Drought, rain, colours, smell

There has been the longest spell without rain I can remember. Last week, for the first time the canine walks ended with the dog's paws and my wellies as dry as they had been at the start. Dry! Having trodden on grassy soil! Inconceivable, but true.

The last three days saw the end of the good weather. This would normally bring a blanket of gloom over the landscape and over many people's mood, including mine, but this time the fields and the eyes seemed to welcome a bit of rain. There even was that smell, which doesn't grace British nostrils very often, of thirsty soil getting wet at last. I don't remember experiencing this away from Bolivia.

Early in the morning today, the sun was out in force again, and the colours had an unusual intensity. Bright, clean green on the trees and fields, glassy transparency on the river. And that smell again. They, too, reminded me of youthful days in the thin air of the Andes. I had to stand outside, experiencing the weather as an artistic happening.

Less kind readers may say that my middle-aged senses are tricking me with mirages of childhood. I contend that the weather is changing so much that some phenomena that used to occur only in southern latitudes are now taking place right here. And, alas, not in Bolivia anymore.

Take, for example, the adder.

Fuel

Today Northumberland basks in the unwonted luxury of a two-digit temperature: ten, to be exact. The thaw was slow but in the last week or so it was hastened by a another type of precipitation: rain. Wet in the morning, wet in the afternoon, wet through the night. Oh and windy too. Right now I look out of the window and it is lashing down, the trees swinging like upside-down pendulums. One wonders if this land is meant for human habitation. 

At least we now have central heating. When we placed the order for oil, in the early part of December, we were warned that the freeze and the snow would delay delivery. What the warning failed to spell out is that the delay would be over a month long. We began to stint ourselves before New Year. In January our reserves hit rock bottom, forcing us to rely on labour-intensive wood, expensive coal and extortionate electricity. The size of the next electricity bill is something best not thought about. 

It is, of course, purely coincidental that the time announced for resumption of oil deliveries  was just a little later than an expected hike in fuel prices. Back in Bolivia, people would be out on the streets over this. In urbane Britain, activism is confined to conversational demonstration and the writings of George Monbiot. It would be tempting to start a civil rights movement from this rural backwater, if I didn’t have the near-certainty that it would be a one-man battle.

Snow

Yes, as everybody knows, we are snowed in in Northumberland. It happened last winter, and at the time the local council explained away its not coping, assuring us that next time they would be better prepared for extreme weather. Well, this winter came early and is much worse than the last, but relief is less in evidence. 

The road to Bellingham has been treacherous - I skidded off it last week, and didn’t stop until a hawthorn stopped my descent, leaving my car badly scratched. It took two kindly locals to pull me out, one with with her four-by-four and the other barking out instructions with mildly suppressed impatience at my poor understanding of the  emergency motoring lexicon. That was last week.  For the last three days this road has remained innocent of grit or snowplough, leaving its users to our own devices. My own device has been to leave the scratched vehicle parked past the bridge to avoid last year’s doomed struggles on the battlefield of my drive and the communal private road. From this vantage point I was able to dig it out for a slog to Bellingham to get supplies - such as they were - three days ago. Since then my raked vehicle has stood at the bridge gathering snow, resembling more and more an overiced birthday cake. Fresh attempts to break a path out for it have been greeted with the mockery of Nature, who would proceed to cover the grooves of my shovel with plentiful new waves of snow, even as I shovelled. 

Which is why last night, when I followed the Bouvier on his final outing, I was struck by an eerie stillness where all commotion had ceased. The snow had settled, the wind had stopped, the air had a cruel clarity to it, and the sky was the starriest I remember. Each star was making a textbook display of itself, lacking only the name tags for the astral ignoramuses like me. The constellations outlined themselves with such incandescence that you could read in them any form, not just the requisite Orion with his belt, but the features of your own imagining, your own unbridled dream. You had to admit that Nature knew how to inspire as much as how to punish. At least when it chose to. And, for a moment, you had to forget all the harm, all the hassle, and be thankful for the beauty. 

Rain

In an unwelcome contrast to sunny Cochabamba, the Northumbrian heavens have been open almost all the time since my return, and without a moment’s pause in the last four days. 

The unsightly stables on the side of the house have now been dismantled, allowing an unobstructed view of the river. This in most circumstances would be a highly aesthetic experience, but in the present weather conditions it is a stark reminder of nature’s ferocity. Over twice its usual height and width, the river flows with vertiginous speed towards its confluence only a few hundred yards away. Its usual murmur is a prominent part of our quotidian soundscape, but what we now hear is something different: a roar of intimidating fierceness.   

If I hadn’t come to trust the wisdom of the ancient builders of Northumberland, and if this trust were not often reinforced by the savvy locals - “they knew how to build houses then, and where” - I would be living in fear of being swept away in my sleep, family and dog and cats included. But I have come to trust this place. The weather has changed around here thousands of times before, whipping this land without mercy, but the house has stood its ground. 

I live within yards of a river, surrounded by tall trees, flanked by a hill at touching distance, and with no neighbours to shield me from the forces of heaven. When nature chooses to unleash its power, these are its tools to wield it. They are the executors of its might. Sometimes their actions make me feel nature’s destructive breath on my face, and hear the swoosh of its claws just missing my head. But history suggests that I, my family and our surroundings will survive this test too.

Maverick alone

Bob Johnson, Delilah and Miranda before the last-named was left on her own

Miranda’s life in our midst had a difficult start. She was mistrustful of people, to the point that she would baulk at approaching humans even at feeding time. You had to drop the grain on the ground hoping that the other hens would have their fill before the last morsel had gone. Moreover, she was the victim of bullying among her three peers. María’s days were over when Miranda arrived, but the remaining two - Bob Johnson and Delilah - showed Miranda no kindness at the onset. Pecking was merciless, particularly when the unfortunate newcomer ventured near the feeder. We were worried about her prospects of survival. 

