Carry on grazing

I do like old plates. But I do think they look better with a couple of hobnobs on. Or perhaps a piece of freshly made flapjack. Or some chocolate fridge cake.... Ok, I'm stalling for time here. Apparently I'm scaremongering about the houses - it's only a consultation document. But isn't that how things start out? Anyway, all the information is in the public domain, so I'll leave you to make up your own minds. Find it on http://www.wiltshire.gov/wiltshire2026 or pop along to the exhibition at The Activity Zone in Malmesbury. OK, I'll shut about houses now. The sheep can carry on grazing.

* * *

Down in the relative safety of the allotments, things are burgeoning - at least they are on my plot, despite my stalwartly No Dig approach. Some strawberry plants have appeared (thank you, Henry) and a lovely blackcurrant bush (thank you, Philip). I must say, I wasn't too sure about this no-dig business, but it certainly seems to be working for me.

"You need a mound for the strawberries," John points out helpfully.

"And you'll need to dig a trench if you want some raspberry canes," suggests Philip.

I busily dig my trench and construct my mound, carefully planting each strawberry plant along the ridge of the summit. Then I pop back home to fetch some vegetable peelings from the compost pot to line the trench, and I'm feeling quite pleased with myself until John points out that my mound and my trench are too close to each other and I won't be able to pick my raspberries without standing on my strawberries.

"I could always pick them from the other side," I point out. But John's expression tells me this isn't the Proper Way, and besides, it would probably entail treading on the other John's carrots. So I spend another hour carefully un-planting my strawberries and painstakinly moving my mound six inches to the West. Much to the amusement of the other gardeners.

* * *

Elsewhere, life carries on pretty much as always. Arthur seems to be making an amazing recovery from his car accident last month and is already home from hospital and getting about the house. The Little Somerford tree is up and draped with sparkly lights and everybody seems to be getting ready for Christmas. Everybody except me, that is. Better start mixing that Christmas cake. Might just treat myself to a couple of hobnobs first...

Where sheep may safely graze?

But not for long if our local council has anything to do with it, it seems. This is one of the sites earmarked for 40 of the 116 new houses that appear to be planned for Great Somerford as part of Wiltshire's ambitious 2026 development strategy for delivering the 44,400 new homes John Prescott in his wisdom has decided we need. That's quite a lot of houses squished together onto a site this size.

Where all these people are going to work, park their cars, do their shopping and spend their leisure time, John doesn't appear to have mentioned. 116 houses will mean at least 230 more cars - the roads are only wide enough for a single line of cars and I can't see any mention of any extra bus services or plans to reopen the railway line that was sold off years ago. Villages don't need more commuters, they need people who are going to live there and make a contribution to the community. I've been sniffing around, as dogs do, but oddly enough, no one seems to know anything about the village's development plans.

Strange.

Now, I'm all for a certain amount of carefully planned expansion to keep the community vibrant, keep the school and shop going, bring people into the local pub. But 116 extra houses? Better get stacking those shelves, Debbie.

Find out more on Wiltshire Council's website or go straight to the map (you have to scroll down a bit and zoom in on Great Somerford) to see where else the affordable homes the council seems to think we're so keen to have might be popping up.

Calm after the storm

It's a beautiful Autumn morning in Great Somerford, and what's left of the coppery golden leaves hang from the trees like cascades of brightly polished pennies. A sharp contrast to the last few days of high winds and lashing rain. The river is right up to the banks – in places it's lapping right over – and just yesterday, I heard a dog had to be rescued by his owner after finding himself in a rapid current, unable to make his own way back to the shore.

Radio Wiltshire somehow picked up on Adam's Bank Aid escapde and asked him to come over to the studio for a drive-time interview. Sadly, Adam's car had other ideas and was last seen with a plume of smoke coming out of the engine somewhere along the hard shoulder of the M4. At least I'm assuming it was the engine and not Adam's ears. Understandably, he was not best pleased. Mike somehow managed to get to the studio, though, and was great (although I can't say the same for the snatch of music they played) - I have an MP3 of the interview if anyone missed it and would like a listen.

