by Amanda Owen
So, little progress with the house was made over the course of lambing time. For six weeks we knuckled down and farmed. Then, as the weather settled, and the days began to draw out, the daily routines that had occupied our time over the previous winter months were put firmly behind us. After tea, when we would have been feeding, mucking out and bedding up the cows, we were now busying ourselves at The Firs. There were two rooms that were blank canvases, devoid of furniture and carpet, and it was the perfect time to splash a bit of paint about – not literally, but that’s exactly what Clive did.
Owing to my pregnancy, Clive made certain dispensations with regards to decorating.
‘I don’t think yer should be going up the step ladder to paint the ceilings,’ he said. ‘Thee do t’skirting boards instead.’
Crawling about on my hands and knees was deemed safer.
Decorating is certainly not his forte. Too impatient to just dip the tip of the brush in, he would dunk it right in up to the handle. He was no Michelangelo when it came to painting ceilings, care and attention didn’t even come into it. Flecks of paint were flicked at the end of every brushstroke whilst his loaded brush would drip into my hair as I worked below.
I could hardly complain about the standard of work when I myself found the business of decorating so incredibly tedious. I’d cut corners wherever I could, painting over the occasional cobweb and frequently clogging paint into holes in the wall rather than going and getting the Polyfilla.
The longer days and improvement in the weather heralded the return of passing walkers and guests to the farm. In basic terms, we never stopped feeding, bedding up and mucking out, only it wasn’t cows, sheep and horses, now it was people. We did afternoon teas for the passing walkers, and breakfasts for the guests coming to stay in the shepherd’s hut. It was go, go, go every morning and the kitchen was my domain for an hour. Clive, Sidney and Annas would head out into the farmyard, sometimes little Clemmie would go outside onto the front in the pushchair or, if it was raining, sit in the high chair and sweat it out with me in the hot kitchen.
Singlehandedly, I could easily knock out a batch of scones and a couple of full English breakfasts but then getting the trays, laden with plates, toast, juice, tea and condiments, down to the shepherd’s hut was a feat in itself. Sometimes I would stack everything on top of each other and carefully pick my way over the uneven ground, other times I’d enlist Clive to carry a tray. This particular Monday morning, Raven, who was coming up fifteen at the time, had woken up feeling out of sorts and had taken a day off school. I had guests in the shepherd’s hut, and was cooking their breakfast, two full Englishes. I had convinced Raven that a bacon sandwich would put her back on the road to recovery, and all I required from her in return was for her to help me carry the trays down to the hut. She could carry the tea, toast and juice; I’d carry the cooked breakfasts. I was well versed in the art of tray carrying and my protruding bump could now be used beneath the tray to stabilize things. It was fair to say that the chances of me dropping everything were near zero! What is it they say about pride going before a fall?
That morning the grass was slightly wet. I had hurriedly put on my wellies and watched as Raven set off carefully towards the wicket gate that let us into the shepherd’s hut garth. ‘Hang on,’ I said, ‘I’m coming.’ And with that, set off on a journey I’ve taken a thousand times. Down the slope, through the gate and around the corner where Raven stood waiting for me. Just as I reached her, I slipped and fell backwards. Everything seemed to go in slow motion. The breakfasts were momentarily airborne and, even though I was now flat on my back, sprawled on the grass, I still clutched the tray and made a desperate attempt to catch the food on its descent. The resounding clatter of cutlery brought out our terriers Chalky and Pippen, who stood, noses in the air and ears erect, like vultures scenting a possible feast.
Raven looked shocked. ‘Are you all right?’ she said.
‘Yes,’ I whispered. ‘Get down, will yer, have the shepherd’s hutters seen us?’
I was thinking on my feet, metaphorically speaking, as in reality I was by now on all fours trying to retrieve as much of the breakfast as I could before the terriers got to it.
‘No sign of ’em,’ she said, popping her head up from behind the small hillock where I was now reloading the tray whilst swatting at Chalky. How they hadn’t heard the monumental crash I have no idea, but there was just a chance that I could salvage the bacon and sausages.
