I head out in the tractor for a little light hedge-cutting and fence resurrecting. It feels awakening to start to do a little work here and there between the bouts of post-operative tiredness that still hit. For an hour, I feel as if I am quietly re-engaging with the world. The cumulative trauma of the passed years has made me withdraw, fold myself inwards, protecting myself against what else is coming at me, but in the sunlight, in the still of this fake spring day, I feel like I can inhale some life, find a little peace in the birdsong and the warm breeze. I go home and make plans with Matthew to get my chickens moved so that I can reclaim the old potager - I need to get my hands in the soil, grow flowers and vegetables, herbs and fruit, begin to find my foundation again, begin my emotional healing alongside the physical. By the end of the month the chickens have been relocated and the enormity of building my whimsical garden strikes….. where to start???? I sow some seeds and slowly begin to clear weeds away from what will become the asparagus bed.

It is sunset as we rumble towards home; the swaying of the train beneath us. We have left the farm for a day. Rising early to ferry Matthew’s mum to Paris and onto the Eurostar; we leave her at Gard du Nord and find ourselves with hours until our return train. We are a little like the proverbial “Country Mouse” in the big city but it makes for a fun adventure. We hop onto the Metro and head to Notre Dame to see how the reconstruction is going. In the cold and wet of late January, the queues are short and we enter the Cathedral to the sound of a sermon. Candles lit at every turn, it is a strange mix of spiritual and haven and tourist destination - incongruous in its developed nature and yet there is still a peaceful quality, a godly magnificence within its carved stone and history. A lot of the oak for the rebuild has come from the Foret de Tronçais where we would often go to walk before we moved. We rest, sheltering from the rain in an archetypal Parisian bistro off the banks of the Seine, indulging in Steak Frites and Crème Brulée for lunch before heading to the Musée d’Orsay I want to see the Impressionists and we hardly get the opportunity to visit such places these days. Once again, the miserable January weather has kept the crowds at home and we enter with no queuing. The building is magnificent; an old train station, it is an exhibition in itself, so thoughtfully showcasing the works within it. We head home; it is a three hour train journey and then a further 40 minutes in the car so not something to be done on a regular basis but it serves as a lovely reminder of what else is available to us here in France when we take the moments to step away from the farm.

January closes with a blustery morning spent on the shores of Jean-Marie’s lake. It is fish sorting day again but where last year it fell in on an overcast but mild November day, this year we face an icy January chill. Jean-Marie had not intended it so but when he went to drain the lake in November he discovered that due to the summer’s drought, there was not enough water in the streams that feed the lake to refill it, so he had to postpone. The faces of the commune that we have grown to know over the last 18 months have turned out to lend a hand - the farmers, the fishermen, the friends - it is a social event as much as anything and groups of acquaintances chat and laugh as they work together, as had happened over years, decades, as a community. After all the fish have been sorted and weighed, everyone gathers at the home of Jean-Marie and Bernadette and eat a four course lunch, drink and enjoy each others company. It is a lovely day, a wonderful opportunity for us to integrate, practice our French, build relationships, and a fine end to January.

The autumn sun, paler, sleepier than the scorch of its summer colleagues, finally brightens the landscape around us. We have spent days under a cloak of grey - air-born water in all its forms, swirling around, and finally it has broken, and with it comes the pressure of everything that needs doing: hedge-cutting, ploughing, moving cows into new fields, moving cows into the shed, sowing crops, weaning and fattening lambs, moving cows out of the shed, running hay and water around, fixing a tractor, fixing a loader… We love this way of life but there are times when the to-do list becomes overwhelming. We have just two weeks until I am back in hospital and the pressure of that deadline is almost crippling. We have been warned that my recovery will be around two months so we are trying to plan through everything that will need to be done between the end of November and the end of January to make it all simpler for Matthew and Madi to manage but the list is too long, the daylight hours too short… something has to give, and for now, for me, that is writing……

My operation passes eventfully - this is my seventh operation since we have lived in France and my 15th in total, and it served as the “bridge too far”. My body and my mind feel weak and enduring another hospital stay, more pain, more painkillers (which my body does not take kindly too), more feeling helpless; it all takes its toll and I am left anxious, bruised and defeated. How many more times can I do this? How many more times can I force the smile on to my face? We enter December exhausted, unlike any other exhaustion, this exhaustion is fuelled by emotion as well as lack of sleep and Matthew having to hold everything together - his broad shoulders can only take so much and I worry, as he crawls out of bed in the darkness of the December mornings, that he wears too many hats this time.

The dark mornings give way to some crisp, sunny days: the thin light bouncing off the frost, glistening through the weak winter sunlight. I have been home a week. The hospital stay still raw in my being but I am finally starting to sleep, so Matthew is finally starting to sleep and slow progress is being made on the farm - the ploughing and drilling commences, the last of the autumn calves are born and plans are made to move the cows into their winter accommodations, sheds are mucked out and tidied in anticipation of cows coming in from increasingly muddy fields. Matthew’s mind seems to settle into the jobs at hand and although his days are relentless, slowly a calmness descends. I get stronger every day and as the daily nurses visits come to an end, and we are reassured of my progress by my surgeon, my mind starts to calm a little too.

Our thoughts begin to turn to Christmas. I do the Christmas shopping from my bed; we warn the children (aged 19 and 22, so able to handle the reality of a post-operative Christmas) that it will be a small quieter affair this year. I am bundled into the car to visit the Christmas tree farm to choose the tree - tall enough to touch the ceiling and lush enough to embody most of the Christmas sprit this year. I wrap the gifts in small spurts, a little job that I can do as I recuperate; we plan the food and when we are going to tackle the food shop….and the days pass with me doing very little, and Matthew doing an inordinate amount.

I embrace the winter solstice. I love the feeling that we have barely brushed up against winter, and yet, from now, the light begins to return, so slowly and softly at first that it is un-noticeable, but just the knowledge that it is taking place makes the darkness and grey infinitely easier for me to manage - those days that are so overcast it appears to scarcely get light, those are the days I use this knowledge to its full power, the gentle reminder that the light is returning, that spring is working its way towards us, that a corner has been turned allowing nature to groan and stretch into the warmth and sunlight to come…it gets me through the coming months. I mark it with intentions for the year ahead and the softness of candlelight. This feels more like the new year to me, the start of the coming year and this year, that early renewal feels healing.

Christmas passes peacefully. Sam comes home for a few days and the house is jovial and full of life. Matthew does only the essentials and even finds a little time to doze on the sofa with a book, but before long, Sam is saying goodbye once more and work commences again. It becomes bitterly cold with days barely venturing above freezing. The frost clings to the trees throughout the day leaving the world white around us. Water pipes need to be defrosted, machinery given time to warm up, and the animals require more food to keep warm. Winter on the farm is quieter in principle but the weather often makes the everyday jobs harder and more time-consuming to achieve.

As New Year rolls around I begin to feel physically stronger, able to take on a few of the household chores and relieve Matthew’s load, just a little. My thoughts turn to the year ahead and I begin to create an image in my mind of what I would like this time next year to look like and how I would like 2026 to unfold. This needs to be a year of becoming grounded into our farm, making progress in easing its workload in the longer term: beginning to resolve the water issue so far less hours are spent running water to animals, getting the last of the fields fenced and fit for purpose, putting Matthew’s workshop together…. but we also need to progress at home so that we have the tools to rest and build resilience more effectively, and maybe, just maybe, a few days away would do us both some good… we will have to see what the year ahead holds.

I am drenched to the bone. Zooming down the road on the quad bike at the exact moment that the rain turned into a torrent. It has been raining all morning and I had been waiting for a moment of reprieve to dash out and feed my sheep in but having given up on that, I in turn managed to choose the worst moment; I can barely see from the water being hurled at my face. Within mere minutes, my clothes are soaked through but there is no point in turning back, I may as well get the job done and then retreat to the warmth and dry of the house. Feeding the sheep is always a bit of a tussle - their eagerness to be the first with their head in the trough can make staying on my feet a bit of a challenge at times, and the job is made worse by wet sheep trying to barge through my legs as I slip around on the increasingly muddy ground. The wind is blowing fiercely through the treetops, pushing and pulling their supple branches back and forth in the manner of an interpretive dance but one of the dancers is falling, tumbling and crashing to the ground before my feet. The sheep and I stand and stare for a moment - it is quite surreal to witness the wind ripping a seemingly healthy tree up by its roots…… as I stand and marvel at what I have just watched, I realise that the newly felled tree has fallen onto the sheep’s fence and will need mending before I can return to the coziness of the fire indoors. The rain continues to pour. Matthew arrives with the chainsaw and we cut and drag the tree into the field, freeing up the fence again and providing the sheep with some extra roughage and entertainment as they skip and jump around the new obstacles - at least they are enjoying the twist in todays events. Matthew and I finish up and race back to the house to hide from the elements and hope that that is the last of the drama for the day.

Tractors and trailers rumble up and down the road. The maize that we have lovingly sown and tended to, even sung to, is being harvested. It is a first for us; having never grown maize before and all hands are on deck. Adam and Ruth have come to run trailers of chopped corn from the fields to, what will soon be, the silage clamp. Three tractors and trailers trundle to and fro through the village whilst Adam takes charge of packing the chopped corn tightly into a mound, snug as can be, eliminating as much air as possible to allow for the perfect fermentation to take place under the darkness of a weighted down sheet. By the end of the afternoon, a pile of feed has been successfully collected and stored - now we just hope that there is enough to see us through the darker months of winter. The sun begins to dwindle in the sky on a productive afternoon as we all go inside to enjoy an end of harvest dinner together, and a well earned bottle of wine.

