The comparable cyclist Part two (Goats,Greenways and keeping on the straight and narrow)

Tags

a white bicycle, Achill, Anglo nubians, british saanens, Co Mayo, friends, goats, Greenways, Nephin, St Patricks well, the greenway, the yellow bicycle, toggenburgs, Westport

(Looking across at Mulranny strand from the Achill to Westport Greenway)

What have goats got to do with a Greenway I hear you ask.

Well not a lot! They sort of meandered into this story uninvited.

~~~~~~

It’s early morning. I am off to cycle the western Greenway.

I leave Dublin at cockcrow, my yellow bike in the back of my old car and drive speedily along the motor way which heads to Galway (Ireland has only four of these mindless roads but they ARE handy when you are in a hurry )

After 60 kms or so I leave it to cut cross country in a north westerly direction.

Though now on a ordinary road it is too early for traffic and I still manage to zip along making good time until finally I reach the town of Ballina (in the process of creating its own greenway).

Next I pass through Crossmalina and then hit that lovely web of small roads, more often than not unsignposted.

But I continue on confidently knowing that if I  keep Nephin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephin on my left and head southwest I will end up at my destination.

Around a corner, a brown OPW signpost points to a small road indicating the whereabouts of St Patricks well. (Did I mention that I am fascinated by holy wells)

Too late! before I even make the decision to indicate, I am gone past the sign.

If I was on my bicycle I would have been up that boreen without hesitation.  

But a car is a different matter. too often you have flown by a place of interest before you can stop.

Then, maybe a car on your tail forces you onward as there is nowhere to let it pass or you have to drive some distance before you find somewhere to turn and by then the curiosity has left you.

I am tempted to say ‘feck the Greenway’ and park and pull out my bike and explore this area but my friend Penny (Not her real name) will be waiting for me. (Did I mention that when I cycle greenways I do so with a friend and when I cycle boithrins I like to do so alone).

And finally I am sitting outside the Grainne Uaile pub in Newport Co Mayo.

But still I don’t take out my bicycle.

One of my gripes with Greenways is they do not form a circular route.

If you don’t want to cycle back the way you have come, here is a solution.

I call it the ‘TWO CAR THINGY’

But you need a companion.

This is how it works

• You meet your companion at the end of the journey. Which could be called the beginning
• Of course she must also have a car with her bike in it (or on it) or it doesn’t work.
• You then decide which car will go and which will stay.
• You then load the bike from the vehicle staying into the vehicle going. (size of bike and car and lack of bike carrier may be the deciding factor here)  
• You leave the now empty vehicle and drive the now full vehicle to the start.
• You park
• You unload the two bikes.
• You cycle the greenway to the end.
• If both bikes don’t fit in the returning car, you look for something to lock the bikes to, preferable a railing outside the pub (Interestingly you have spotted other cyclists downing delicious looking glasses of Guinness)
• You drive back to fetch the other car.
• Disappointingly, you realize how short the distance is when driven (30 mins) as opposed to the length of time cycling it (4/5 hours)thus minimizing the whole cycling experience.
• You get into your own car.
• You drive back to pick your waiting bicycle parked at the pub only to remember you cannot drink and drive 
• You settle for a cup of tea instead.

Confused?

I don’t blame you. I’m confused myself, and disgruntled too.

But here comes Penny.

Penny is neither disgruntled nor muddled. She is organized and jolly and knows exactly what she is doing

You see Penny is a teacher and after years of organizing unruly children, nothing confuses her.

Not least which car goes where with who or what on-board.

Before I know it, she has cheerfully squeezed her white bike in on top of my yellow one and off we go to the starting point of the Greenway at Achill Sound.

An addendum: As more greenways are created (there are a good few in the pipeline) they will hopefully link up and then we wont have to do the two car thingy anymore.

(The white bicycle and the yellow bicycle enjoying a break on the Achill to westport Greenway)

Friendship and Introducing those goats!

Before I go any further I would like tell you about my good friend Penny so you will understand why she is one of the few people I cycle with.

(Anyone who has no interest in goats may wish to leave now)

Penny and I met over the back of a goat.

Literally! A questionable British Saanen to be exact and about thirty two years ago.

Back then I was mad for a pair of milking goats. I dreamt of rearing my children on goats milk for and making cheese.

