Adventures of the Yorkshire Shepherdess

by Amanda Owen

  ‘Diiiick,’ bawled Sidney, still sitting at the kitchen table with his spoon poised, ready to resume shovelling the cornflakes into his mouth. ‘We got the waaaat.’

  Dick popped his head over the landing bannisters. ‘Crikey,’ he said, only this time he did seem more taken aback.

  We had learned by now that Dick took most things in his stride, but his patience was about to be tested again when our band of willing helpers at The Firs was swelled with a new recruit we’d actually met the previous summer. When the weather warms up, we have a constant stream of visitors to Ravenseat, many on foot, people out enjoying an afternoon in the Dales or just passing through on the Coast to Coast footpath. Some even made the trip out to us for the sole purpose of having an afternoon tea. One afternoon, after a particularly trying day on the farm, Clive came into the kitchen where I was preparing tea to tell me of a visitor that he’d been talking to. Apparently, they’d had a particularly long conversation about poetry, specifically Robbie Burns, whose works Clive was rather fond of. One of the very first gifts that I ever bought him was a set of books, The Complete Works of Robert Burns. I hadn’t had Clive down as being in any way poetic, but he could recite many of his poems, his favourite being one written about Burns’s yow, Maille.

  ‘He’s an interesting chap,’ said Clive. ‘Lives in a priory.’

  ‘Heck, he must have some kind of addiction,’ I said. ‘You only check in to there when you’ve got a serious problem.’

  Clive looked confused. ‘A priory, not The Priory. He’s a monk,’ he said.

  I admit to being a little intrigued; I’d always been curious about modern-day monks and nuns ever since I visited a stately home as a child and saw Carmelite sisters going about their work in the kitchen gardens.

  ‘So, what’s he doin’ ’ere then?’ I asked.

  Clive explained that the monk was on a sabbatical, staying in a local bed and breakfast and spending his days in search of quiet locations in which he could gather his thoughts and paint the landscape. ‘Kinda arsing about really,’ he summarized.

  The next day, Brother Francis, as he was called, was back and, once again, sat on the garden wall talking to Clive about a range of topics. I had a look at his paintings; he was clearly a prolific artist as the folder that he’d brought along containing his work was full. All watercolours and all seemingly executed at a frenetic pace. They were modern in their style, impressionist, I think would be how you’d describe them. Though not particularly to my taste, they were atmospheric and colourful. But I was far more interested in studying Brother Francis, who I guessed to be in his seventies. He had an upright and poised posture and the mannerisms of a learned man. He seemed to be deeply enthralled by whoever he was in conversation with, leaning forward as though hanging off your every word. He fixed you with a watery blue-eyed stare that seemed overly intense for the light-hearted banter that we were engaged in. He was clearly a reader, an artist and a thinker, though he struck me as more of a bohemian type than a man of devout religion.

  His life could not have been any more different to that of ours and yet we found common ground over our love of people, animals and nature. I pointed out that if he had come looking for silence and solitude then Ravenseat in the height of summer was perhaps not the right place, but that only a couple of miles down the road was our rural retreat that we were in the middle of renovating and where he’d be able to set up his easel, paint and reflect to his heart’s content without interference or disturbance.

  ‘If being down at The Firs doesn’t inspire you then nowhere will,’ I said.

  I wouldn’t say that I have an artistic bone in my body, but you couldn’t fail to be inspired by such unspoilt natural beauty.

  He reappeared the following day to show us his work; his trip to The Firs had clearly motivated him and he had gone all out and created a stunning canvas awash with summer colours and brilliant skies.

  ‘Yer a dab ’and wi’ a brush, I’ll give yer that,’ said Clive.

  Praise indeed, I thought. Brother Francis smiled.

  ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘I want you to have this picture, but I would like something in return.’

  Clive nodded, but I could tell he wasn’t as keen on the painting now that it came with a price.

  ‘I wonder if you would consider letting me do more painting for you?’

  Brother Francis had us both baffled now. I was going to have to tell him, diplomatically of course, that we were not thinking of opening a gallery at any time in the near future. But before either Clive or myself had the chance to make our excuses, he cleared up the confusion.

  ‘Painting the house,’ he said. ‘Painting the inside of the house.’

  The penny hadn’t quite dropped, so he persisted, changing his tack.

  ‘Decorating. I’m really good at painting walls, I’ve got a great eye for detail.’

  Our prayers had been answered. We had just found ourselves a decorator. It was agreed that Brother Francis would get in touch after Christmas to arrange when he could come and start. He could give us a week of his time, and all he required in return for this was a bed for the night at The Firs and an evening meal.

  ‘Do you think we’ve done reet?’ Clive asked later, when Brother Francis had left. ‘What if he isn’t so good at decorating. I can’t think that he’ll ’ave ’ad a lot of practice.’

  ‘I’m sure that even monasteries will move with the times,’ I mused. ‘Cells will probably have feature walls.’

  Brother Francis was as good as his word and rang as promised. Clive explained that The Firs, although habitable, was certainly nowhere near perfect. There was heating, but little in the way of home comforts or, in fact, any furniture at all. He reassured us that he was accustomed to a simple, monastic life, had just the most basic of needs and was looking forward to his working holiday. The smallest bedroom was the only usable room, so we moved a single bed into there for him. The bed was destined to become firewood after fulfilling this one last task.