Cows are the most curious of creatures. Often timid and fearful but once a person becomes familiar to them, they become curious, even forward at times. I spend the mornings in October in gateways, standing under the shelter of oak, ash and hazel, the encompassing early mists collecting in the branches above me and dripping onto my head below as I talk to our young cows. We have been feeding them all with a ration of minerals mixes into cattle feed every morning for the last 10 days, and now they are waiting at the gates for us. This morning is the first morning after their course has finished and as Matthew takes the tractor into the field to fill their water and deposit their silage, the young Angus’ stay at the gate with me, tilting their heads in a questioning manner. We talk for a while (well, I do), quietly exchanging the time of day, their silent responses communicating their wonder at the lack of food bucket; “Are you getting the food now?”, “Why are you just standing there?”, I explain to them that they have silage today…. Eventually their curious eyes turn to the bale that has been placed in their ring-feeder and they leave our discussion one by one, walking away with barely a “Goodbye” or a “See you later” amongst them but it is nice to start the day with a chat with the cows.

The house is in chaos. Cupboards, drawers and tools are strewn throughout the hallway and utility room. Every spare surface houses boxes filled with cups, plates, saucepans, food. My parents are here and my Dad is fitting us a new kitchen. We are very lucky, as designing and building kitchens is how Dad has made his living for the last 40 years and now he stands in a shell of a room, scratching his head (a quintessential motion for my father), as he builds me a new sanctuary: an accidental splicing of my parents kitchen in their home in Sussex, and the kitchen that my Dad made for Mum in the late 90’s - oak and painted wood pull together into a room that begins to look more like artistry than wall cabinets, and as we scrabble through boxes, yelling “Has anyone seen the pasta?”, we remind ourselves that the madness will be worth it all in the end. At the end of 10 days, Dad and Matthew emerge triumphant from the kitchen to declare its completion - only tiling and painting to do but that will have to wait, we have a couple of days left with my parents before they drive back to the UK. We all climb into the car, half the kitchen still in boxes, and drive to Boussac to take them for tea and cake: both being lovers of tea and cake, it makes for a nice trip out and finally they can experience the teashop that I have told them about so often - they were beginning to believe I had made it up as it was closed whenever they had visited before but not this time, so we enjoy some delicious moments, reminiscent of England. Bakewell Tart, Carrot Cake, Rose Tea, all served in the bright and warming surroundings of the tearoom, ideal as the rain blows through the skies outside.

At the end of the month I hitch a lift back to the UK with Mum and Dad for a few days as Sam’s birthday is soon. We spend some time touring around some of our favourite haunts where I used to live, ducking from downpours and rushing outside in moments of sunshine. I leave Matthew and Madi at home to manage the farm between them; the last of the silage is cut and most of it baled before mechanical issues in one of the tractors calls time on that job; two more calves are born; and more hedges are cut in my absence - I return home rested but aware that at the end of November, I am back into hospital, another operation taking me out of action once more. And once again we face a long to-do list as we enter the new month.

The first of September has become a date of significant note within our house. Six years ago today we arrived in France: two children, two dogs and a livestock trailer bursting with possessions . One year ago moved onto our new farm, our own farm: one child (and one in the UK), two different dogs, and four cats. Both moves were monumental to us but we have often commented that for us, the move from the Allier, 90 kilometres down the road was harder work and far more exhausting than the move from England. Sometimes I marvel that we made either of the moves at all.

The weather continues to be changeable. Thundering downpours followed by sunshine; dark and grey followed by blustery and blue. The crackled golden landscape of the arid August is turning green surprisingly quickly and the animals appear more restful for it. We are still supplementing their forage with hay, but they are also finding fresh grass to nibble.

It is time for us to prepare for calving. we have to worm and vaccinate the cows that are in the shed and put them out as none of them will be calving until the spring, and we need to gather in those that we expect to calve between October and Christmas. It sounds like a simple, quick job but each group of cows has to be shepherded in through pastures, down wooded lanes and along roads with precision - one wayward cow and it can all go horribly array, resulting in a lot of running, panic, shouting, swearing regrouping…. none of us want that. It is a process that will take place over a couple of weeks as we move groups closer to home by increments, field by field.

For one weekend every year our quiet sleepy hamlet becomes a hub of entertainment. A throng of bikers and the general public descend upon us as our neighbour Jean-Claude, opens his fields to a biker meet. For the last decade, Jean-Claude has organised and hosted this festival, and over the years it has developed into something quite spectacular. He has, in this time built something akin to a ‘Wild Western’ village with saloon style buildings that, come September, host numerous trade stands, a bar, eateries, a tattooist; there is live music, vintage motors and over the course of the weekend, hundreds of motorbikes, and for this year only (being the festival’s 10th anniversary), a ‘Wall of Death’. We were too busy to attend last year as we were in the midst of moving but this year we decide to go along, and it is a marvel. We are not bikers but at an event like this one see’s the appeal: the atmosphere is lively and jovial, there is a sense of community and comradery - hundreds of men and women, dressed in their club attire, enjoying each others company, stories and machines. We grab a beer and are quickly steered towards the ‘Wall of Death’ by our friend Nick, apparently we have to see it and it’s the last show of the weekend, our timing has been impeccable. I remember hearing of the motorcycle ‘Wall of Death’ as a small child, something that my Dad and older brother would go to, but their popularity seemed to wane and they disappeared, I wonder now if they would even still be allowed in the UK, I cannot believe that this wooden tower that I am standing on top of, that I can feel shaking under my feet through the tremors of the bikes below me, even before anyone starts moving, would pass health and safety regulations. As the show starts, I am convinced of my musing. A man and his motorbike proceeds to ride around the walls of the tower, perpendicular to the ground, climbing higher and higher with only a trick of physics keeping him alive and as he climbs, I realise that the red line painted barely two feet below the balcony from which I watch, is their indicator as to how high they are allowed to go…I could touch him at times if I were to reach out. “These men are mad” I surmise, but one has to admire it, and appreciate that these circus tricks are around. I am sure that the bounds of modern society will catch up with them one day, but for now, I am pleased that rural France is still a little slow in its trends.

The same weekend also plays host to the local ‘Fete de Patate’ or ‘Potato Festival’. Potatoes appear to be a prominent part of the local culture - Matthew was asked earlier in the year when he would be planting his potatoes, and we have mused at the care with which the retirees in the village have tended to their own potato patches throughout the seasons, and now, in line with the festival , families are in their potagers, digging away, foraging after the slumbering gold. It amuses me and fills me with delight in equal measure, to see such care and pride taken in such a seemingly simple process - I note to have a bed ready for potatoes next year, to partake in, what feels like a longstanding local past-time. The festival hosts stall holders selling cheese, and saucisson, garlic mounded up in piles, bread, and of course potatoes. Music plays as we wonder the streets, joining the crowd of revellers sifting through the brocante stalls. The sun shines, and there is life in every corner - a last moment of summer before the winter shutters begin to come down.

The vet arrives with a student in tow to scan a group of cows to determine f they are pregnant. In all the chaos of the year we have left scanning until quite late so have just asked for her to determine whether or not they are in calf. We know when the bull was with them, so we know when our calving window should be, we just want to whittle out the few that inevitably, aren’t in calf. By the end of the process however, it has become starkly clear that we have a problem with only 13 cows out of the 30 pregnant. It could be due to any number of issues: a knock on from the FCO disease that we were struggling with last year; a problem with a bull; a deficiency in the cows…. The vets are returning in a few days to scan a second group of cows so we ask for some blood tests to be done at the same time. The second lot of scanning gives us better results with only a couple of cows empty but they are all due much later than we were hoping so autumn calving is suddenly a sparse affair. We will adapt our plans and change our routine to fit this hiccup but it is a worry nonetheless. A few days later the blood results are back from the lab and show some mineral deficiencies within the herd - the vet determines, enough to cause some temporary fertility issues, easily fixed but another hidden cost of moving the herd to a new farm.

The scorching hot days that we experience towards the back end of September, suddenly give way, overnight and highs of 32 degrees are replaced with highs of 10. It is cold and wet. I have started the mammoth task of hedge-cutting, and the air-conditioning in the tractor is quickly flipped to heating. Hedge-cutting is a slow process. The hedges certainly weren’t cut last year and I surmise that they possibly weren’t cut the year before either so each hedge has grown thick and tall and wild - taming them again will be a long drawn-out process but with each hedge that is pulled back, the fields start to look more groomed, more managed, reclaimed back into the fold of the farm. It is satisfying work; tidying and primping.

It is a cold and sunny Saturday morning - the skies are bright blue with the odd pillow of cloud form. The sun bounces off the amber leaves and strikes from between branches. We are driving through the countryside with our friends Adam and Ruth, and their son Jack, on our way to discover a new local eatery. ‘Le Jalinier’ has only been open for one week but there has been rumour of pie on the menu so we are keen to visit and it does not disappoint. Not far outside Chatalus-Malvaleix, in Jalesches is an old barn that has been beautifully transformed into an intimate country restaurant. A long wooden farmhouse table and wood-burning stove provide a comfortable and comforting setting for some delicious food. We while away an afternoon eating a fresh country salad, pies filled with chicken and leek, and beef and Guinness, sautéed potatoes, tomato gratin, and a delicate, sweetly scented peach melba for dessert, all made using locally sourced ingredients. Hearty home cooking, in a homely setting; ideal for an Autumn afternoon. We all agree that we will be returning soon and adding it to our list of places to take family and friends.