Over that summer I read up on goats avidly and studied the pros and cons of the different breeds.

My favorite were the Toggenburgs.

The Anglo Nubians, with their long noses and floppy ears came a close second.

But, having read about the ability of the former to escape and the delicate nature of the latter, I settled more sensibly on the docile Saanen.

I read up on what to look for. I studied photos of the supreme champions.

I noted the sleek coat, the gentle slope from hip to tail, the back legs set apart allowing for good udder capacity.

It seemed I would have to travel far, possibly as far as Northern Ireland, to obtain such creatures.

Then one day in early autumn my sister rang me in excitement. A couple she knew had just the pair and they were willing to part with them FOR FREE.

Was I interested?

Warning bells should have rung.

Instead I said that I would come and view them.

But before I had time to put on my coat, a battered estate car pulled up in my driveway (it must have been literally waiting around the corner)and the driver leapt from it and opened the boot.

Two goats jumped out, shot off into the orchard and with the agility of a pair of chimpanzees, scaled the nearest apple trees and began nibbling the branches and eating whatever apples remained unpicked.

Politeness prevailed. There was a human to be seen to first, and I turned to the owner of these tree climbing beasts.

But no! he wouldn’t stay for a cup of tea thank you all the same… he had a lot of things to attend to…he was in an awful hurry!! (The marks his tyres left on my driveway attested to this).

To cut a long story short, when I finally managed to coax the goats down from the tree with a bucket of beet pulp and get near enough to them to examine them and ensure they were indeed goats (and not some variety of four legged monkey)I was left in no doubt of their questionable pedigree.

Disappointingly there was no similarity to those I had seen in my book. No sleek coat or the gentle tapering from hip to tail, nor could I catch sight, due to the length of their rough coats, of an udder, smooth or otherwise.

After finally enticing them further into their shed with the intention of bundling them into the boot of my own car and returning them, they looked at me with such love in their eyes (Its amazing the effect a bucket of beet-pulp can have) I gave in (I didn’t even know where this ‘friend’ lived).

The wonderful thing about animals is if you are kind to them they will love you and won’t give a fig for your obvious disappointment in them.

But just feeding my goats well will not make them pregnant and if I wanted to have kids (and therefore milk) in the spring I needed to work fast.

And that is how I met my now good friend Penny, the owner of a handsome Saanen pedigree buck.

I was first drawn to her kindness and inevitable friendship (We discovered more than just goats in common)by the fact that she didn’t laugh at my unkempt ladies (honestly all the brushing in the world did nothing to improve those rough long coats)but allowed a romance between them and himself to take place.

Then as if by magic in the late bloom of their ensuing pregnancy, the pair lost their rough coats and indeed began to look something like the goats I had dreamed of owning.

And though my ‘goat days’ are long gone, our friendship remains and she is there when I need a bicycling companion who is willing to put up with my cycling idiosyncrasies and keep me on the straight and narrow. 

(The start of my herd)

And now, due to those meandering goats, I have reached a word count of One thousand five hundred and ninty something and have probably lost most of my readers after eight hundred! So I will draw a halt to my ramblings as I have other things to do on this spring Sunday (cycling my bike for example).

Coming soon: When Penny and I actually cycle the Greenway and I promise to not to step off the beaten track …..

  

The year of the cockerel

Tags

battles, bicycle, briars, cockerel, cottage, goats, morris minor, painting, pine trees, west of Ireland, writing

Me, before ‘The year of the cockerel’ when I looked neat and tidy and also kept a tidy rick of turf.

During the years I lived in the west of Ireland many animals came my way.

Hen’s, goats, horses, ponies and dogs and I learnt something from them all.

Most lived out their natural life with me, but a few didn’t.

One such a beast was a large and colorful cockerel of brilliant hue and savage temperament.

He first arrived in the innocent guise of a helpless fluffy chick and thus fooled me completely.

Being the only male in a clutch of females, his mother spoiled him and though this saved him in his youth (the fox that got his mother and the rest of his siblings probably didn’t dare tackle him) it was the undoing of him later.

Initially he grew up like any unruly teenager but I should’ve guessed by his arrogant gait and half strangled sounding crow as he strutted around the front garden that he spelt trouble.

Unfortunately I didn’t recognise the signs.

The cottage I was living in at the time,  was up a long narrow lane well away from the village. It was the typical three roomed cottage of the area though it had an add on bathroom and kitchen out the back.