‘There’s grass on ’em, Mam.’
‘Back to t’kitchen, we can scrape it off,’ I said. ‘Have you never heard of the ten-second rule?’
I redid the vital bits, the eggs, mushrooms and tomatoes, while the bacon and sausages went into the warming oven. I sprinkled a little parsley on the mushrooms, a pretty embellishment that also disguised any stray pieces of grass that might give the game away. We went back to the hut where I apologized profusely for the delay in breakfast. Raven looked worriedly at the back of my dress that was crumpled and damp from where I’d lain on the wet grass.
News of the incident got back to Clive and I assured him – and Raven, again – that I was fine. Admittedly, it had been a bit of a shock, but I’d been too preoccupied by the business of the spoilt breakfast to dwell on it. The fall gave me a heavy jolt, and I now had a dull ache in my lower back and pelvis, but falling over is nothing new, just part and parcel of life on the farm.
‘Honestly we’re both fine,’ I said, patting my tummy, and I truly meant it.
‘Well, anyways, yer off for a scan this week aren’t yer?’
‘Aye, Wednesday I am,’ I said, slightly surprised that Clive had remembered.
‘I was thinking you could go and rescue Brenda at the same time actually.’
I knew why he had remembered now; it was to do with a sheep, as most things around here usually are.
Brenda was originally a nameless sheep, quite thin, a bad thriver, and we had taken her and forty of her equally slimline friends to our rented field at Teesside. They had spent the winter there enjoying the lusher grass and higher ambient temperatures. At the end of March, it was time for the sheep to return to the bosom of their family at Ravenseat, which is when we realized we were one short. Clive and I argued about this, and I conceded that it was possible that I had miscalculated the numbers and had written the wrong figure on the movement licence. But Arthur, the farmer who owned the field and who kept an eye on them for us, had never questioned the numbers or indeed mentioned anything dying. It was a mystery until a couple of months later when a lady called Brenda rang to say that she had a sheep that she believed was ours. Her farm was at Northallerton and her sheep also took a winter break at Teesside, a few fields away from ours, and when she brought her little flock back home she had gained a sheep.
And so, my appointment at the Friarage hospital at Northallerton for a scan was also to be the sheep’s – now nicknamed Brenda – homecoming day.
The one question that I always ask when I go for a scan is: ‘Just how big is t’baby?’
I never want to know whether it’s a boy or a girl, but I do want to know that it’s a healthy size and growing nicely. It was all good news: the baby weighed in at around four pounds, a perfect weight for 34 weeks, and had a good strong heartbeat which was a relief after the fall earlier in the week.
‘Everything looks fine, a healthy baby, and you’re an experienced mother so there’s no need to see you again,’ the doctor said.
I went away happily, another two little black-and-white scan pictures tucked into my pocket that I could show Clive and the children when I got home.
Nearly another week went by, the sun shone, and the farm now teemed with new life – birds, flowers and insects – in abundance. Summertime was here, and showtime too. I was invited to go to the Yorkshire Show at Harrogate but decided to decline the offer. Not only was I feeling quite huge, but I also had what I thought was a cunning plan. We had eight hoggs that were fit and ready to be sold at the auction mart. They
would undoubtedly command a higher price if there was a lack of sheep going into the ring owing to the other vendors being at the Yorkshire show. Clive thought this was a good idea too and offered to load up the hoggs into the little sheep trailer whilst I got Sidney, Annas and Clemmie into the Land Rover. The windows were wound down as it was a gloriously summery morning. Within seconds Sidney began fidgeting and undid his seatbelt.
‘Sit thi’ sen still,’ I said. ‘I won’t be a minute.’
I stood back and looked at the trailer, while the hoggs peeped out through the ventilation flaps on the side. First, I checked the trailer electrics, as Clive had been known to forget to connect them to the motor. The only thing that was of any concern was the left-hand side trailer tyre which looked a bit flat.
‘Clive,’ I shouted. He was already heading back off up the yard.
‘Whaaaaat?’ he replied.
‘It’s gotta flat tyre,’ I said, pointing at the trailer wheel.
