Down on the Farm

Don't worry, we were not eaten by cows on holiday, it has just taken us a while to get back into the swing of normal life.  Louis turned 6 on the day after we got home and then there were various Jubilee activities and social occasions to attend and host - all good stuff!

We had a totally superb holiday down in Devon.  We were about 6 miles from Axminster in the Blackdown Hills staying at Aller Farm with Featherdown Farm Days.  We were glamping for the first time and we all agreed it was one of the best holidays ever.  Obviously I have lots of photos but many of them don't do justice to our experience.  Here are a handful of treasured memories from that week.

Ice-cream at West Bay

Inside our "home".

Bringing the luggage down the track.

The first egg from our own little hen coop.

Deer at Powderham Castle.

Bella helping Farmer Nigel at milking time.

Fantastic pizza in the bread oven.

Bella busy with her bucket at Lyme Regis.

My babies at the end of a cross country walk.

The village scarecrow competition.

Delicious stew cooked by hanging over an open fire.

Pudding.

One of the tent views.

As you can see, the children were in their element.  They were free to come and go around the fields with the other children and we often had either no children or 7 children in our tent!  They had a den building kit which they set up across the stream tucked away in the woods and they loved getting up every morning to check on the chickens.  Louis was able to run to the farm honesty shop for provisions and he loved the freedom and importance of his tasks.  Nigel and Emma were fantastic hosts and I put on WAY too much weight with Emma's fantastic baking.  We bottle fed a calf, cuddled a 5 week old puppy and narrowly missed a calf actually being born.  We were so blessed with the weather and we were able to go down to the various beaches and go rock pooling, dig in the sand or hunt for fossils.  We may have had a cream tea or two.  Or three...

It was wonderful to be without electricity and I was surprised how little I missed my instant cups of tea as it took about 45 minutes to make one from scratch on the wood burning stove!  Just sitting with a book, looking out onto the fields of cows, hearing only the sounds of them chewing and the birds singing, was glorious indeed.  We were all wonderfully relaxed and more than one of us cried when it was time to come home (can you guess who?  Yes okay, you got me, of course one of those people was me!)

We came back slightly pinker (me) or browner (the others), clear skinned, rosy cheeked, inspired, happy, relaxed, chubby and absolutely desperate to go back again some day.

Bye for now
xx