April 2023
It’s nearly spring at last and Raining Sideways is finally back.
Nothing has changed and yet everything has changed,!
The last three years have been a long haul for us all. Something called coronavirus suddenly arrived among us and swept across the globe. Lockdown followed in March 2020. How profoundly it suddenly changed our world and our perception of it. Isolation, loneliness, fear, separation from friends, family and loved ones. Our freedom curtailed: working from home, closure of schools, universities, nurseries, theatres, cinemas, empty streets, failing businesses, fear of infection, hospitalisation, death. I could go on!
It has undoubtedly cast a lasting black shadow across so many lives, so hard to put aside however hard we strive to open up to the future now that we are told we are safe once more. But open up we must, even in these changed times.
And it’s been a long haul for me too, when Raining Sideways website suddenly crashed. Months passed as we tried to trace the technical problems that caused it to disappear. At last, finally now, thanks to the huge skill of my son in Japan, it is rebuilt at last!
Welcome to www.rainingsideways.net
After nearly twenty years, I couldn’t believe how much I missed being in touch with friends all over the world, sharing life in our gentle Devon valley!
And then a book!
Much to my delight my book was published last May:
Raining Sideways
A Devonshire Diary of Food and Farming
Forward by Josceline Dimbleby and illustrations by Paul Vincent
It is selling really well and has had wonderful reviews.
But then suddenly in December, just as I was beginning to really believe all was well again, my publisher went into receivership.
It is , however, I’m happy to say, still available in bookshops and online!
And so we must move forward, regardless, with the seasons. Winter is behind us; Easter approaches and it will soon be summer. March rain continues to fall gently and relentlessly as usual! Camellias are weighed down with blooms.
Daffodils and primroses carpet the hillside, their upturned petals drinking in the damp. Snow still falls upcountry apparently! Rivers flood. Spring is arriving, but slowly this year as wet lambs bounce over the hills.
I look back across the years to when I first started to think about writing about life on a small Devon farm. My son, Tom, sent me an email from Japan saying “Mum get techy and, write a blog about the ups and downs of life in your beautiful Devon valley!” I misread it, of course and replied “I’m not tetchy ……”! I had no idea what he was talking about, what on earth was a blog !?
So, March 3rd 2004, I began. “Some hope things would warm up as we enter March and move towards spring! Freezing rain hammers on the windows as I write. Dogs curl up round my feet turning their noses from the door and donkeys stand dejectedly in their stable dreaming (well maybe they dream!) of sugary grass and warm breezes.”
Toujours le meme chose, or nearly!
But no donkeys now, how I miss them still! And Matt and Lucy run the sheep on our hills and lambing still goes on in the yard. We walk over the fields with Millie everyday but don’t have to join in: a strange feeling!
With just one Labrador, dear Millie, and a score of chickens to care for, I can turn my attention to the garden. And despite grim warnings of climate change, the weather in the valley isn’t so different, wetter maybe.
As the National Garden Scheme opening looms ahead in June, we have plans to plant wild flowers, new shrubs, replace tired old roses and so much more! Broad bean seeds are planted, sweet peas too, and tiny tomato plants are making good progress! Borders are dug, shrubs are pruned, wild flower seeds scattered and some grass cut at last! Trees begin to break into leaf and plumb blossom petals sprinckle across the orchard mimicking the northern snowflakes ! And still it rains!
So now, as evening approaches and raindrops continue to hammer on the window, my thoughts go to supper! Chickens have done us proud for months. Poor birds, they are still confined to barracks due to the ongoing bird flu restrictions. We’re so fortunate to have such a very large empty shed for them in the farm yard so, despite not being allowed to roam free, they do have lots of space.
Plenty of eggs, so maybe it’s time for a Spanish Omelette or Tortilla? I look in the fridge: some cooked prawns, a shallot, a couple of cold boiled potatoes, a handfull of spinach, a few sundried tomatoes and grated cheese! Perfect, supper in no time!
So on we go, let us hope, into a new freer, lighter, brighter year!
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