The original thatch was long gone and a corrugated roof stood in its place.

At the front, a small lawn, dotted here and there with apple trees, (the very ones the goats in my previous tale attempted to climb) lay and beyond that a stand of conifers whose purpose was to act as a shelter belt.

It was on the top of the tallest of these trees that ‘the bucko’ would roost, crowing at an unearthly hour and viewing his domain with a mean eye.

To the right of the cottage was an open turf shed in which lay a heap of neatly stacked turf (my work) and an untidy pile of wood, some already chopped for kindling, some still awaiting the blow of the large axe which stood at the ready embedded in a block of timber.

A clothesline, strung from one end of the shed to the other, was handy for hanging washing on on rainy days.

Back towards the lane, another strip of grass with a second washing line, strung between two tall scots pines, ran. These tree’s with their tall red colored trunks were quite ancient and stately and I had placed a chair under one of them making it my favorite place to sit.

For the first while, I lived a peaceful existence there. The only sounds were the odd maaaa of the goats, the bird song, the wind in the tree’s and the early morning call of the cockerel whose crow, I noted, grew louder and more raucous as he grew larger.

Being new to the area and not knowing many people other than my sister, who lived a couple of miles away, I had few visitors and I spent my days happily reading, painting, writing, working to clear the garden and gathering herbage for the goats.

It was a halcion life.

But not for long.

One fine sunny day while stretching up to peg washing on the line, I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye.

It was probably my new ‘peripheral vision and extra sensitivity to sudden movement technique’ I had learned from keeping goats, that saved me and I ducked just as the cockerel launched himself, spurs extended, at my head.

As I did, I picked up the long stick that acted as the line prop and gave him an almighty thwack before abandoning my washing and running for the house.

I heard him gather himself with a flurry of ruffled feathers as he prepared for a second attack but I had made it through the door just in time.

Looking back I felt that if I had stood my ground at that first attack he would have learnt who was the boss and we could have continued to live together in harmony.

But instead I caught my breath and looked out the window to see him disdainfully picking up my underwear in his beak, tossing it into the air and trampling it in the grass.

Then he strutted away fluffing and shaking out his colorful feathers before flying back up into the conifers.

It was obviously his way of declaring war and I had already lost the first battle.

From that moment on whenever I went outside, I carried a broom to defend myself.

And while his method was to lie low and wait until my guard was down before attacking, mine was purely of defence.

As the days passed every tree and shrub became an object of potential danger. (I never knew what he would be hiding behind) my beautiful scots pine was no longer a place to sit and relax under.

My once favorite chair now lay desolate on its side (the result of a particularly fierce battle one afternoon) the grass growing up through its arms.

I even kept my bicycle inside as it became one of his choice places to launch an attack from.

He had cleverly recognised its strategic importance. After all without my bicycle I couldn’t cycle for more rations to keep my strength up.

I still worked in the garden though as I always had a tool at hand.

The sight of a hoe or rake or spade, prevented him from trying anything. Instead he would just perch on the gate, glaring at me, every now and then emitting an ear piercing crow which, like the baying of the hounds of the baskervilles, instilled cold fear into my soul and sent shivers down my spine.

My garden began to suffer.  Vegetables planted with stressed quaking hands do not flourish well.

By now I was rapidly losing ground. (His domain from apple tree outward was expanding whilst mine was ever retreating towards the house.)

He began playing with me mentally. There would be a day or two of no attacks, of no crowing from the height of the conifer as though a ceasefire had been declared  but as I was always on edge during these silences, his ominous non appearance was psychologically worse than his attacks

Sometimes he chose to do battle in the open.

Like a duel, with pistols at dawn, we would face each other. He armed with his beak and spurs , me with my broom.

With glorious rainbow colored hackles raised and one wing spread wide, he would advance in a sideward movement, the spread wing sweeping the ground, dragging pieces of gravel with it, making a rattling machine gun like sound, while his small, mean, calculating eye remained fixed on mine.

And I would stand, holding the handle of the broom firmly in both hands, taking the the stance of a samurai warrior and we would glare at each other for some time, neither of us breaking eye contact as the minutes ticking by.

Other times he circled, forcing me to spin around which made so dizzy that when he did attack I could only flail my implement in windmill fashion giving the appearance of one being attacked by a swarm of bees.

