One month on ...

Yesterday I cut a narrow path through blackberries in the north eastern corner of our property, endeavouring to expose the boundary to sunlight for the first time in many a year. As I pushed deeper into a jungle which closed in on either side of me, I half expected to see a man in a pith helmet when I finally broke through so I could exclaim “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” But alas –  unlike my illustrious namesake, no such luck. On the positive side, I didn’t have Cath waiting for me to tell me to stop looking so pleased with myself and that about 2 acres of blackberries remained to be dealt with!

 In fact, Cath was up the cottage working herself into a towering rage because her power tools were proving inadequate to the task at hand. The impact driver couldn’t deal with the fact that when we first bought the place, we had shredded the head of a screw when trying to remove a relic installed by the previous owners. Moreover, her current attempts to remove both relic and screw with an angle grinder were showering sparks all over our bedroom and she needed me to act as the fire brigade backup. I am happy to report that after a full and frank exchange of views (I think that is the correct diplomatic phrase – except it was a decidedly one-sided exchange) all ended well. No relic on a wall was ever going to resist Cath in that frame of mind.

Today, which marked the end of the first month of our journey,  was a landmark day in the life of Cracroft Farm. We picked up three trees that Cath had been given for her birthday earlier in the year, namely two Japanese ornamental cherry blossom trees and a Gingko tree.  We have sited the two cherry blossom trees, but the Gingko is so large we will have to wait for the arrival of our tractor to help us move it into position. After so much destruction and tidying up it feels unbelievably good to be planting something …