Yesterday evening we sat on our Terrace, overlooking 20 miles of the verdant Clyde Valley and the hills beyond. Despite being in Scotland, the sun was warm enough for us to stay out till after 9.30pm.
We have an ‘outdoorsy kitchen’ up on the Terrace – it started with a barbecue made from an old wheelbarrow. A few upgrades later, and we now have a pizza oven, a catering quality stainless steel prep area, a fridge, a small sink, and a gas-fired BBQ cooker. I love cooking, and cook from scratch every day, never quite making the same thing twice.
In the cooler weather we light the chimenea, and wrap ourselves in warm woolly blankets if we need to. The awning protects us from the rain, and there is something utterly magical about being out there, cosy warm and eating our dinner while the snow gently falls all around us.
Earlier in the day we’d been checking our fruit trees – there’s going to be such a good harvest of pears this year, perhaps not so many apples or plums. But each year brings a slightly different harvest in and around our garden, so over the years I have developed recipes to make use of the bounty: Pear Liqueur, Cinnamon Apple Jelly (delicious on hot buttered toast), Spiced Pears; Damson Gin; Wild Cherry Liqueur; Blackcurrant Ripple Ice Cream; Plum and Sour Cream Tart. Nothing goes to waste. And of course we have a freezer full of Bramble and Apple Crumbles.
I work from home, and when I look up from my laptop, the view out the window is of fields, sloping up towards the farm on the top of the wee hill. They are cutting the silage today, so each time I look, there is another stripe added, the dark lines of the cut grass next to the straw yellow of the stubble. And tractors buzzing about, up and down the hill.
Yesterday The Captain came through to my office after breakfast, and insisted I went upstairs to our big bathroom, to look out the window. In the field at the bottom of our garden was a mother deer with her two fawns prinking and pronking about in the long grass. The youngsters tired quickly and lay down out of sight, while she remained vigilant, her head up, and twirling around like a periscope watching for any danger.
What a joy it is to be here. It’s not for everyone, but for anyone who enjoys a more sustainable life, surrounded by trees and fields and wildlife, it’s perfect.
We’re moving on, selling up this countryside idyll. We’ll be sad to leave, but by selling this place, we can continue to pay for Mum’s care costs, keeping her comfortable in this last stage of her long and happy life.
Do you dream of living in the country? We have outbuildings which have outline planning permission, so could be converted to a self-catering rental property for some income, or to a grannie flat, or a fabulous studio or workshop. Currently it’s a rather deluxe hen house for Brutus and his girls, but more on them another day.
Details of Mauldslie Kennels, our home in the Valley, are here.
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Mostly on this blog I write about trying to care for Mum as she developed dementia, which nearly broke me on a number of occasions. Gentle meditative stitching her old Fisherman’s Smock probably saved me, giving me a focus and forcing me to carve out time when I could let everything go and just concentrate on those tiny stitches.
If you want to read more about my relationship with Mum and her dementia, then you could start here at Taking smock of the Situation. Or just dip in. After all, if I’ve learned anything this last few years it’s that chronology and time are less important than we might believe.
Shewolfinthevalley 