When the battle was starting into its third week my sister came to call.

Pulling up at the door, she preceded to hop out of her little brown morris minor.

‘Watch out!’ I shouted. But too late!

Himself had been lying in wait.

‘What the?…’  my sister shouted as he launched himself at her over the open car door.

I pulled her inside to safety just in time.

As we clutched each other catching our breaths she looked at me in horror.

‘What ever happened to YOU? you look a fright!’

I glanced at myself in the mirror behind her.

My cheeks were streaked with grime, my eyes red and wild, my hair looked as though I had been scrambling through a briar patch (I probably had).

Sitting her down with a cup of tea I told her my story.

‘What ridiculous nonsense!’ she said as I finished my tale.

‘Imprisoned in your own home by a BIRD! I was wondering why I hadn’t seen you for so long. You haven’t cycled over for two weeks. I was getting worried.’

Two weeks! I couldn’t believe it. My days and nights had blended into one long nightmare. I had no idea of the passing of time.

I hung my head in shame admitting that it was indeed ridiculous but she was no longer listening to me.

Instead she leapt up off her chair, marched out the door and headed confidently towards the turf shed.

There, she kicked aside a few clods of turf (my turf rick was no longer tidy as I often had to use the sods as hand ammunition) and pulling the axe out of its timber block, swung it over her head in one hand as she approached the cockerel, who was now lurking in an not so brazen manner behind the scots pine.

I watched the evolving scene through the window, heart in mouth, fearing for her safety. But I needn’t have worried! He, sensing that he had met his match, took flight and half running, half flying, cleared the barbwire fence and took off across the fields, my sister after him.

And that was last I ever saw of him.

But the picture of their silhouettes against the evening sky, disappearing over the brow of the far off hill, himself with his neck stretched, wings flapping madly, my sister with the axe aloft, gaining ground, will be forever imprinted on my mind.

The end

‘The Bucko’ in his heyday.

 

 

 

Seeing the ditch through the eyes of a rabbit.

Tags

apple trees, ash, british saanens, couch grass, cycling, ditches, goats, rabbits, toggenburgs, vetch, willow

 

Rosibelle Moonshine in her heyday (now sadly pushing up daisies).

It started it out with a goat.

Or two.

I hadn’t fully made my mind up, hadn’t said a final yes.

In fact I distinctly remember my words being ‘let me think about it’.

But the owners of the goats, one long haired and shaggy, the other missing half a horn (the goats that is, not the humans) were obviously desperate to get rid of them as they appeared later that day with the pair in the boot of their station wagon.

Knowing that they had driven quite a distance and that one of the couple, being french, may not have have understood me correctly, I felt I couldn’t at this stage say no, so instead I stood there dumbly with a fixed smile as they swung open the door of the boot and set the occupants free.

Non! They wouldn’t stay for tea. (They had some urgent business to attend to). Mais non! they wouldn’t take any payment! absolutment! wouldn’t hear of it! and they really had to be off.

So I remained stuck to the ground choking and spluttering as the wheels of their rusty vehicle churned up the dust on the laneway and they shot around the corner with the skill of a boy racer, the back door still swinging open. I heard the car stop in the distance and the slam of the door. (I also thought I heard some wild laughter but that may have been the wind whistling through the conifers).

Meanwhile the pair wasted no time in attempting to scale a nearby apple tree stretching their scrawny hairy necks and nibbling at the fruit buds.

Later I became very familiar with the extent of their climbing abilities but now, grabbing the collar of the less nimble, I noted with disappointment that they in no way resembled the sleek Saanens and Toggenburgs with large udders and gentle slope from hip bone to tail that promised good milkers (as shown in my goat husbandry book).

My new acquisitions had kidded a few weeks before but with all that hair I couldn’t even catch a glimpse of udder, large or small.

However all was not total despair and by the time spring had headed into summer and I had fed them well and brushed them daily, they had lost their rough scraggy hair to reveal a smooth summer undercoat and indeed began to look more like the beasts I had drooled over in my book. They even managed to give enough milk for the household, including the makings of soft cheese and yogurt.

I began to form a positive relationship with them.

They also formed a firm attachment to me and would come when called and I could let them into the lane to graze the briars knowing that they wouldn’t wander too far without me.  The downside to this however was whenever they spotted me cycling to the shops they would give chase and no amount of shouting and waving of arms and, I am ashamed to admit, even the throwing of the odd stick at them, would make them change their minds.