‘It’s just flat at the bottom,’ he retorted.
‘Oh, ha bloody ha,’ I said. ‘That tyre needs some wind in it.’
‘You’re full o’ wind,’ he said defiantly. ‘It’s nowt to worry about, it’s just ’cos of where lambs is standin’ in’t trailer.’
‘Where’s the airline?’ I said.
‘It’s bust,’ he replied. ‘Reuben’s fault.’
I wasn’t best pleased and huffily strapped Sidney into his seat again and set off cautiously. There was no rush to get the hoggs to Hawes auction, as long as they were there by 10 a.m. then that would do. The children chattered away about what they could see out of the window but, of course, the only thing that I could focus on was my rear-view mirror and, in it, the tyre that still seemed to be bulging at the bottom. I got all the way up Banty Hill, a steep climb out of Swaledale with a hairpin bend before the spectacular but treacherous winding road narrowed. At one side there is a perilous near-vertical drop of hundreds of feet, and at the other side there is a steep boulder-strewn hillside and the famous deep sink holes from which the Buttertubs Pass gets its name. It was just when we reached the summit of this climb, as the flat-topped peak of Pen-y-ghent came into view, that all of a sudden there was an almighty bang and the sound of metallic scraping. I hit the brakes and clambered out from behind the steering wheel. The trailer had lurched awkwardly over to one side, the tyre was in shreds and the rim now rested upon the tarmac. The lambs jostled around in the trailer.
‘You’ve gotta flat tyre, Mam,’ said Sidney, stating the obvious. ‘Do we ’ave a spare un?’
‘Nope,’ I said, pondering my next move.
There’s no phone signal at all, not until you get to Hawes, and we were still five miles from there and the road was deathly quiet, not a vehicle in sight. Unhitching the trailer from the Land Rover, driving to the garage at Hawes, and getting a mechanic to come out and change the wheel seemed like the best plan. But, of course, now that the trailer was askew, there was more weight on the Land Rover tow ball and, try as I might, I just couldn’t lift the trailer off.
This made me angry. I decided that I should just keep driving towards Hawes, very slowly, with the punctured wheel on the grass – at least that way it wouldn’t make such a dreadful noise. Painfully slowly I went, my hazards flashing, hoping a car would come past and then I could get a message to the garage and ask the auction to send someone with a trailer to pick up the lambs.
There was nobody, just an empty road. My theory about everyone being at the Yorkshire Show was maybe right. I got as far as Simonstone, a hamlet on the outskirts of Hawes, when I spotted an old fence post lying next to a wall. I was trying to use this as a lever underneath the ball hitch when, finally, a Land Rover appeared on the horizon.
I moved to the middle of the road, still holding the fence post. The Land Rover slowed down and stopped alongside mine.
‘Mandy? What’s ta on wi’?’ said Ronnie.
I couldn’t have wished for a better knight in shining armour. Ronnie Mecca, a friend of ours, is in his seventies and farms at Calvert Houses, below Muker. He was not renowned for his strength or mechanical skills, but rather for his jovial outlook and his permanent sidekick, Tess, an old, slightly portly sheepdog who was sitting on his passenger seat.
‘Awww, don’t ask, Ronnie,’ I said as I lobbed the fence post back towards the wall.
I went on to explain my predicament.
‘Yer shouldn’t be trying to lift anything in your state,’ he said, squinting though his thick-rimmed glasses. ‘I’s not a midwife, an’ I don’t wanna be, not at my time o’ life.’
‘Ronnie, I just need yer to go an’ tell the auction to bring a trailer for mi’ sheep. I’ll wait ’ere wi’ t’kids.’
Once the sheep were out of my trailer, I could do the final mile or so to the garage. The tyre was shredded and the rim now very bent, so I couldn’t really damage it any more than I already had.
Ronnie saved the day; he organized the rescue of the sheep, then sold them for me too as I was by now running very late. I bought him his dinner at the auction mart canteen by way of thanks.
‘Were a decent trade thi’ hogs,’ he said between mouthfuls, ‘a fiver up on last week.’