As September begins to wane, there is no doubting that Autumn has descended. Indoors the fire is lit and the cats are beginning to become more regular companions again. Outdoors, the mornings are crisp and the dew lingers in the air, damp and heavy, casting a glinting mist over our world. Droplets make visible the tapestry of cobwebs entangled over the undergrowth. A haunting wonderland begins to reveal itself but it feels early this year and makes me wonder what plans winter has in store.

I can smell the rain in the air. I stand on our doorstep, the wind whipping at the acacia trees in front of the house, the skies deepening blue-grey above them. The storms are circling around us. It is raining somewhere, but will it ever reach us? The last few days have been unbearably hot as the temperature passes 40 degrees, the humidity building alongside. We are desperate for rain. The cows and sheep are hunkered down in the shadiest spots they can find. We hide indoors, thankful for the thick stone walls that temper the heat at this time of year, only going outside when we have to. There have been wild fires licking ever closer as the arid days have passed on, the smell of smoke drifting on the air from a fire, closer than is comfortable, reports of 15 hectares lost in a neighbouring commune, everyone is just praying that they aren’t next. I stand on the doorstep wishing for rain. The odd drop reveals its proximity but I fear that will be all tonight. When does one seriously start to consider resurrecting the rain-dances of my forefathers??? My Native American ancestry stirs.

The now infamous escaping cows of July have been relatively content for a couple of weeks. They have been moved back onto their hill from where they can survey the comings and goings of the village: Guy tending to his potatoes; Odette watering her beautiful potager; Jacque, the mayor, taking hay to his Comtois horses; the cows seemed calm and settled once more. For several weeks now, due to the drought, they have been provided with water and hay, and have plenty of shade… so once again we find ourselves asking what more could they possibly want when Matthew phoned me from his morning rounds to tell me that once more, they were missing. In an ironic twist, they had repatriated themselves to the field that they had previously refused to stay in, where a little fresh grass had grown. We decided to let them eat it off, so once more moved their water troughs and electric fencing unit to them, and once more they appeared content….for 48 hours at least.

It is a beautiful place to live, nestled deep in the embrace of the Creuse foothills, sheltered and hidden by the wooded thickets and ancient landscape. It is particularly striking by early morning light, the glow of sunbeams bouncing off the departing shadows of the night before; and this morning, we are experiencing it in all its splendour as we stand in a road next to the neighbouring hamlet, contemplating our cows grazing in someone else’s field again, only this time, they have wondered several kilometres from our farm. We know we have to get them home, and we reside to putting them into the barn until we can make a plan to curb their adventuring, but we aren’t entirely sure how we are going to get them their. We have two options, we run them down several kilometres of roads, turning at crossroads, and scaling the village bridge or we run them back through the fields from whence they came. Both options have their pitfalls but we do know one thing, we need help. Madi is in the UK with her boyfriend so Matthew makes an early morning to call to our friends Adam and Ruth. Adam and Ruth have farmed here for 18 years and have been friends of ours for several years now, and luckily live 10 minutes away. We make the decision to run them back through the fields: 7 fields, and through the village, all hoping that none of them make other plans en route. We start; Matthew calls them on from the front, I keep them together and watch for stragglers from behind, Adam and Ruth put guiding strings up through the village and wait to steer them into the yard and then the shed. It is a long walk but the cows move steadily as we need them to and by mid-morning, they are safely locked in the shed, unable to escape again but handing us another problem: what are we going to do with them in the longer term? We thank Adam and Ruth for their aid and reaffirm our plans to meet later in the day to go and visit a chateau that is being renovated locally - a rare trip out for four tired farmers.

It is early one Saturday morning when Matthew receives an unexpected phone call from a man that we had given his phone number to back in April and we had no more time to think further on. Christophe, by pure coincidence comes from a village close to where we used to live, the same village that Sam and Madi had gone to school in when we first moved to France, he is a farmer but he is also a ‘sourcier’, a man who dowses for water, and on the back of his success with this skill, he has a business locating and drilling for water, and installing watering systems for farms; he is a man that we are thrilled to hear is on his way to see what he can find for us. Having gone through the summer carting water out to the livestock, and realising that it is taking about 12 hours out of our week (let alone the fuel costs and wear and tear on the tractor), we are keen to find a solution. Within 10 minutes, Christophe has established a water course that runs behind the cattle shed and is confident in his ability to get to it. He leaves us with a quote for the works and plenty to research and think about but we are excited at the prospect and it energises us into the end of the month.

By the end of August, the weather finally begins to break. Much more manageable temperatures and some overcast, damp days do not go unwelcomed, and bring with them a renewed energy; a feeling of touching upon Autumn. As the northern hemisphere begins to prepare for the ending of the year, Autumn heralds a time of beginnings on the farm. For us Autumn signifies calving, and the sowing of next years crops; now is a time for preparation and tidying, and we look up from the dragging heat, we see plenty to be done. I spend a few days flailing off old dried grass and weeds in the hope of revitalising the fresh growth below - we are hopeful that with a kind Autumn we will be able to make some extra silage in November maybe. Matthew clears away the last of the hay, silage and straw from the fields and the shed begins to fill with winter stores, not enough at this time, but it is nice to see nonetheless. We load up the trailer and take, the first of many loads of rubbish to the local tip, some of ours, but much of it left behind by the previous occupant; it is barely a beginning of what needs to be sorted and disposed off, but it is a beginning at least and the first time since we moved that we have had a moment to be able to think about the un-necessary. It feels like a productive time. I begin to plan the first sowings of flower seeds - sweet peas, larkspur, orlaya, yarrow…all hoping to produce flowers early in the season next Spring. It is refreshing to be thinking forward instead of fighting through the day-to-day, the never-ending struggle to get on top, let alone ahead. We always said that the first year would be hard but as we celebrate one year on our new farm, it actually feels like we may cresting the brow.

Share Farming in France

“She’s jumping over the fence!”. Matthew is phoning from where he stands in a shady coppice next to our young cows.

“What?”

“I have just watched number 4 jump over the electric fence.”

For the last week, we have spent our days relocating one particular group of cows from our neighbours field back into their own. Once, twice, three times a day, we have been driving down the road and exclaiming in despair; “they are out again!!”. We have adjusted the fencing and marvelled at how they have everything that they could possibly want and yet, there they are, once again, grazing in the neighbours field. Without knowing exactly what they doing, we are at a loss as to how to stop them… so Matthew has been camping out, spying on their mischief. Neither of us however, would have guessed that the instigator was jumping over the fence! At this point, others, envious of her frolicking in forbidden territory, and overly eager to join her, are simply barging the fence to the ground. Matthew returns them to their field once again and manoeuvres some branches to block her line of sight, we run an extra line of fencing at eye level in the hopes that it will give her something to think about, and leave, with nothing to do now but wait with baited breath to see if that is enough to keep them in place.

The beginning of July brings good news as we learn that Madi has passed her Professional Baccalaureate in Agricultural Studies and Animal Management. She is thrilled. It has not been an easy journey getting to this point - a different language and overcoming her home-sickness in order to be able to live in at school fully, but she has achieved more than we could have hoped and is continuing on into further education. Now she just has to focus on studying for her Code de la Route so that she can officially learn to drive…. sadly they don’t take years of driving tractors into account. The Code de la Route is the French equivalent of the Highway Code and is tested in a similar way, in an official test centre, under test conditions. I drive her to Boussac where the test centre is, with plans to spend the half an hour peacefully writing in a lovely little teashop there. It is run by a Scottish couple and is a lovely little taste of home: I sit, surrounded by both French and English speakers, sipping a coffee and eating a piece of Bakewell Tart, relaxing into my surroundings, quietly writing of the events of the month so far - it feels a little luxurious to be away from the farm, no distractions, just being and musing. Madi appears, unhappy with how the test went, so we console with more coffee and cake and words of encouragement… she is doing all of this in a second language after all.

July is often busy with visitors. Having returned Matthew’s mum to the UK, I have returned home with my parents. The first few days of their visit are spent melting under a ferocious sun as a cancule (heatwave) hits and we experience highs of 40 degrees. It is too hot to be out so we shelter in the cool of the house or under the shade of our 300 year old Oak tree in the garden. Any outside jobs are done first thing in the morning before the heat really takes hold of the day, and the afternoons are saved for tractor jobs, where the air-conditioning can save us from exhaustion. The jobs still need doing, but much more thought is given to the time of day that they commence.

Emilie has arrived. She is our new sheep shearer; a jolly young lady who spends her time shearing in the mornings and caring for the mentally handicapped in the afternoons. We chat, hoping that we are understanding her properly, and that she can understand us. She comes from the same department that we used to live in and knows our old shearer, we soon learn that there is no love lost between them. Two hours, and 29 sheep later, both her and Matthew (as chief sheep wrestler), are glad to see the job done. She is competing in the international shearing competition that is taking place locally to us at the weekend. We make the intention to go and cheer her on, we will see if the farm will allow us the time off.