The gate at the end of our lane was no deterrent, they just scrambled up the bank and cleared it and the only hope I had of arriving in the village without looking like a modern day version of Heidi was to pray that the willow tree enroute, whose bark they could never resist, would keep them distracted until I was out of sight.

The following year I decided to get the one who most resembling a pedigree in kid.

Felix moonshine performed the honourable task.

A beautiful specimen of what a pedigree british saanen should look like, my only concern was that his feet were muddy (By this time I had built my ladies a shed and on rainy days I kept them inside on a bed of clean straw, whereas Felix was an outside kind of goat )

Two things happened because of this. Firstly I formed a wonderful friendship with the owners of felix which is still going strong  a quarter of a century later and secondly as I cycled the laneways on those wet days collecting foodstuffs for the pair I began to see what grows in ditches through the eyes of a goat.

I have read that goats can only see yellow, orange, blue, violet and green. They cannot see black and white so when down on my hands and knees pulling dandelion leaves and bunches of succulent vetch or reaching up to cut saplings of willows, rowan wild crab apple and ash or yanking couch grass and unravelling it though patches of thorny briars (a most accomplished and satisfying task) I began to lose touch with the human world and its black and whiteness.

And as I cycled further into the countryside and the noise of traffic dwindled, I got the chance of sinking deliciously into the animal world of the textures, colors, scents and sounds.

I have also heard that goats are extremely sensitive to movement and I began to note every beetle, tiny spider, and insect threading its way in this verdant world and tried not to gather them up as I went about my business of keeping my ladies producing the sweetest and most nutritious of milk.

My journey to shops took longer and became weightier not because I was impeded by two loyal goats, (now that I had a goat shed I could put them in before I set off) but because I got distracted by the growings of the wayside.

‘Ginny would love that’ hopping off my bicycle at the sight of some crunchy wild borage and stuffing a bunch of it into my saddle bag.

‘Daffodil daisy would relish those’ I’d sigh with pleasure getting out my secateurs (never go anywhere without a good pair) and snipping off some willow branches and tying them to my back carrier.

I became a goat human so much so that my goat friends gave me a present of beautiful REAL pedigree Saanen female kid.

Rosibelle Moonshine became one of my herd and in the years that followed showed my pair a thing or two in the art of kidding and milk production.

And the pair recognising royalty when they saw it showed no signs of jealousy at this interloper who went on to win champion goat of the show and produce further REAL pedigree british saanen kids for my expanding herd.

Years passed, life changes when you are busy rooting in ditches.

My goats are well pushing up their own daisies by now, but recently my daughter got two lop earred rabbits.

So I am off on this soft spring morning scouring the lanes of wicklow for succulent dandelion leaves.

Yes I have begun to look at ditches through the eye’s of a rabbit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nine bean row’s etc……

Tags

cottage, dreams, goats, hens, hives, nine bean rows, poetry, seasons, Yeats

I like the pitch of your green corrugated roof.

Your pink painted doors catch my eye.

You would suit me fine (if I could break out a window here or there),

let some light in, on my writing table.

Hens out front I think.

Barnevelders (double laced) welsummers or Faverolles,

good layers.

calm and heavy,

no escape artists please.

(Those polish bantams are the limit)

I’ll be too busy writing to chase you lot down some boithrin.

Yeat’s nine bean rows I’ll have here,

and a hive for that bee.

Two apple tree’s, one pear,

A cherry too?

maybe.

A single row of spuds?

definitely.

(more if my back is able).

and speaking of backs, behind the house theres a fine space

for a milking goat.

Winter!

I would lay the fire from broken branches,

and maybe a sod or two of turf.

(Once when camping in a wild place someone left me a bag of the stuff,

I suspect the bachelor farmer who lived up the boreen)

Spring!

The smell of apple blossom will make me lift my head and drop my pencil,

draw me outside.

to gather warm eggs.

Summer!

I’d work ‘en plein air’,

pick beans,

(dinner would consist of beans, potato and an egg)

And ‘warm goats milk’ I hear you enquire?

Nope I’ll settle for wine.

and after, swim drunkenly in the nearby lake.

Autumn!

