To-day I am going to have a cold evening, all my own fault of course. I have a solid fuel Rayburn which needs cleaning out a couple of times a year, and I always intend to do it before it gets really cold and never do. It takes about 48 hours to cool enough to Hoover it out so I didn't make it up yesterday and said to Llion not to make it up; but as usual he wasn't listening and half made it up before I stopped him, result? Instead of cleaning it out this morning and having it going again by lunchtime now I can't do it till to-morrow. As a result, I've got my electric fire fire on and I've lit my other wood burning stove, in the room we only use for storage. Then again I intend to light that fire at least once a week all year and more often in winter to keep the rest of the house warm. I've plenty of wood so that isn't a problem but when the fire hasn't been lit for some months it's a bit reluctant and smokey; the fact that that's my fault too is no comfort. Oh the joys of living out in the wilds.
This morning was the day when the men come to shoot foxes. I don't have shooting rights for my land, so I don't have any control of it. I'm somewhat ambivalent about shooting foxes but my surrounding farmers are all in favour, even if I do rather like seeing them around. However, it does irritate me that I never know in advance when they are coming, usually once in spring and once in autumn, to know to keep Sandy in. The first we hear of them are yowling dogs, men shouting or shots, a little unnerving! I'm not sure how Sandy would react to a pack of about a dozen large mixed breed hounds, or how they'd react to him. I expect he'd be very excited and then terrified out of his wits. This morning one of the men drove up and blocked the track to stop the sheep getting out, but, of course also blocking us in. Llion was agitating as he'd arranged to go out, so we went down in a convoy. A chap with the big four-by-four could have driven up and into the field but chose to back down, the best part of 300 yards, narrow, winding and steep. I hate doing it and if Llion and I ever meet, if necessary, we change cars, so I'm going forwards as he's able to drive backwards as well as he is forwards. This poor chap was nearly as bad as I am and made rather a meal of it. I could feel Llion sighing in disbelief in the car behind me.
Anyway, I stopped to speak to him said sorry for putting him through that but asked his to give a message to the man with the shooting rights, he wasn't out with the guns, that I would appreciate a phone call to warn me and will he tell the men not to block my track. If I ever have the money, the lottery perhaps, I'll have my track redone and add at least one passing place.
2 comments:
A-a-ah, poor foxes! I came across 'I bought a mountain' at a cousin's house the other day (the 1979, unchanged, edition) and realised I'd never read it, so I did. I was really surprised at how modern the style is, to think the author was writing in the 1940s
One thing stood out, though. He actually mentions, casually and unashamedly, setting fire to a fox's tail. If that was published today he'd be lynched.
Yes, I reads that when it was first published - oh how old one gets.
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