I am waiting for the grinding rumble of the quad bike to herald Matthew’s return. I am stood in a gateway watching my sheep contentedly grazing, every head is down, occasionally a lamb scampers for a short distance to catch up to its mum. It is a mild morning, slightly overcast with a breeze in the air, the only sounds are the birds and the occasional aeroplane overhead….it is a tranquil moment except for one thing, the sheep are in someone else’s field, again. For the last couple of days, every morning and evening I have spent calling my girls back to their field and then adjusting their fence, making little improvements to deter them, but every morning I have returned to a handful of missing sheep. It hasn’t really been too much of an issue as they have been slipping under their fence into another field of ours , and they always return when called, but this morning, they were gone, every single one of them. I found Maud and Daffodil with a small group, a few fields away and they returned happily, but the other 45 were nowhere to be seen. I could not hear them, and they clearly could not hear me. Having spent a fretful half an hour driving around the village, through woodland patches, and down country tracks, Matthew going one way, me the other, Matthew finally found them at the far end of one of our neighbours largest fields. Having herded them back we decide to put them into a shed and shore up their fences, clearly the electric fence is not doing the job - we are going to have to put a more physical barrier in place. Another fencing job to add to the list.

My parents leave in the midst of another round of hay-making. Matthew is pushing through to get the last of it made before the forecast changes, and the much-desired rain rolls in. The hay is short this year and we are heartily disappointed when all the grass is cut and we are far from meeting our yearly quota. Now we pray for a gentle autumn; warm and wet to be able to make more silage before the winter sets in. But for now, the hay-making machinery is packed away, and as Sam and Amy arrive for a weeks visit, our attention turns towards servicing the combine harvester. We have spring barley starting to mature, and our friend has asked Matthew to do his combining also, so our old dusty combine is rolled out of the shed once more.

The weather breaks as the end of July approaches. The sweltering heat is replaced by cool, overcast skies, broken with showers and downpours, even a little hail. It comes as a relief after so little rainfall since April. The ground smoulders evocatively, releasing the musty perfume of petrichor; heat and dryness relieved momentarily. Animals and humans alike, feel the comfort of the rain; a stillness passes over the farm, the cows and sheep appear to settle for the first time in weeks, suddenly content in their surroundings, the escapes come to an end; we can only hope they don’t return.

June arrives in a wave of heat and humidity. Days scattered between rain and sunshine, both needed and appreciated in equal measure - the grass seed has germinated and the maize is starting to break ground. The hedgerows are laden with elderflower and dog-roses, foxgloves and brambles bursting into flower. The gentle hum of summer is in the air. The nettles and the cow parsley begin to tower over our heads as we tour the chemins and woodland tracks checking the cows each morning. They are running short on grass again so plans are made to do more fencing and move them on. The cows are becoming more settled into their new surroundings and are starting to learn the paths and routes between grazing fields; the joyfully trot down the tracks to graze peacefully, contentedly in a new pasture. It is slightly cooler where we live now compared to the old farm, and there is a little more rainfall so grass growth is quicker and more abundant - it will inevitably burn off in the height of the mid-summer heat but for now, our lives are made easier for the green pastures.

Our surroundings; the weather, the tranquillity, the nature, it nurtures us through a tough start to the month. Still shaken by the sudden loss of Madi’s pony at the end of May, we are then hit with a wave of woes and frustrations: a Limousin calf dies in the field, the vet confirms that it had a heart murmur and there was little to be done; a sheep dies leaving me with orphan twins that need to be caught and brought in to be nurtured; and Matthews time is suddenly consumed with mending machinery - the flail mower, after it collides with a lump of granite; the plough, after it collides with a lump of granite…..I begin to dread hedge cutting season starting in August, as great granite monoliths are found lurking in hedgerows and tree lines, waiting to attack and leave us with more work than we need. Before we are even a week into June, we have had enough and want to get off the farming merry-go-round - as in anything, life goes like that sometimes but we are shattered and that isn’t a great position to be in before we head into forage making.

The heat builds and we need to make silage and hay before the grass burns off in the rising temperatures. As the weather station begins to read temperatures of 30 and 32 degrees, we head out into the fields en masse to collect up the grass. All other jobs are pushed down the priority list as mowing, rowing-up, baling and wrapping takes precedence. The days become longer and dinner becomes later but none of us really mind as a heatwave hits and it becomes to hot to eat comfortably before 8pm anyway. Our work mirrors the daylight hours, lengthening towards midsummer’s day, sadly however, I cannot see our days beginning to shorten just yet.

In between hay-making tasks, there is still fencing to be done. I am taking Matthew’s mum back to the UK at the end of the month so need to get the cows moved on to fresh grass before I leave. One morning, I tackle a large field, aiming to complete the job before the heat gets too ferocious. Fencing has become a fairly tedious and never-ending task and I am not excited by the prospect of stomping around a field, running electric wire from post to post, on a day that is reading as 25 degrees before 10am but the universe finds ways to encourage us to keep going, and as I walk through the grass, great swathes of butterflies circle into the air around me - yellow, blue, white and brown, like confetti dancing on the wind. They cheer me on and the field is complete by lunchtime.

As the end of the month looms and along with it, Marion’s return to the UK, we allow ourselves a few hours off. It is hard to believe that she has been with us for almost a month, and she has had to occupy herself for large portions of that time as we have headed out of the door to climb into tractors, but today we get up early to check the animals before we drive to our favourite market to buy strawberries, new potatoes, and a duck for dinner. It is not our closest market but it is one frequented by artisanal craftsmen selling all manner of beautiful items: hand turned wooden bowls, cards painted with images of meadows and woodlands, jewellery, pottery, as well as local food producers; a man sells freshly cooked Belgian waffles, an absolute treat to nibble as you wonder round…… On the way home we stop at a Brocante and find an old cast iron bath amongst the piles of reclaimed statues, fountains, stone troughs and gates - it needs a little restoration but we decide to buy it for the house - I have plenty of time to work on it as we have other, more pressing jobs to complete before the bathroom is tackled, still, it is nice to think about the house for a moment when our lives have been so consumed by the needs of the farm. The following day, as Matthew mows more grass for hay, I make strawberry jam to our winter stores. 10kgs of strawberries mixed with sugar and lemon juice, is soon bubbling away, filling the house with the sweet smell of summer.

Midsummer’s day arrives. I am constantly struck by how quickly the longest days appears in the calendar. We live an increasingly seasonal and rhythmical life, and I feel the ebbs and flows of the sun more acutely alongside that - it will be a while yet before we feel the nights drawing in, the light beginning to wane. We mark the moment, honour the sunlight and acknowledge the seasonal dormancy to come: we make our way to the highest field on the farm, it is a field that I have loved since we first viewed the farm, as standing in the centre is a small collection of granite stones, forming a sort of avenue, an outcrop, residing in the shade of some trees with the peaceful resonance of Avebury or Stonehenge; we lay in their wake and watch the first of the stars appear in the sky as the sun sets on a balmy, still evening. It is peaceful to steal a little moment of rest, to be just under the vast skies, to breathe in the air as the nights coolness begins to settle. We wallow in the brief moment before we return home to walk the dogs and feed the lambs and calves.

This edition marks one year of writing ‘Farming in France’; a year that has passed by so quickly that it feels like I was sat writing about the mud only a couple of months ago… and to borrow from the cliché, what a difference a year makes. As this May floats in on a soft breeze, scented with lilacs and wisteria, experiencing the awakening of Spring from our new farm , finally settled into one place, feels like a colossal achievement, rewarded by the small moments taken to experience our new surroundings. I consume the scents and the sounds. The plants outside are murmuring with the continuous buzz of bees of all varieties, imbibing themselves on the glut of nectar. The carpenter bees with their black bodies and spectacular iridescent wings, bob around the wisteria like buoys out at sea. There is a cacophony of birds chattering and whistling in the treetops around me - it is far from quiet but is soulfully peaceful.

Lambs are appearing daily now; the shed is quickly filling with their continuous bleating. They spend their days skipping and jumping with each other as if in a schoolyard at playtime; they clump together and then run at full speed round and round the ring feeder, diving passed their mothers in a frolic of youthful energy - hours can be lost watching their jovial interactions.

It seems hard to believe that two months have passed since my operation but we find ourselves making the journey to Lyon once again for my post-operative appointment. A seven hour round trip for a 10 minute appointment, it seems ludicrous but we remind ourselves that there was a time, three years ago, when we were having to make this journey every 10 days, for several months; it has been an incredible journey in a multitude of traumatic and distressing, uplifting and comforting moments, but today, finally marks the end. Except in the event of an unforeseen complication, I thank my surgeon as she tells me that I am healed and well and say goodbye. It is strange to just say goodbye and leave her office, I comment to Matthew that to her I am just a patient signed off of her list but to us she has been a fixture of our lives for nearly five years, my appointments have become “trips to see Delia”….. I wonder if she ever grasps the role she plays in the lives of others???? It is strangely bitter sweet to leave the hospital behind me…. This appointment also marks my return to work however, and I feel energised and enthusiastic, I am sure it won’t last long.

This years grass seed is being sown; a mix of grasses, and legumes to provide a well developed silage for the cows. Madi has ploughed the fields and Matthew is drilling them as I follow with the ring-rolls, levelling the ground and providing a soft, gently compacted seed bed for the grass to germinate. It is a little late going into the ground so now we pray that the weather is warm, with moderate showers and we don’t experience a heatwave just yet. May is often a month of transition here, when the warmth of the long French summer commences, and this year, unlike last, seems to be following suit.