Those people who managed to brave the weather to Katie Mayhew's fundraising coffee morning for the Sondeza Youth Camp were not disappointed. Not only were there a fabulous selection of cakes to be drooled over (I wish I hadn't had so much breakfast) but it was also an opportunity to see some of Katie's breathtaking photographs featuring images from Botswana, Northumberland, Lacock and her own back garden. Believe me, watch this space. That girl has serious talent.

There was also a Jazz and Poetry evening at Startley Village Hall last night featuring my dear friend T and several other poets from the Somerford Scribes. Unfortunately, I was unable to go – I was sorry to have missed it; it promised to be a great evening.

* * *

I know I've expressed some views that not everyone agrees with, but honestly they were sincerely held, not personal in any way, shape or form and I really had the best of intentions at heart. They say you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs... Trouble is, I'm not altogether sure I actually like omelettes all that much...

Although it's been nice today, I understand the storms are coming back next week. We're not out of the woods yet...

Bank Aid. In which I appear to be chanelling Adam. Scary...

Well we're nothing if not topical in Frog Lane. So with the breaking news that RBS has just reported record losses at a cost of an average of £30 to each taxpayer last month, local philanthropist Adam Lloyd (aka The Twisted Omentum) decided he had to do something. So he invited a few celebrity friends round to his Frog Lane studio one evening with the promise of a free drink... (And we all know there's no such thing as a free drink...)



Could this be the next Christmas No 1? Possibly in Great Somerford. But only if The Fruitbats don't realease something first...

Ain't no stopping us now - Adam's already talking about scratch super-band(Keb)Abba recording a Wiltshire version of Portaloo. (Well, Sweden, Swindon - it's only a difference of a couple of letters...)

Owl post

“What you need there is an owl box,” suggests Gerald, looking at our poor paint-peeling excuse for a garage door. He’s right – up by the roof pitch just under the bit where the ivy hasn’t quite reached there’s a space that’s just the right size for small-ish owl.

What Gerald didn’t know at that point is that we actually have an owl. I heard him to-whit to-woohing in the small hours the other night when I couldn’t get to sleep. (I know it’s a him, because he just does the “to-whooh” bit. The object of his to-woohing, however, seems to elude him, since there is no hint of an answering to-whit. Perhaps if he had a des res, perfectly placed in the pitch of our garage roof, he might find himself more popular with owls of the opposite persuasion, gender-wise).

I saw him, too. The other night when Paul rang me to say his bike had broken down and would I drive over to Chippenham to pick him up, he flew out of the hedgerow just in front of the car and I found myself following him for a few yards. It was one of those perfect moments just as dusk was settling in for the night, in the silent hour when everything on the radio is rubbish (it’s either a totally unfunny Radio 4 “comedy” show, The Archers or some football phone-in programme featuring a lot of northern men who clearly should have all been football club managers, but for the fact that they woz robbed) so for once in the car, it’s silent. A milky white form, silent wings carving the still night air, claws poised, eyes peeled...

I must find out what you need to do to make an owl box.

* * *

I haven’t posted for a while because – as well as being away for a few days (Belgium. On Eurostar. Very nice, thank you, although not nearly enough chips or chocolate for my taste) – I’ve been suffering from writers’ block. Which is rather inconvenient when you’re a writer.

Although I can’t say I’ve actually found my mojo yet, I think I know where it is. I’ve just got find a good time to pull out the sofa and have a proper rummage under all the cushions…

The plot thickens...

It’s perfect autumn weather here – cold, misty mornings gently giving way to clear blue skies and strong, low rays of golden sunshine that warm the soul. And as the afternoon sun spreads out across the landscape like clear Little Somerford honey on a thickly buttered English muffin I’m beginning to regret insisting Alex wore a vest for school this morning – he’ll be baking.

I’ve finally managed to get down to the allotment for a spot of digging. The digging John D kindly offered to do seems to have consisted of rolling up the damp bits of carpet that have been covering up the plot for several months, then sitting on a bench, taking a large handkerchief out of his pocket to dab his forehead and say, “By gum it’s ‘ot!”

But that’s fine. Digging is good for the soul, and in a Spartan sort of way I think that many of the world’s problems would be solved if we all started doing a bit more of our own digging. Metaphorically speaking, I mean. Every time I put my wellies on over the last few days it's started to rain, but I can now see the value of rain, and the time all that water has had to soak into the unyeilding, sandy loam breaking it down into soft, crumbly chunks. I think I’m finally starting to become a gardener.