Honey would furnish my bread.

With fresh goats cheese

And the last of the beans, a nourishing stew.

Winter!

What made you come around again so soon.

I thought you were a sheep (and other wishful thinking)

Tags

bee's, bicycles, boxty., cottage, goats, hens

I wish I had a small white house

With a willow tree down by a stream,

Where I Could stoop among moss covered rocks

And scoop my hands and dip them in.

~

I wish I had a small square field,

Behind the house, beyond the stream,

A milking goat, a flock of hens.

a hawthorn hedge to keep them in.

~

I wish I had a small garden,

In front of the house, beside the lane.

Peas and beans and hollyhocks

and sweet roses climbing.

~

I wish there was a small boreen,

With a worn down path of speckled sand

Leading to the waters edge,

coloured shell on the empty strand.

~

I wish I wish I wish in vain

But still no sign, no inkling

of house or field or goat or hen

And how the time is passing.

(a worn down path of speckled sand)

James sits on his hospital bed, legs crossed, belying his ninety years, hands resting on his wrinkled knees, breathing slowly in and out.

He is meditating.

He believes that meditation and positive thinking are the answers to life’s struggles and he is proof of it.

He is in hospital for a hernia repair after attempting to lift his dog into its basket on the back of his bicycle

‘She was too old to make the leap’ He explains.

He is full of stories and his faded blue eye’s light up whenever I have time to settle myself the end of his bed for a chat.

It was during one of these chats that I confided in him my dream of owning a small white cottage in the west.

‘Well that’s not a problem’ He threw back his head and laughed, showing a full set of slightly battered and blunted teeth ‘all you have to do is to hold out your hands and wish for it and it will come to you’.

Coming from a professor of physics, I thought at first he was teasing me. but he shook his head and held his hand to his heart and assured me that many good things had come to his life by this means.

I took his advice and wished and wished and held out my hands till they nearly fell off.

But that small white cottage with its willow tree and stream and its sandy lane running down to the sea eluded me and James went home a few days later to his wife and his dog, mended and well and still able to sit with his legs crossed in the full lotus.

Things were not so fortunate for another James I once knew and whom I also confided in about my small house.

The only degree he had was of the country lanes and hills and the care of sheep and cows and the cutting of turf.

All of which he was a master at.

At ninety he began to have some falls, his muscles and his brain sometimes not listening to each other,

His first fall was into the ditch he tried to jump across when chasing a rebellious sheep.

He lay there stunned throughout the night, Beauty his old sheepdog curled up beside him, keeping him warm.

His second fall was climbing over the gate to check the cattle. Again he lay for a few hours , the cattle coming over to nose him while Beauty grew exhausted trying to hunt them away until finally he managed to scramble to his feet.

But the third fall was more serious.

He was cycling to the well on his old black raleigh with his a metal bucket hanging on the handlebar when Beauty ran in front of him and over he went went.

He sustained a deep gash across his forehead (which he later informed the doctor, he could have stitched himself).

The clatter of his metal bucket brought a neighbour running out of her house,  a neighbour who had a phone as well as running water and electricity and who called an ambulance.

The ambulance men had great difficulty getting to James.

First of all they couldn’t find the lane. Then they had trouble reversing down it and finally they had difficulty dealing with a very cross Beauty who did her best to keep them away from her Master.

But it was in the hospital that real misfortune fell on him.

After innocently telling of his previous falls, the social workers decided he was at too much risk living alone in his small white house with no running water, telephone or electricity and that he would benefit from a longer hospital stay.

At first he found it pleasant. The warm bed with clean sheets. Taps with running water and regular meals served to him.

He grew fatter but he missed the freedom. The fresh air. The sea. His animals and especially his old dog Beauty.

Don’t worry the kindly nurses told him. Your nephews are taking care of everything!

Nephews? He had forgotten he had nephews, in fact he realised since his last fall had forgotten a lot of things.

One thing he had not forgotten though was his small white house.

He wanted to go home to it.

But they shook their heads.  ‘Who will look take care of you’? they asked.

Everyday he got dressed and put on his coat and hat and wellingtons and sat at the main door hoping someone would come and take him home. But no one did.

He became more and more confused,

Then one day I was walking up the corridor in my white uniform and he jumped out from behind a door and tried to shoo me into a corner.

