Richard Curnock is making a fresh start running a family farm in Worcestershire and enjoys the lighter side of life…
I apologise now but, as sorry as I am, I cannot help but tell you about the progress - or lack of it - that we have made as far as the harvest is concerned.
It’s rather ironic that as I write this I have two buckets on the office floor catching the drips coming through the ceiling (and I thought the house restoration was complete).
The facts are that on a good day cutting for ten hours we can cover 40 acres. That’s all well and fine, so with about 550 acres to do there is nothing too daunting. As I said last month, we made a start on July 19, cleared the barley and on to the oats.
And then it happened…August arrived.
Why oh why do we have August this time of the year? In the words of Baldrick, “I have a cunning plan” - let’s move it on three months, along with all the other months, to a time when we need the rain.
The only problem I then see is that as my birthday is on 31 May, which would become February. And that only having 28 days would mean I would not have any birthdays. I can’t get my head around that yet, don’t know whether it’s good or bad. Perhaps it all needs a little fine-tuning and large cash hand out from The Dragons’ Den.
Sorry, my mind wandered. As you may have guessed by now things are not progressing. For more than half of the month the combine has not left the shed and in the last nine days we have cut ten acres. It’s even too wet to plough, which is why I have time to work out these facts. I am even typing in time to the rhythm of the drips - sad isn’t it?!
On a very much happier note, it was remiss of me not to have mentioned in my last ‘tales from Westol Hall’ a few details of how Lesley’s and my wedding went.
Absolutely fantastic - I may be a little biased, but it has to be said we would not have changed a thing; the service, the people and the setting were just superb. Somebody was looking down on us with approval. Just writing that has perked me up no end, so start that engine, there is corn to cut.
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- Josh - 18/09/2010
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