I was forty pounds better off than on a normal week, but when I’d asked the garage approximately how much my trailer repair was going to be, I’d been quoted fifty pounds. It had not been a worthwhile trip at all.
‘Ow’d it go?’ asked Clive when I finally got back into the yard. ‘An’ where’s t’trailer at?’
It was fortunate for him that the journey back from Hawes is both a long and therapeutic one. The big skies and spectacular views down Swaledale had had a calming effect and, by now, my anger had gradually subsided to the point where I could almost see the funny side.
We didn’t venture down to The Firs that evening, but the following three nights we went down after tea to varnish the floorboards. The children played outside in the evening sun until dusk came and the midges chased them inside. Only one more week remained before the children were due to break up for the school holidays and, already, they were busy hatching their plans for the summer. We had a busy itinerary; clipping was on the horizon and the house renovation was ongoing. There was so much to do, and how it was all ever going to get done didn’t bear thinking about. There was little point in dwelling on it, we just had to soldier on. I went to bed feeling tired but fine, but woke up in the middle of the night with the queerest of sensations. I lay perfectly still whilst I came round, then had the most horrid of notions that I was lying in a puddle.
‘Oh, this is not good,’ I thought as I totted up exactly how many weeks pregnant I was.
Then things became significantly worse when I sat up and realized that the puddle had not been my waters breaking – it was blood.
I was determined not to panic, I had seen the baby on the scan just days before. I knew that she was four pounds and that at thirty-four weeks she was perfectly viable.
I leant over and tapped Clive on the shoulder.
‘I think it’s time for t’baby,’ I whispered as he stirred.
He yawned.
‘Now?’ he said.
‘Yes, now,’ I replied firmly. ‘I think that yer should ring for an ambulance right now.’
‘Are yer all right?’ he said.
‘’Course I am,’ I said, and convincingly, too, I thought. It was most definitely a case of mind over matter, and if Clive wasn’t worried then I wasn’t worried.
It took forever for the ambulance to arrive; typically it had been at Northallerton when the call came in and had to make its way all the way up the dale to Ravenseat. Once Clive had rung 999, he had not been allowed to put the phone down, even though he’d protested bitterly to the operator that he really couldn’t provide a running commentary for over an hour on what I was doing as, frankly, it wasn’t that dramatic. The phone sat on the table switched to speakerphone mode whilst Clive studied the Yorkshire Post. I was laid out, reclining on the sofa, towel
s covering the cushions that lay beneath my hips. I was hoping that gravity would help to keep my baby in situ until help arrived.
A paramedic got to us first.
‘I’s pleased to see thee, I’ll tell ya,’ Clive said to the green-uniformed man as he showed him the way to the sitting room. ‘I can put t’phone down now.’ And he went back into the kitchen and thanked the operator.
‘I need yer to pack me a bag,’ I shouted to Clive.
‘I need you to stay still,’ said the medic to me. ‘Yer bleedin’ and I need to put a line in.’
Clive attempting to pack my overnight bag was a perfect distraction to being attached to a drip. Every so often he’d pop his head around the corner of the door for advice on what I needed and where to find it. By the time the bag was packed, the ambulance had pulled up in the farmyard, thankfully with no sirens wailing to waken the household. Much to my consternation they insisted that I was wheeled to the ambulance. Clive chirpily bid me goodbye, the doors slid shut, and I was off to Middlesbrough.
The first ten minutes of the journey were taken up with answering questions and form-filling. I held on to the rail bars on the side of the narrow stretcher bed whilst the ambulance bounced and lurched from side to side on the twisting country roads. A drip bag was suspended above me on one side, and a blood-pressure cuff was strapped around my other arm. To say I was uncomfortable would be an understatement, but more than anything I wanted to hold on to this little early baby for as long as possible. I concentrated hard on being as still as possible, focusing on the wall clock that I could see reflected in the blacked-out window. The closer to the hospital I could get before having the baby, the better it would be, but unfortunately only some twenty minutes into the journey the point came when I could not hold on any longer.