  ‘By ’eck it’s an uncomfortable bloody bed that,’ said Clive as he sat perched on the edge of it.

  ‘It’ll be like penance then, won’t it,’ I said. ‘The equivalent of wearing a cilice.’

  When Brother Francis arrived, Clive and I took him to The Firs and introduced him to Dick the plumber and Ken the joiner, who were now busy both tiling the kitchen and installing a new shower in a previously empty downstairs room. I showed Brother Francis to his room, where he unpacked his belongings: a sleeping bag, pillow, porridge sachets, a small CD player and a book on the Holocaust.

  I talked him through my decorating ideas; there was to be nothing too taxing, just getting coats of emulsion onto the walls, particularly over the replastered areas. I had already decided that I wouldn’t ask him to do any ceilings, as I didn’t want to over exert him. I had paint at the ready, plenty of it, in neutral shades mainly. In an attempt to be methodical, I set him off painting the first bedroom at the far end of the house. He did a splendid job, his painting was very neat, and his artistic temperament shone through when he carefully painted around the door frame in a contrasting pale hue. Unfortunately, this brushwork did not extend to the skirting boards. He didn’t like kneeling, he said, which confused me rather, given his calling.

  Any thoughts of my team of volunteers being like one big happy family were soon dispelled when the music began. Dick particularly enjoyed folk and country music, and was secretly rather good at the PopMaster quiz on Radio 2. Ken was a biker, had a Harley Davidson and liked to listen to Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull and Pink Floyd. Dick and Ken would happily hum away to the soundtracks I put together for them on my phone – a bit of Elvis, some Queen, songs I thought they’d enjoy – and played them through a Bluetooth speaker that Reuben had found under his seat on the school bus.

  Brother Francis liked his Gregorian chant music, particularly Enigma, and the Hare Krishna chant. These would be playing loudly on a loop in whichever room he was decorating. Not a word was spoke
n by either party, but the volume on the competing devices just kept being turned up a notch or two to drown out the other’s music. Once Raven cottoned on to this clash of musical tastes, she decided that she would join in with her very own specially selected tunes. She sided with Ken and Dick, playing Guns n’ Roses’ ‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door’, ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’ by Bon Jovi and REM’s ‘Losing My Religion’ at maximum volume.

  Brother Francis’s ‘basic’ needs soon started to expand. Initially, just a microwave was required for the making of porridge, but soon there was talk of a toaster being needed, and a fridge. Ken had a spare toaster and brought it for Brother Francis to use, but I was steadfast in my refusal to find a fridge as I reckoned that the larder was plenty cold enough to stop the milk from turning sour. The lack of cutlery was mentioned, then the newly installed shower was apparently not angled quite right.

  Brother Francis, it seemed, was quite opinionated and began to get a bit stroppy. Relations between him and Dick and Ken worsened as the week went on, after he destroyed the microwave by attempting to soften a bar of foil-wrapped butter in it, spelling the end of any warmed bowls of soup for lunch.

  Still, at least the house was getting spruced up and every wall he painted was another off the list. The main bedroom, I had decided, deserved something a little more vibrant colourwise. Opulence was what I was looking for, a rich luxuriant shade that would emanate a warmth and, dare I say it, give a sensual feel to the room.

  Clive had already mocked the ridiculous names on the paint tins – ‘Gentle Fawn, Toasted Almond, Emerald Isle’ – but Brother Francis took an instant dislike to my latest colour choice.

  ‘Crimson Tide!’ he said with a look of abject horror on his face. ‘You’re going to paint it that colour? Why, it’ll look like a brothel!’

  Quite how he knew the colour schemes of brothels I don’t know, but whether he liked it or not I was adamant that the Crimson Tide was going on the walls.

  ‘I think it’s gonna need two coats to cover it right,’ I said to Brother Francis. ‘It’ll look great when it’s done, a real feature.’

  He didn’t look at all convinced but set his jaw and began prising the lid off the paint tin with a screwdriver. Before I left Brother Francis unhappily painting, Dick tiling and Ken repairing kitchen cupboards, I warned them that they should watch the weather closely as snow was forecast. This didn’t affect Brother Francis, as he was staying at The Firs, but Ken would not be so keen on the prospect of an overnight stay down there with him. Dick, of course, was staying in the shepherd’s hut at Ravenseat, so we could always pick him up on the quad bike or tractor if need be.

  Clive and I spent most of the day foddering the sheep, and then retreated to inside the farmhouse when the snowflakes got bigger and began to settle. The schools rang to say that the children from the Upper Dale were being sent home early. I’d only just put the phone down when it rang again. This time it was Dick saying that Ken had gone home rather than risk being marooned at The Firs, and Brother Francis had also left, having had enough of painting and being worried about getting snowed in.

  ‘Probably a wise move,’ Clive said.