‘James’ I said holding out my hands to him .’ Its alright! its only me!’

He stared at me for a long moment, then laughed embarrassedly ‘I’m sorry!’ he said ‘I thought you were a sheep’

His brain scan at this stage showed signs of significant deterioration. He became even more confused.

I sat with him and we reminisced about country life. He would look out the window longingly, his chances of going home fading.

To distract him I told him about my dream of a country cottage.

I knew he would understand my vision.

And he did.

Together we discussed the layout of the garden.

Would there be enough sun to the side of the house? Wouldn’t the garden be better to the front where it would be easy to hop out through the door if you forgot to pull an onion for the stew.

We discussed the stream and where it would come from, and the softness of the moss covered rocks where you would kneel and dip your bucket in and sure if you had a stream there was the possibility of keeping a few ducks and his eyes gleamed as he spoke about the most delicious sponge cakes made from duck eggs and I asked him if he had ever made a cake and he explained in detail how he often made one in the pot over the fire and how he would put hot sods of turf on the lid to complete the cooking of it.

He then went on to talk about the other things he made. Boxty* for example .

With his gnarled hands he demonstrated how you would take an old tin and with a hammer and nail punch hole all around the tin to make your grater.

‘What would you do if you couldn’t make a grater?’ I asked. He thought for a minute then smiled ‘ you’d have to eat the spuds plain’

We turned then to the willow tree.

James was less romantic than I and pointed out that a willow tree wouldn’t grow so well that near the sea, could it be a hawthorn tree instead or if not, could the house be a mile or so away from the sea and I explained how I really wanted the house to be beside the sea. I wanted to catch a glimpse of blue water, I wanted to go swimming and James confided in me that he went swimming when the day was warm, well more like paddling as he couldn’t swim and I promised I would teach him when he was home and he looked me in the eye and I had to lower mine as we both knew that wasn’t going to happen.

We eventually agreed to a willow tree that was windswept by the prevailing winds.

The hens came next.

Not bantams! James insisted. Bantams hid their eggs and spent too much time clocking. An old fashioned breed of quiet hen would be best. Maybe one of them Dutch barnevelders or some Sussex whites and watch that fox.

Then the milking goat.

James favoured a small jersey cow instead of a goat.

A goat, he said, Would be hard to contain and after chewing its way through the hawthorn hedge it would surely make a beeline for my rows of peas and beans and even my climbing rose. and would I consider a hive of bees. He knew someone who kept them and it wasn’t that difficult to move a hive. You just had to wait for a cloudy day and sure wouldn’t there be enough of those in the west and then you had to move the hive more than three miles or the bees would find their way home and it was a good idea to block the entrance for two days and that some would say if you spun the hive around a few times it would confuse the bee’s and that his friend could transport them in a wheelbarrow as he had done that before successfully.

When he paused for a breath I reminded him of the goat.

He became very animated, The  wretched goat! it would certainly eat the bark off the willow and sure didn’t the poor tree have enough to contend with that vicious north west wind that could whip the sea into white horses and I said how I loved to stand on a rock on such a day and feel the wind whipping my hair wildly and he said the only place on a day like that was at the warmth of a fire in the pub with a pint of stout.

‘But you could you could tether the goat’  he said and I explained that I wanted to see it free and he looked sadly out the window and said that freedom from constraint was the most important thing and there was no harm in dreaming either for didn’t it make you forget your woes.

James died not long after that day and needless to say I never got my cottage by the sea with its willow tree leaning into the stream bent by the prevailing wind.

But I have my freedom from constraint and I continue to dream.

I’m writing this in my daughters house where I am ‘house sitting’.

For ten days I have a white house in the country.

My yellow bicycle leans against its wall.

There is no willow tree but the copper beech is stunning and here and there small flowers are appearing.

There is no stream either but I found some frogs in the cool grasses so there must be water nearby.

My daughter and her Husband talk of keeping some hens and who knows maybe I can talk them into getting a beehive too. I think I’ll leave out the mention of a goat.

These are not the real names of the character’s but other than that this story is mainly true,

*Boxty is a traditional potato bread made from grated raw potatoes mixed with flour and fried on the griddle pan.In the old days a farmers wife might not own such a sophisticated implement as a grater and her husband would make her one from an old tin can by punching holes in the metal with a hammer and a nail.