For me, the language has always been one of the hardest things about living in France; I practice a little everyday, have attended some group classes in previous years, and try to communicate where I can but it is something that I struggle with and I am getting fed up with ‘getting by’. I want to be able to have a chat with our neighbours beyond the niceties, take up classes and feel confident in my surroundings, so I am embarking on some one to one lessons to improve my conversational skills. Lucie is my new French teacher, she is lively and positive’ she enjoys that we have the same name, and that an English girl spells it in the French manner. She guides me through pronunciation and the idiosyncrasies of the dialect, guiding me away from the textbook schoolroom French to a more natural tongue. Once a week we cram a jumble of information and practice into a short hour, that I then pick apart and digest through the days that follow. I am not sure yet, what impact t is having on my ability to be able to speak French, but I quickly notice a quiet confidence building in my abilities and that must be a positive sign.

As the end of May hurtles towards us, Matthew and I make a plan to briefly visit the UK to collect Matthew’s mum and see family. We decide to go back together, something we have not been able to do before due to the commitment of the animals, but as Madi has become more capable on the farm, we ask her and her boyfriend, Clement to hold the fort for three and a half days. They agree and we set about working through a list of jobs that we want done before we can go: fencing for the cows, checking existing fences for the cows, checking sheep fencing, moving everything onto fresh grass, putting the ewes and lambs out, moving cows….. it is chaos and throws us into a run of early starts and late finishes but everything is coming together.

Matthew and I set out one afternoon to get the sheep and lambs out of their lambing quarters and onto grass - it is better for them all to be outside, the grass helps with milk production for the lambs, and the lambs are all strong enough and big enough now to reduce the risk of any fox attack. All the ewes have lambed successfully with no interventions needed and no lambs needing to be hand-reared. I have just two ewes left to lamb, who I am unsure are pregnant, and ‘Rusty’, a Suffolk cross who has had problems in the past. As we enter the shed to start loading up the new mothers and their offspring, I notice that the older ewe is in the early stages of labour so we quietly move her to a pen in the corner of the shed so she can lamb in relative peace whilst we get on with our task. An hour later, all the ewes and lambs are happily perusing their new field but the old lady (as I fondly call her), still has not given birth; we decide to go in for a cup of tea and check on her again a little later……but no progress is made, Matthew decides that it is time to intervene and with more than 30 years experience with sheep, I trust and rely on his guidance; ten minutes later and the Old Lady has a lovely pair of twins in front of her, she is contentedly licking them clean when we realise that she has no milk, suddenly, in the course of one birthing, our “no interventions and no hand-reared lambs” record has been shattered. The twins are very alert and take to a bottle easily, Mum loves them and looks after them, and I feed them, “we’ll do it together” I tell her, but the next afternoon one of the lambs quickly goes downhill and dies. As the remaining twin goes from strength to strength and begins to come when he is called for his bottle, Rusty also gives birth to a large male lamb, and just like that, lambing is over: all 21 ewes have given birth and we have 30 healthy lambs - not bad for a lambing season.

We are driving to the UK. Our farm is almost exactly in the middle of France so it is a seven hour drive up the country. Motorways all the way make for a fairly dull drive but we pass the time noting the change in topography as we go. Our rolling hills and hollows of the Creuse soon give way to expanses of arable farmland: large square fields of uniform crops, often not even separated by any obvious boundary, running one into the next; vast expanses of woodland, once the hunting parks of the French aristocracy give way to the outskirts of Paris and the Duplex A86, a 10 kilometre tunnel that cuts under Versailles and the south-west of Paris. We make good time and manage to get onto an earlier train. We are fortunate, most of our friends and families are all based in the south-east of England, so once we come out of the Eurotunnel at Folkestone, we are on home ground with no more than an hours drive further on to see Sam, our son, but it strikes me, as we settle our weary bodies into our hotel, that for many, this is just part of their trip, and for many heading to the north of the country, our final destination is their merely their halfway point.

We have a lovely 48 hours with our families, and then load up again to return home. It is a painfully short visit, and leaving so quickly is hard but the summer is almost upon us which means that it won’t be too long before our loved ones come and visit us.

We return to France to long hot days and are going about our tasks, feeding, watering, drilling maize for winter feed when a shadow casts itself over our little world. One of Madi’s horses, a plump dark Welsh pony named Safi, is acting out of sorts. Madi is away at school so Matthew and I decide to call the vet out to her, it isn’t good news, she has developed colic. The vet treats her and instructs us that we need to walk Safi and to call her in the morning with an update. In the morning Safi is no better, so the vet comes back out - we need to walk her. So every two hours, Safi and I go for a walk to try and aid her digestion and get her stomach moving. Madi comes home to care for Safi and provide her with familiarity and comfort but by the following morning, Safi has taken a turn for the worse and the decision is made that she needs to be put down. It is a heart breaking reality. With the farm animals, the decision to euthanise an doesn’t come easy but it is a part of the job, and we take the responsibility for the welfare of our animals very seriously, but when it is pet, a horse that has been a part of the family for 10 years, has grown up with your daughter and has been a great source of comfort to her, it is shattering. Safi was a bossy pony, who ruled the other horses with an iron fist, and we all seem a little lost without her here. It is a cruel and unexpected end to May.

As April commences, the sun shines gloriously in the sky. I am still unable to work but I am starting to feel able to do a few small, household tasks: I water my March sown seedlings; edamame, chilli’s, chamomile, tarragon, all slowly starting to show signs of life as the weather begins to warm. Matthew is drilling, sowing the Spring barley that will help feed the cows through the winter; I can hear the quiet rumble of the tractor in the distance under the clear blue sky. He was supposed to be collecting straw this afternoon - the farmer that we bought the barley seed from has some for sale, and our stores are low, but as he checked over the Fastrac before departing, he discovered that the “farming fix” that he had made to the coolant tank back in January has given way, he curses himself for not getting round to ordering a replacement tank yet and phones the seller to explain his predicament - the man kindly offers to hold the straw for us until we are on the road again. He comes indoors to order the new tank before setting out to finish sowing the barley.

Calves are arriving thick and fast now. Before we know it, half of the cows have calved, and the shed is full of mothers, fat with milk, and calves who keep slipping under the gates to lay and snooze in the sunshine, they slip back under when they get hungry, mummy calls, or we push them back. Madi is home this week so the new calves and mothers are going out onto fresh grass to benefit from the lengthening Spring days and radiating sunlight. It always sounds like such a simple task, to put the cows out, but is inevitably time-consuming, ensuring the correct cows go out to the correct places with the correct calves…. our heads are a jumble of eartag numbers and ever-fluid plans.

I am starting to feel stronger again and as I do, I begin to take myself for daily walks - just short ones to start with, I go and check in with my sheep, I haven’t seen them in weeks and it is reassuring to watch them come running as they hear my voice from the gateway, they have become round with pregnancy; lambing should start this month and some of them are starting to look ready. We will have to get them in this week, another job to add to Matthew’s list. On other days I walk to the lake, it is so tranquil as the light glints on the water (I once heard a five year old refer to the glimmers of sunlight on the water as being “the fishes taking photos”, an image that has stayed with me), there are people sat on the banks chatting and admiring the view - everyone is making the most of the warmth, a practice run for the summer months ahead of us.

Whilst I have been out, the final load has been delivered from the old farm, almost exactly one year after we bought our new home, a lorry load of hay marks the end of the journey. I quietly hope for a calmer year ahead.

In my convalescence, I make strawberry jam. The first of the seasons strawberries are beginning to arrive in the shops - I have bought a tray of Gauriguette’s, and early French variety. The house fills with the sweet smell of summer as the jam bubbles away on the hob. The timing couldn’t be better as we have just opened the last jar from last years supply; a happy addition to natural yoghurt at breakfast time and a glimpse of summer in the cooler months.

A sunny day before Madi goes back to school lends itself to putting together a lambing shed in an old, open fronted outbuilding. Machinery that has been parked up in there is hauled out and relocated. Some stone is added to the ground, levelling the ancient floor; fencing is run around the front to keep the sheep in place, a hay rack and water trough is added, and straw blown in to create a soft bed; eventually all that is missing, are the sheep themselves. They are in a field about 400 metres down the road - it is a mostly straight road with only a few places that they could turn off, so we decide to run them by foot. Matthew calls them out of the field with a bag of food, they are keen, so he has to run to stay ahead of them. Madi runs behind them, trying to keep them together as a tight group allowing little time for any of them to consider going in a different direction. I drive slowly behind in case any of them decide to turn back, I can point them in the right direction again. By the time the distance has been covered, both humans and sheep need to catch their breath but the job has been successful, and my girls are safely gathered to start lambing…. now we wait.

A routine pass through the calving shed reveals a cow trying to give birth. She has a pair of feet sticking out but they don’t look right. Matthew decides that he needs to investigate. He feeds the cows at the locking yokes - a handling system that allows the us to hold the cows in place so that we can safely access the pen when needed, the cows happily eat and we can work safely knowing that they are out of the way. Generally our cows are calm and gentle but we still need to be cautious, especially at calving time when maternal hormones can make even the gentlest cow unpredictable. The cows all safely locked away, Matthew climbs into the pen and finds the one that is calving - upon further inspection, he discovers that the calf isn’t in the right position, it is attempting to come out backwards which is dangerous for both the calf and the mother. He decides to assist. Attaching a calving rope to each of the protruding feet, he gently pulls alongside the cows contractions but to no avail. He has to use the calving jack. The jack can provide the added strength of up to six men so when trying to prise a stuck calf out of a difficult birth, it is an invaluable piece of equipment. Once again, working with the cows contractions, the calf begins to come forth - 10 minutes later and a large bull calf lays bewildered on the floor, blinking in its first moments of the world, its doting mother contentedly licking it. We leave them to it, allowing the bond that will keep him safe to form.