I hadn’t realized, though, how political life on the allotment is. They all seem so nice and smiley down in the pub, but out on the allotments of an October afternoon it’s a different matter. I’m between Dick and John D – two of the most experienced allotmenteers on the plot. Dick is huffing and puffing about a large pile of damp weeds that have suddenly appeared on his bonfire. It suddenly occurs to me that they’re probably my weeds, which John D has put there because he doesn’t hold with having bonfires on his part of the allotment. I think my best bet is probably to keep quiet.

Henry strolls by and offers me some beetroot. He asks me how I’m getting on.

“Well, it’s quite hard work,” I tell him. He looks up at the tall hedge of ash trees which plunge nearly half my plot into deep shade.

“John told me it would be nice to have a bit of shade in the summer, “ I explained. “He said the other part of the allotment gets really parched when it’s hot.”

“Oh, he did, did he?” says Henry. Not looking entirely convinced.

Phillip comes over to join the conversation and tells me the trouble he’s having getting anything to grow under the shade of the ash trees and points out a mole hole and a little pile of slugs eggs I’ve missed.

“Oh, well,” I say. “I can ask the Parish Council to get them pollarded at the next meeting.”

I have a feeling this is all going to be a bit more involved than I’d imagined.

Sales shopping

It’s been a busy weekend here in Great Somerford. I counted seventeen horseboxes on my walk down to the shop this morning – there may have been more, but Brown Dog was distracted by one that seemed to be whinnying rather loudly, and I found myself wondering what villagers of past centuries might have made of horses being shipped around the village in motorised metal boxes on wheels. Of course they were all bound for the Dauntsey Park Horse Trials, which are held here, at Brook Farm, and down the road in Dauntsey.

In addition to all the horse boxes, the roads were also lined with tractors and pick-ups with trailers bound for one of Graham Singer’s famous sales in the show field at Great Somerford. And as if that wasn’t enough, someone had decided this would be a good weekend to cut the maize. Heaven help anyone who might be trying to get anywhere in a hurry.

Graham Singer’s sales are fantastic – but be prepared for disappointment if you were hoping for a pair of killer heels or this season’s latest handbag. Whenever I see the sign go up, or hear the familiar trundle of ancient tractors and clanking trailers trundling down the road, I perk up and find some excuse to go down there and have a quick shufti.

There are tractors, trailers, mowers, sprayers, discers, spreaders, mixers, feeders… Contraptions for weighing pigs, charming little henhouses, horseboxes, toolboxes full of tools, rusty old milk churns, bits of cattle grid, wheelbarrows, girt big stone water troughs that could only have got there by magic or the brute force of about 30 neanderthal henge-builders; an ancient plough, a once-loved painted pony trap (without the pony)… There are several things that look like – well, I can’t seem to work out exactly what they look like…








“What do you suppose that could be?” I ask Julian, who seems to be examining something that looks worrying like some kind of medieval instrument of torture. Julian looks as stumped as I am, but just then a burly looking farmer who looks as though he might know comes striding over.
“Is there a catalogue?” I enquire, trying to look as though I could well be in the market for a 1950s tractor or a few lengths of fencing.
“Catalogue?” he asks, looking slightly perplexed.
“Yes,” I’m trying to sound like a serious salegoer. Someone who knows the difference between one end of a combine harvester and the other. Which I don’t.
“We were wondering what this – er – thing was…”
Julian looks at me as though I’m trying to rope him into some kind of transaction he had no intention of getting involved with.


The farmer sucked his teeth for a minute or two.
“If you don’t know what it is, chances are you don’t need it.”

I suppose he had a point.


Other little bits of local news

 I popped over to see Jane and Guy the other week in Draycott Cerne. They’re in a lovely cottage in a most picturesque spot, and I must say I can’t remember either of them looking so relaxed and happy.

 Charlotte the spider’s babies finally hatched – what looked like about 50 of them. I must say, I let Charlotte disappear beforehand. I read in Alex’s spider book that the baby spiders often eat the mother if she’s not quick enough off the mark, and poor old Charlotte only had five legs, so I didn’t altogether fancy her chances.

 John tells me they were his bees. I thought they were…