Today was Tony’s second short-haul trip:
yesterday he shuttled back & forth between Heathrow, Dublin & Glasgow; today he whizzed back & forth to & from Jersey, Heathrow & Glasgow after a last-minute schedule change. He said one of the worst things (apart from the painfully early starts, & Tony doesn’t do mornings) is suffering from constant indigestion as there is no time to stop for a meal. Having only 40 minutes from touching down to taxy back to the stands & prepare for the next leg of the trip AND taxy to the holding point prior to take-off; then once airbourne getting ready for descent as soon as you’ve reached top of climb, there is literally no time for a break during the working day of around eleven and a half hours – certainly not an opportunity to stop for lunch! Short ‘hops’ are also far busier than long-haul work; but at least it makes the time literally fly, I suppose.
Meanwhile my day began in somewhat more leisurely fashion; after completing the early chores I had no choice but to wait patiently for the Hotpoint engineer to come & ascertain why the washing machine had broken down, yet again. Thankfully he appeared shortly before 9am; & by 10.30am the machine was working again, the offending part (a fan) being replaced with a more robust variant. He has said he will recommend to Hotpoint that the machine should however be replaced as despite this particular problem now being repaired, the issue with the lint filter will not go away & we will have to take the back off the machine at least once a month for as long as we have it – which is time-consuming, messy & frankly, ridiculous.
When not working on the farmyard, I spent much of the day trying to find suitable stock photos of ice cream to suit our product promotion; however we will have to get our own pictures as despite an exhaustive search there really was nothing suitable (& certainly not within our price range!).
It was a cold, bright day; one of those days when it was a pleasure to be outside with plenty of brisk work to do. The goats frisked in the fields, running up & down with glee in spite of the slippery grass, which was thick with frost. As evening fell, a heavy, cold mist silently filled the frozen valley, the mournful hoot of an own echoing in ghostly notes from deep in the darkening woods.
Tony arrived home in dapper mood; & we decided that as we hadn’t been out for ages we should pop out for a drink in the local pub (nothing to do with England playing Croatia on TV then, I’m sure…?? Anyway, they lost). However we enjoyed a pleasant evening in front of the open fire, chatting to the locals about the state of agriculture these days, & how difficult things are. After whiling away a couple of hours we wound our way homeward through the swirling mist, relieved to be out of the cold & soon tucked up snugly in our warm bed once more.
LittleFfarm Dairy 