By the end of the month, lambing is well under way. I only have a small troop of sheep so only 21 ewes to lamb but it is quickly turning into my favourite time of the year. I suspect that the process is made more enjoyable with only a small amount to care for and that the stress of lambing a few hundred ewes as Matthew used to, would tarnish some of its joys, but for me, as we are, it is a wonderful time. Once they start, they gather in number quickly: a single, twins, another single, and triplets…. triplets are often difficult in sheep as a ewe only has two teats so can often struggle to rear three or even four, but my ewe is doing a perfect job, they are all a good size and are clean and fed, and I am feeling very proud of her when Matthew notices that one of them has a distended tummy. We aren’t sure what is causing it so take her to the vet who establishes that she has a large hernia and will need operating on if she has any chance of survival but the risks are high - she is only five days old, and although she seems perfectly fit in every other sense, it will be a lot for her little body to cope with, equally, we know that she will die without intervention so we agree. She is operated on and is back home with us, in a bed in our kitchen by the afternoon but she is very weak, drowsy from the operation, running a temperature, and fighting to stay alive. We have to feed her but little and often so as to not put any strain on her stomach. At first we are hopeful, she seems to be gathering strength and can be heard bleating away from all over the house, she starts to get under our feet when we make a cup of tea, but two nights later she takes a turn and by the morning has died. It is the hard reality of this life, you can’t win them all. Lambing continues, and the remaining two triplets go from strength to strength - two little ewe lambs….I think we will keep them to add to the flock. We often have to make hard decisions with this job, but we can also allow ourselves a little sentimentality from time to time.

We have lambs and an Angus cow to prepare and take to the abattoir for our direct meat sales. The abattoir requires that the lambs are sheared beforehand for hygiene and as we are only sending six in, Matthew decides to do them himself.

Shearing is a job that professional shearers make look so simple, balletic even, but just the skill involved in manoeuvring the sheep around is arduous, and that’s after you have caught it to begin with… the job takes its toll on Matthew’s back so he is happy to guide Madi in her first ever shearing attempt when she is eager to try her hand. Having flipped the sheep (we produce hogget rather than lamb so they are nearer full sheep size than one you might expect) onto its back, she carefully shears down its stomach, taking long, smooth lengths of wool off as she goes, her concentration and tension is heightened, trying hard not to nick the animal at all. Matthew explains to her, every angle she has to take, and the different ways she needs to move herself in order to support the sheep and enable her to successfully manage the task. The sheep appears to wait patiently as if it volunteered to be a learning tool. Eventually it is released to join the others, unscathed by its participation.

Amongst the chaos, we also receive the results of some blood tests that we asked the vet to take, notifying us that the cows have fluke, a parasitic worm that lives in their liver and requires treatment via an oral wormer - a bit of a wrestle for Matthew to squirt the correct dose into the mouth of each cow and ensure they swallow it - it is obvious that it doesn’t taste nice as their faces contort momentarily with disgust.

Animals are delivered, animals are moved, the drop off points for the direct sales are organised with our customers, the house is cleaned and the washing caught up with, the sheds are mucked out and the chicken coop is cleaned - everything is done that can be done to lesson Matthew’s upcoming workload and in what seems likes just a couple of days, my operation is upon us. The hospital is in Lyon, three hours away, so Matthew and I take the opportunity to leave Madi in charge of the farm for a night and we drive to Lyon the day before and stay in a hotel over night. We have been to Lyon more than 40 times now but only ever to visit the hospital so it is nice, and a little surreal to stay in the old city, go out for a meal - it is a strange sensation to treat ourselves to a night away and end it with an operation but it definitely makes the experience less stressful. This is my seventh operation since we have lived in France, and they never seem to get any easier but a moment just for us certainly helps. I am home two days later, sore and exhausted but home.

The weather is changeable. Days of glorious warmth and sunshine give way to wind and rain and grey. Small moments of spring, quickly overshadowed by winter again, and then one morning we wake to snow. A white veil cast across the fields overnight - the chickens won’t leave their coop, the cats dash quickly back indoors with small icy paws. I am on bed rest, recuperating and as I watch the flakes mesmerizingly fall to the ground, I can hear Matthew muttering about having to go and check the fences; it is early, not long past dawn but he is aware that the settling snow and ice on electric fences can be cause for breakouts and he is farming solo for the time being. He is exhausted. He had driven to and from Lyon twice to drop me off and collect me, he has done all of the day to day jobs on the farm, done all of my day to day jobs on the farm, and he is caring for the house, the pets, and me - being present for every nurses visit and preparing all the meals - he is a force, but he is exhausted now, and this is only the beginning; I have been signed off work for eight weeks. The snow falls for a full 24 hours but is immediately followed by rising temperatures so doesn’t stay for long - just long enough to be able to admire the cleanliness that it applies to our surroundings, and that lingering silence that comes with its presence, like the world holds its breath in the cold.

The time passes in a blur for me. Matthew dashes from one job to another, announcing the births of calves as he goes. It is turning into another tough calving. We were expecting it to be - the move will have put strain on the pregnant cows and they will be dealing with pathogens that they have not encountered before - we were fore-warned but every poorly calf and death is hard to take. Matthew’s days are getting longer, and all I can do is listen to his struggles and watch him fly out the door again. As the days go by, he begins to find a routine - check the calving shed, walk the dogs, let the chickens out, feed in the barns, feed Pablo and Primrose (the hand-reared calves), check the calving shed, drive round the fields, take water round, take hay round, check the calving shed…. it is a continuous cycle but somehow, in between it all he has managed to deliver firstly lamb, and then beef to our customers, collect the new plough and start ploughing. It is slow to start as he has barely been out an hour when he returns due to a broken piece and has to go and buy a replacement but in his tired state he buys that wrong piece and has to immediately go back out and replace it a second time. The time wasted is frustrating as rain is due in a couple of days and he has eight hectares to plough. We were once told that our part of France doesn’t experience ‘April showers’ like the UK does, but instead they occur in March and that certainly appears to be true this year.

On a Friday afternoon, the monotony is briefly interrupted by some visitors. From time to time we are contacted by English people who are considering relocating to France. Usually farmers who are fed up with the struggles of farming in the UK and are excited by the prospect of a new life here. Since we have been here, we have met with or spoken to numerous individuals and families about our lives here and our experience. We are always very honest (maybe for some, a little too honest) about what we have discovered, the blessings and the curses of this adventure - it isn’t all frolicking around in the sunshine, sometimes it is hard; missing family and friends, the language, the bureaucracy, but we are also big advocates for this life and any hardships are short lived, for us it has been an amazing shift but it isn’t for everyone. We sit and talk over tea for several hours, answering questions and lending our limited wisdom to their thought process. They are a lovely family that are looking to farm locally to us so we end the afternoon hoping they will become neighbours one day. Since moving to the Creuse we have discovered a few English neighbours, something we did not have in the Allier, and it is pleasant. It is important to us that we integrate with the French community, equally, it is nice to be able to sit and talk to people in our first language, with ease and the reassurance of complete comprehension. It is through such meetings and conversations that, by the end of the month we find ourselves with the potential to rent a further 90 hectares, an exciting prospect for us as Madi starts to be able to do more around the farm. We will have to see, as we discuss options and details over the next few weeks, if it is viable for us, but as Matthew manages to complete the ploughing ready to sow the spring barley, we end the month feeling a little more rejuvenated, a little more forward focused, a little more like we are starting to find our feet again.

February sunshine comes streaming through the bedroom window. I am sat in bed with Rosie, the eldest of our four cats, starting the day with a hot drink and looking out onto the snow that has fallen overnight - just enough to cover the ground. Matthew got up with the dawn to check all the animals were ok; he had noticed the evening before that one of the heifers looked close to giving birth and we were sure that she would take the opportunity to do so in the snow, and she had - mother and baby both doing well, if not a little shocked by its particularly cold entrance into the world. The birth announces the beginning of spring calving - our scanning results showed only six cows due in February, the rest coming through March and April. We have plans to get those few cows into the shed this week, but nature waits for no farmer.

Chandeleur arrives. It has become one of my favourite days of note since moving to France; a moment to take a breath and begin to look forward to spring. We mark it with candles to signify the returning of the light to the world, and enjoy roast duck and crepe suzette for dinner. It is a day filled with quiet peace.

