" It is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all. " Laura Ingalls Wilder
Since I last wrote in October the weeks have gone by in a flurry of activity interspersed with quiet and sometimes boring empty stretches of time. My biggest excitement on some days is the fact that the long horn cows have escaped and are out on the lawn. One morning in the excitement of getting up to take a photo of the escaped herd grazing infront of the house I came across 2 Barn owls hunting over the meadow. Bronwyn and her offspring. 2 white ghosts quietly gliding through the soft light of dawn. Magic moments which nature gives freely.
I could write about the way the days are drawing in, the shutting down of nature for the winter hibernation, but more interesting might be my adventures over half term and the joy of crabbing down at Dell Quay with my nephew George. Neither of us had ever done this before and the Autumn half term when my nephews came to stay for a couple of nights was our chance to make it happen. Earlier in the summer I had watched a family have such fun crabbing and was determined to have a go myself. Armed with my own bucket strung with a long rope handle, a long line weighed down with a pebble, plus a pair of tights which were meant to be filled with bacon as crab bait. My nephew however persuaded me to stop and pick up a dead rat which we saw being pecked at by a magpie on the way down a winding country lane - the bacon was swapped for real road kill!
Our attempts at crabbing were hindered by the flow of the tide which kept pulling our line and bait under the jetty and tangling it with seaweed. Then the dead rat kept floating around and it was hard to settle it on the floor of the estuary. Finally the harbour master took pity on us and donated 2 crab nets, lines and weights which had been left behind by a visiting school field trip. We decanted our bait into the appropriate net and were soon catching buckets of crabs. The harbour master showed us where to tip out the bucket on a deck and watch the crabs race for safety. It was a brilliant way to spend a day together.
Another highlight of the last month was bringing in the grape harvest at Chilworth Manor. This was a week or two later than normal due to the terrible summer we had in 2021. Many of the vineyards have lost a huge amount of fruit due to frost damage earlier in the year, mould due to the wet weather and birds eating the grapes since there has not been much other fruit growing this summer.
We had a wonderful day in the sunshine picking the crop followed by lunch on the lawn and a few bottles of bubbly to keep us going. Graham Ridley the owner explained how much it cost to use the French method of burning candles to raise the vineyard temperature and keep off late Spring frosts. Visually it is stunning but financially it is crippling. Hence Chilworth Manor Vineyard has decided to try something different which harnesses the natural & unusual properties of water which expands and lets out heat as it freezes. Investing in new Israeli technology which mists the crops as the temperatures drop, creating an ice igloo around the fragile bud and raising the temperature of the bud a few degrees, thereby saving it from frost damage. It's a risk that might fail dismally but one worth taking with 5 other vineyards within a few miles of this location which could benefit from this shift if it works.
So November is drawing to a close and this last weekend I gathered some friends together for lunch and a time to say thank-you to God and each other for all that has happened over the past year. We feasted and laughed and used the swinging jam jar lanterns in a photo shoot under the archway. It was not complicated and my life is becoming slower and quieter as we enter the winter season. I am noticing more and travelling less.
" Life is a garden, not a road. We enter & exit through the same gate wandering
- where we go matters less than what we notice. " Kurt Vonnegut
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