What an irony, therefore, that Miranda should now be our only surviving hen. I cannot remember the exact circumstances of the last two birds’ demise, except for the lack of evidence that the fox had played any part in it. I can vouch for the peaceful death of Bob Johnson and María since I personally gave them humane burial in our north field. More recently, Delilah was seen puffed up and not herself for weeks before her eventual disappearance. Had the fox been involved we would most likely have found a trail of feathers in the place of Delilah’s apprehension, but no feathers were seen. Only the surprising fact that, before our eyes, the hen community had been reduced to the lone presence of Miranda. 

She cuts a dignified figure going about her daily business of scraping for food around the hen court. She doesn’t venture into the fields anymore, as she once did as part of a trio. She doesn’t trespass into our garden either. But conversely she is more confident with humans now, and she doesn’t hesitate to run towards one of us when food is being proffered. And, of course, she stubbornly adheres to her unhenly habit of sleeping in her nest, rather than on the perch, a most annoying practice she introduced when she joined the group. Every night when I shut the henhouse the ritual must include opening the back door and ordering Miranda on the perch and, if she doesn’t obey, which is most times, nudging her in the right direction. 

Does she feel any sense of bereavement? Is loneliness an issue for a hen? I haven’t read enough to know if her species counts among the social animals who need companionship in order to survive. But this one is certainly surviving and, if it’s not too cruel towards the deceased to say so, she is thriving. 

Bales of hay

Bales of hay, not on my field. Below, right, The Farmer taking them away.

The inclement weather forced The Farmer to return a second time to turn the grass he had previously cut and turned once. I did not observe the work, but the result struck me as artistic. The grass, quite dry by now, lay in a dishevelled rumple and you could almost see its joy for all the air that was now able to go through it. The field was a blow-dried landscape of lovingly tousled cuttings; to stride on it was to experience a tufted softness that even Fluffy seemed aware of, as the caution of his first steps showed.

Only two days later the baler came around. Childcare duties prevented me from leaving the house to watch the process. But when I came out that night the field was transformed. Underfoot was the hard ground again, something not experienced for many months, and, at irregular intervals, there stood these monuments of compressed grass. They have the shape of squat cylinders, more or less as wide as they are high, so it is debatable whether it is right to say that they are standing when part of their curvature – rather than one of their flat ends – is touching the ground. Or should one say that they are lying on their side? Whatever the correct terminology, the hay bales were imposing. They only came to the height of my chest, but, as you knew if you tried to push one to roll it over, they were very heavy. None yielded an inch to my push.

The night was dark and, ever fond of natural light, I was not switching the torch on unless it was necessary. You could feel that you were about to hit a bale from an intensification of the darkness at a couple of feet’s distance. It may possibly have been an aural phenomenon too, the sound of your steps reflecting…no, the bales’ surface was much too rough for sound reflection. Sound absorption was more likely; a deadening of the sound of your steps forewarning you of impending contact with a bale of hay.

The following nights were not quite so dark, and you could make out the bales’ silhouettes against the background of the cloudy sky. Their random placement around the field seemed less random each night, till their positions became fixed in the mind as a purposeful configuration. Without a doubt they had presence. They looked innocent enough in daytime, but in the dark their latent power unfurled. They were the sentinels of the night.

It was sad when, a few days later, The Farmer came to take them away. It had been during their sojourn on my field that a photo camera had seemed a pressing need, but by the time I did something about it the bales were gone.

Falstone Show

Following his fall from grace at last year’s show – when I had to fumble frantically for the poo bag in front of the dog judges and circled by a mortifyingly sympathetic audience – Fluffy was not allowed back to Falstone Show this time.

Instead I took the family. There was no shortage of things for the children to eat (sausage sandwiches from Dunterley Farm), to watch (dogs, sheep, tractors, people) and to play on (bouncy castle!). And they even happened on youngsters they knew from their infuriatingly extensive social circle. The bar was not unduly undersupplied either, and it was my pleasure to see W there chatting to old farmer friends, and I hope a wordless wave from a distance was enough to signal this approval. The day did not smile on W for much longer, but that is not for me to expand on; suffice it to say his plight broke my heart.

Once more I delighted in the seriousness with which the participants take their dogs – a relatively easy thing to do now that I did not have my Bouvier nemesis with me – and the splendid coiffure displayed by the sheep, betraying long nights spent by their owners washing, combing and possibly, dare I say it, dyeing.

A surprising number of acquaintances turned out to take their photography seriously. AB, for example, had bought an impressive-looking Canon SLR which she was taking on its first outing. Some others I vaguely recognised were also sporting equipment of sufficiently professional aspect to make me envious. But I must not underestimate the humble compact Samsung I have just acquired. The dramatic beauty of where I live and the momentousness of my children’s lives at this time made me think enough is enough: to borrow a camera at every portrayable opportunity hampers spontaneity; I must have a camera again. And who knows, even this Northumbrian Diary might benefit from a little more graphic content.

Falstone Show’s Committee has a new chairman. Although the old one in his time did a splendid job too, I have to salute the impeccable choreography last Saturday. Friendly, well-trained stewards guided you with a strong hand to your parking space, even telling you what motoring manoeuvres to perform to get into it. The food and the drink stayed plentiful all the time, and the whole configuration worked like a well-oiled machine. Well done N.

Bellingham, watch yourself this Saturday.