We are putting cows and calves out into a new pasture. The field has been meticulously prepared, fencing completed, water troughs carted into position, but the field is on the other side of the village and as we drive through our little hamlet, looking at what we need to put in place to walk the cows and calves to their new abode, we start to see the enormity of the task. Ordinarily, to move cows, we place thick string across driveways and gaps in the hedges, strategically park cars and tractors, and have a person standing anywhere that involves the cows making a turn, and this guides the cows in the direction that we need them to walk but their are two major issues this time: 1) there are vast gaping areas that need covering to get through the village successfully - driveways, gardens, bridges to cross, a waterway to navigate… and, 2) the calves haven’t learnt the system yet, this is their first outing and they are yet to learn the rules. We take a minute and decide that moving them in the trailer will be far simpler in the long run. The trailer however, is only a small Ifor Williams livestock trailer, enough room for two cows and two calves - like Noah before us…: it’s going to be a long afternoon. Little by little the cows and calves are sorted and loaded into the trailer, they are then chauffeured to the field and released; the mothers, happy to be out on grass again, the babies, a little disorientated. Three hours later and the task is completed with relatively little drama: one wayward calf, one particularly stubborn cow who didn’t want to load, one trodden on toe, and a lot of perseverance.

Everywhere we look, spring is blinking it’s sleepy eyes at us. Snowdrops are peeping up through the soil, birds are chattering into the early evening, the fattening lambs are skipping and butting heads, there is a warmth beginning to betray the winter sun, a whispered promise of better days to come. I am ill but sit on the doorstep with a cup of tea, face turned towards the sunlight, healing from the outside in. Matthew is breaking soil for the first time on our own land, ploughing up a field in preparation for sowing spring barley. For the first time since we have moved, it feels like we are making steps forward rather than treading water… until the plough crashes into granite, and then again - the ground is littered with granite boulders in this area of France, something we knew could be an issue when it came to planting crops, but it was not until this moment that we knew for sure that we would need to buy a different plough, one designed for such terrain. Another unavoidable expense, sometimes they feel never ending.

I stalk around the perimeter of the field, cutting and dragging the electric fence wire free from the undergrowth. It is 16 degrees Celsius and the sun warms my back as I go. The world is silent around me - just the song of spring coming forth from the birds, the odd rumble of an aeroplane, and the distant hum of a tractor that I know to be Matthew mucking out the cattle shed; today, I think I have the better end of the deal. I make the most of the warmth, knowing that it will be coming to an end in the coming days.

Sundays we try to take a little time for ourselves and for projects that otherwise, there is never any time for. It isn’t always possible but on this Sunday I am leaving the farm and attending a course on how to graft trees. I love all things to do with the garden and as I am facing a mostly blank slate with our new garden, a new skill feels like a good idea. I have to drive for an hour to attend the course but nothing is close by here, it is however lovely to travel out in a new direction, into new countryside. I arrive at my destination - a welcoming couple who take us around their garden; a food forest built within principles of permaculture - it is interesting and inspiring. By the end of the day I learnt to, and have grafted four fruit trees, I drive them carefully home, hopeful of their success but only time will tell.

The weather turns as predicted. It is cold, grey and damp again. We light the fire and I look around for indoor jobs to do - I need to order replacement ear tags, clean out the fridge, go food shopping, surround myself with garden books and plan for the beginning of my vegetable patch, write, email our butcher with the requirements for our next batch of direct meat sales. Farming is always a strange juggling act of work and life; either one can take precedence on any given day, at any given time. The farm and the house run alongside each other day by day, hour by hour, my head always flitting between the two.

There are always moments during calving, for any farmer, that we wish were otherwise: difficult births, prolapsed uterus’, less than loving mothers, calf death, all of these come to be anticipated but very occasionally we have a cow die during the calving process, and this February sees one such occasion. As Pablo, the hand reared calf that came upon us back in November is weaned off the bottle and starts to stride towards independence and being amalgamated with his cohort, he is joined by Primrose, a Limousin calf whose mother died from a severe prolapse. We suspect that she is a little premature as she doesn’t seem to have the suckling instinct which means that we have to feed her through a tube. After a week of Matthew wrestling her and tubing milk into her stomach, we notice that she is starting to play with the bottle teat when we try her on it; 10 days later and she is off!! Sucking on the bottle as if she always has. For the moment she insists on stand underneath me, between my legs with her head up (I guess this feels natural to her, like her mother is over her and she has her head bent up to suck on her udder) and for now that works but I will have to find a way to alter her habit before she gets too big to be under me and feeding time turns into a rodeo. It is a moment of great relief and satisfaction for us as she takes her first bottles independently - it is a promising indicator that she will survive, that we can keep her going in adverse circumstances.

By the end of the month, all the cows that are due to calve are safely tucked into the barn with the security of cameras and night time checks upon them; and in the fields, the new mothers take their young offspring to explore the great outdoors, on fresh grass and out in the early spring sunshine, all look content and as they should be.

There is a stillness in the air, an anticipation of Spring in the early sunlight; small moments of warmth as if promising that the winter will come to an end. The evenings, even though only drawing out by moments, suddenly feel lighter and filled with hope. We do not make New Year resolutions, but the beginning of 2025 has definitely brought along with it renewed ambition and motivation.

The farm, as with so many old farmsteads, has numerous old stone outbuildings: an old grange, the original farmhouse, an old barn, and a collection of smaller buildings all in fairly major and varying states of repair. We decide that a Sunday, early in the month, is a good day to do some exploration, so armed with a chainsaw, we cut and pull and drag away the forest of hazels that have grown like weeds, until we uncover an old pig sty (its roof caving in), and a small dwelling, the walls of which are starting to fall away - a hole in the floor reveals a cellar, the traditional granite fireplace is still in residence and a larder cupboard filled with old wine bottles….. the cellar door, we have walked passed 50 times or more, without ever really noticing it behind all the vegetation, now stands clear. There are no hidden treasures in these buildings but the unveiling of the imagining of the lives that were once here, is a gem in itself.

It is wet - a typical dismal start to the month. Between the downpours we must prioritise more fencing. We have cows with calves in the shed, waiting to go out. And we have cows due to give birth in early Spring, that need to come in so that we can keep a more watchful eye on them throughout the day and night. Madi is on work experience on the farm, so her and I go and tackle another field head on. In some fields, fencing involves placing temporary, yellow, metal stakes every few metres and running wire through insulators on them around the field, ensuring that the wire stands clear of any grass, branches, brambles or debris so that the electric current can run uninterrupted - a simple task, and on a fine day, not an unenjoyable one. In other fields however the task takes a little more muscle power and determination. This is one such field. The posts and wire are mostly all in place but some period of neglect means that the wire has been swamped by undergrowth and it has to be pulled and cut free. It is time-consuming and tiring, and in this particular field, an old oak tree covered in ivy has fallen into the field and must be removed before the fence can be revived. It turns into a family outing in the January drizzle - a few hours of Madi and I painstakingly resurrecting the fence, fighting it free from the grappling, thorny undergrowth, whilst Matthew drags the tree away from the perimeter and cuts it up for firewood; we all return home for lunch - damp, hungry, thankful for the firewood that now warms us, and glad that another field is almost prepared. Setting our thoughts onto the next field we look at the forecast, there is nothing but rain for the next week - not the best conditions to be putting cows out. We decide that we can afford to wait until the weather turns drier, assuming the forecast is correct: farmers are slaves to the weather, it can in itself determine the success of any plan, of any job, of any year, it becomes the influence in so many tasks, like a silent partner in the business that no one banked on. The weather and daylight hours appear to be the determinant factors in our day to day lives.

Epiphany arrives. We are still clearing the Christmas trees out of the house; in my excitement at our first Christmas in our new house, we had three trees and I have been reluctant to let them go, they have brought a soft beauty to each room that they were in, their gentle lights and dried orange slices glimmering in the background, providing a much needed warmth to the season. We mark the day in the traditional French way with Galette de Rois - a pastry filled with almond paste. Some years I make one but this year we bought one from the local boulangerie and it’s delicious. I enjoy partaking in these little French traditions, they mark the year in new, slightly significant ways, that we didn’t have before, and for me, they count the winter months away - from here, I look forward to Chandaleur in February.

The beginning of the month also sees us putting our French language skills to the test. We have been invited to lunch with some neighbours. It is a bitterly cold day and we are quietly thankful for the half day off. We arrive at 12.30 and leave four hours later, full from Crémant wine, aperos, a slow cooked lamb stew served with roasted tomatoes, apples and rice, a good bottle of Bordeaux and new tales of the history of the area and its residents. We are exhausted from four hours of French immersion but quite proud of our slowly growing abilities and our little moments of seeming acceptance into this very quiet and rural community. We tell Jean-Marie and Bernadette, once again, that this is where we have set our lives to be and the importance of being part of life here because of that - this appears to please them - we may be strangers to this country but we are working hard to make it home.

The days continue to be crisp. Each morning is met with sunlight bouncing off of the glass-edged hedgerows. The ground becomes solid underfoot, producing a satisfying crunch with every step. It clears in the afternoons where the light touches but in the shadows it remains frozen throughout the days. It is beautiful but presents its challenges. Water pipes must be laid out and defrosted, the quad-bike won’t run, everything just takes a little more time and consideration so the short days seem to become shorter, less productive, just managing the daily essentials.

“Can you come and get me? The tractors broken down.” Matthew had been on his way back from the old farm. He had managed to do a couple of loads of mucking out before the frost thawed and the trailer attempted to sink into the field. He was now parked in a layby about 30 minute from home, with the plough hitched onto the back of the J.C.B. Fastrac in the hope that we might be able to start preparing ground for spring crops. En route he had noticed a small leak coming from the engine and pulled over to investigate. Discovering a small crack in the coolant bottle, he had touched it, only to put his finger through it, turning the small manageable crack into a gushing hole and rendering the Fastrac immobile. When I arrived I found him scaling the tractor, spanners in hand. An hour and a half, and some very numb fingers later, he had managed to remove the coolant bottle to bring it home to repair it. We are very lucky that Matthew knows his way around a tractor having studied agricultural mechanics as part of his college diploma - it saves us a lot of money, although it takes up quite a lot of his time and can lead to machinery being out of action whilst he fits repairs in around all the other demands of the farm. He sits at the table whilst I cook dinner (something thick, warm and comforting as we are both cold to the bone), and armed with a tube of epoxy resin and a bottle cap he seals the hole back up again - farmers are nothing if not ingenious. The following day, through the freezing mist and drizzle, we manage to get the tractor home.

January sees the first of our direct meat lamb sales. We sell our lamb as hogget as that is how we like it - slightly older, with a slightly stronger flavour, and making for a slightly larger lamb chop (never a bad thing in my opinion). The direct meat sales are a relatively new venture within the business but a satisfying one. There is something truly fulfilling in taking something from field to plate, providing the full circle of the job. We started with Aberdeen Angus meat boxes back in May 2024 and have had a waiting list for lamb since. Only being a small flock, we have limited availability and I want to keep some of the females back to enter the breeding flock next year - lamb prices are going from strength to strength at the moment and I take a lot of joy from the sheep much to Matthew’s dismay. When we left the UK Matthew had proudly determined that he would never have to work sheep again having his sold his flock of 200 ewes, but by Christmas 2020, Madi and I had decided that we missed the sheep and we purchased a small flock from some friends. He still swears about their very existence but he does love having homegrown lamb in the freezer which I remind him on a regular basis.

As the month comes to a close and we are enveloped in its infamous grey and drudgery, I turn to garden related websites to lift my spirits and begin planning my garden. Flowers in all colours and varieties tempt me on every page. The promise of fresh, crisp, flavoursome vegetables erupting from the earth, spark my imagination, and I once again get lost in the hope and potential of our new venture as I add to my basket….. I always grow flowers, it is my love, but I haven’t been able to grow vegetables for the last couple of years - the garden was dedicated to flowers for our wedding, then flowers for a friends wedding, and then the move… so I end the beginning of the year, filled with renewed excitement for our new home, our new farm, our new life.

We are tired. The last few months toil is catching up with us but we cannot rest yet, we must keep pushing forward for a little while longer yet.

The grey days merge into one, some slightly wetter than others but consisting of the same chores: feed animals, litter up animals, muck out animals _ all the while the cows and sheep get muddier as the relentless rain falls. The brook at the bottom of our garden, once again bursts its banks as it encounters the village, and new streams appear, as if conjured in the night, through fields and down tracks, bubbling and frothing their destructive paths across our land. A day of sunshine makes us hopeful that the rain might relent for long enough to let the water abate but it feels like a vain hope.

My birthday brings a forced, partial day off - the animals still need tending to and today is the day that our young cows decide to take themselves on a small adventure to a neighbouring field, one of ours luckily, but an hour is spent locating and repatriating them. Afterwards I request that we take the time to unpack and put up pictures, work through some more of the unpacked boxes and make home feel ever more homely. There is still a mountain of work to be done in the house but it is nice to see our possessions find their places.

Christmas is hurtling towards us. It is normally my favourite time of year but this year it is approaching too quickly. There is still too much to do and not enough hours in the day to lend some to Christmas preparations. This year my parents, Sam (our son) and his girlfriend Amy, are spending Christmas with us, and it is the first Christmas on our new farm, we want it to be special but the energy required to make that happen is lacking. As the days fly by, we manage to make a Christmas cake, put up lights, cut wood to keep us all warm, rescue escapee calves, put up Christmas trees, purchase presents, make ice cream, do yet more fencing…. the muddle of life and farm, as ever, intertwined. But we are still not ready by the time our family arrives so they are put to work; Mum icing the cake and stringing dried orange slices to adorn the trees, and Dad is dragged into some fencing, and a foraging meander to find greenery to make a wreath for the door. By Christmas Eve however, we are done, and the house looks beautiful and feels like Christmas as we relax with a bottle of wine and some of our favourite people.

Christmas Day is a funny day on a farm; all the excitement and anticipation of Christmas still has to come second to the animals, so as the household starts stirring, Matthew and I are racing around, doing the bear essentials, to get back to enjoy our family. A day of presents, laughter and overindulgence awaits us, and this year, I think we’ve earned it.

The weather turns bitter as the end of the year approaches, days in which the frost never leaves the trees, each lingering leaf is outlined in shimmering white. It is transcendent in its beauty, like entering Narnia, but it freezes water pipes. The days are spent laying pipe out in the sun to thaw, continuously checking on their progress because the cows are running low on water and cows that are thirsty will go on adventures to find water. We are becoming aware that finding a solution to transporting water to fields needs to be a priority come the new year.

Our guests leave just before new year and we crash into the final days of 2024 with heady colds- a signal from our bodies that it is time to stop. A new year is on the horizon: a year for projects and progress - planning our new barn, finding a permanent water solution, lambing, calving, installing the Rayburn and a new heating system into the house… so many things to do but just for now we are taking a little rest, in between all the animal jobs.

The beginning of November is shrouded in fog. The late autumnal mists linger for most of the day with only the threat of sunlight breaking through in intervals. It is on one such morning that we make our way to a lake just outside the village where our neighbours are gathering. The lake is owned by Jean-Marie and his wife Bernadette, and is utilised by the local fisherman, and farmers throughout the year to draw water from for our animals - we do not need to use the water from the lake all the time, but when our own wells run dry, it is in an invaluable lifeline. In exchange for the use of the lake, Jean-Marie does not ask for money but for our time, one morning every year, to help sort his fish. That morning is this morning. As we approach, through the fog the silhouettes of 30 or 40 individuals become clear, all here to either help with the job at hand, or to watch on, admiring a community tradition.

The lake has been drained down to the size of a large pond and a couple of nets have been cast to draw the fish forward. One by one, large buckets of fish are poured out onto large tables where we gather to separate the fish into breeds and sizes. The larger of the fish are loaded into tanks on the back of a lorry to go to sporting lakes, the smaller are to go back into the lake to grow on, some are sold at the lakeside to locals for their dinner. The whole process takes a couple of hours with a mid-morning break of coffee, mulled wine, sandwiches and cake. Luckily Jean-Marie had warned us to come with wellies and waterproofs as within 15 minutes we are drenched - the fish trashing around in the water as we attempt to grab each one and allocate it. It is wet, cold and slippery work but is also hugely enjoyable as everyone is there together, joking and laughing and gossiping and sharing tales of years gone by, how good the catch is, and when will this fog ever clear. It is a test for my French language skills and I have to admit to not keeping up at times, but this is the community that we now belong to so it is a joy to take part nonetheless. Later in the day I comment to Matthew that it will a telling annual test of the progression of our French, as each year the stories become clearer in our understanding - we hope.

Calving has commenced. We had put the bulls to our cows with the intention of starting calving in November but our scanning had indicated that the bulls were a little slow on the uptake and we did not expect to see any calves until the very end of the month, but the cows like to take us by surprise from time to time and now they are calving in the field. Initially we thought that perhaps it would just be one or two, but each day there seems to be a new calf. Bringing our autumn calving cows in is not so straight forward however. we still have cows in the shed waiting to have a field fenced for them to go out into before we can get our expectant mothers and their ever growing number of calves in. Once again, our priorities have to change and the final chores on the old farm have to wait.

Amongst the autumn mothers are the Angus’; we only have 20 Aberdeen Angus cows but they generally give us very few problems - good mothers and easy to calve but this year we have a cow give birth and reject her baby. We quickly make the decision to get him in and hand rear him - it is not ideal but better than losing him altogether. Now my routine revolves around a shed full of weaned lambs being fattened ready for sale; two ever ravenous pigs; and Pablo, a beautiful jet black bull calf who quickly takes to the bottle and an ear scratch as he settles in with his new white woolly room-mates. Each morning as he moos at my approach, I have to remind myself that I cannot get attached, we cannot have pet bulls.

Our new routines begin to build as the light leaves the days with an ever quickening pace and the autumn begins to give way to winter. The keys to our old house are finally handed back but we have been given a little more time to clean out the sheds and tidy the yard as the new tenant will not arrive until the spring. This comes as a relief as it allows us some time to focus on getting the new farm straight, which currently means fencing, fencing and more fencing.

Moving cows around the old farm had become easy over time; the cows had learnt their paths, and we had learnt the little spaces where extra vigilance was required but this is a new farm and we need to get cows in with very young calves. With anticipation, and a few extra helping hands, we empty the cattle shed of its incumbents and we replace them with the calving cows and their young with only one minor incident - a wayward calf pushes passed a barrier and has to be repatriated via piggy-back. Our first real test of managing the cattle in our new residence has been a success and we all breathe a sigh of relief.

As the days get shorter, our work day gets busier and more compact - just checking around the animals, testing and resurrecting fences, feeding and watering, occupies the rapidly decreasing daylight hours. It leaves little time for anything else but we do manage to squeeze in afternoon tea at a nearby teashop, lunch with some new neighbours, and the purchase of a new ram, Reggie, who is put straight to work in order to have lambs in the spring. It is a funny thing with this job, you have to be so present and mindful of each days tasks and unexpected turn that takes place, but all the while having to think forward to the next lambing, the next calving, the next harvest - there is little time to stand still.