  Within minutes, the phone rang again. It was Dick, to tell us that Brother Francis’s car had come off the track, just above the middle gate. He’d walked back down to The Firs and now needed towing out. We loaded the children into the pickup and set off to rescue Brother Francis, who had walked back to his stranded car and was awaiting a roadside rescue. There wasn’t a huge amount of snow, just enough to make the road slippery, and with Clive and myself pushing, and Brother Francis accelerating gently, the car found some grip and sped off up the track.

  ‘Seemed in a bit of a hurry,’ said Clive. ‘But time’s goin’ on so we might as well pick Dick up from the house ’cos his van mightn’t travel so well.’

  We had hardly got through the door when a wide-eyed Dick appeared clutching a sponge. Normally unflappable, on this occasion he looked uncharacteristically flustered.

  ‘Has Brother Francis told you what he’s done?’ he spluttered.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Paint, he’s spilt it.’

  ‘Where?’ I asked, mentally conjuring up a picture of how bad this could be.

  ‘Upstairs,’ said Dick, still grasping the sponge, which I now noticed was a pinky-red colour.

  ‘Crimson Tide,’ I said in horror. ‘Where has he spilt it?’

  ‘On the cream carpet in the bedroom. I did try to clean some of it up,’ said Dick as I held my head in my hands.

  ‘And in the hallway,’ added Dick, to make matters worse. ‘Well, actually, he kinda walked through it too, so it’s sort of everywhere.’

  This time it was Clive’s turn to say, ‘Crikey’.

  I went upstairs two steps at a time, Clive and Dick following behind, and we were jointly confronted with a scene of devastation. Rather than a sumptuously decorated bedroom, the image resembled a scene from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre with an already drying puddle of red paint just inside the doorway and spatter patterns up the as-yet-unpainted walls.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ mumbled Clive.

  Dick said nothing.

  ‘I’ve heard of paintin’ the town red, but this is just summat else,’ Clive said, surveying the carnage.

  Dick had been working downstairs on the tiling; the first he’d known about it was when he went upstairs, after Francis had made his hasty departure.

  I scrubbed and scrubbed and then scrubbed some more and still that carpet looked like someone had tipped a tin of red paint on it. I was annoyed with myself for not having lifted the carpet before the decorating, but more annoyed with Brother Francis for having been so careless. The odd drip or two of paint was one thing, but this was just terrible.

  ‘Not so bloody saintly, was ’e?’ Clive said as he went to the sink to fill yet another bucket with warm soapy water. ‘Why didn’t ’e just own up, confess? I’d ’ave called him an idiot, but I couldn’t exactly ’ave sacked him when he was here voluntarily. And he could’ve at least helped with the attempted clean-up,’ he complained.

  When the scrubbing was finally done, and the last bucket of pink water had been tipped away, Clive began blotting the carpet with paper towels.

  ‘Come an’ look at this,’ he shouted as he threw the damp towels in the bin. ‘Evidence,’ he said, holding the lid of the bin open, ‘from the crime scene.’

  Peering in, I could see a pair of leather Jesus sandals I recognized as being Brother Francis’s indoor shoes of choice. The soles were red, like the designer brand Christian Louboutins, only in this case, it was accidental rather than by design.

  Our heaven-sent painter and decorator had left (but not quite without a trace) and from then onwards all painting and decorating duties fell to Ken, who was happy enough to wield a paintbrush and hum away to his own choice of music.

  5

  Storm in a C Cup

  Our original plan had been to have The Firs house up and running in a year’s time. That soon fell by the wayside, but we went into 2017 determined to finish and be ready to rent out by the summer. With so much to do to keep the farm and associated businesses running smoothly, I became even more reliant on the older children, namely Raven and Reuben. They were testing times. I would often have to remind myself that this project was for the greater good and would, in years to come, provide stability and security for the whole family. The frustration of trying to be in a thousand different places at once, and seemingly never achieving anything, was difficult to stomach. Nothing seemed to move along quick enough. Every day that I spent working on the farm I felt should have been spent working on the refurbishment of The Firs. Of course, conversely, I would say the same thing when I was at The Firs thinking that I really should have been at Ravenseat.

  At least we weren’t living at The Firs, and could shut the door and walk away from the mess while renovations were going on. But then Ravenseat itself started to resemble a buil
ding site. The problem started in 2016 when years of torrential rain eventually took their toll and water poured in though the gable end, seeping down the interior walls and forming puddles on the flagged floor inside.

  ‘I’m sick o’ this house smelling of cat pee,’ I complained as I wrung out yet another sodden rug that, even though it had been inside and by the fireplace, had become saturated overnight during a downpour. ‘It’s making such a lot o’ work for me.’

  ‘I’ll get mi mate Stephen the builder to come an’ clart some cement on,’ Clive said, ‘but I’ll ’ave to tell t’estate first.’

  It was just a formality that as tenants we should alert the landlord of any work we were going to undertake on the property. In fact, they’d often be willing to pay if it was deemed to be a necessity. Of course, after speaking with the agent, what started out as a relatively simple repair job turned into a mammoth undertaking, with listed-building experts, architects and planning officers all getting involved. Clive was becoming increasingly annoyed, especially when the conclusion was that before any work could start there needed to be an investigation into the cause of the leak. We’d have to liaise with the relevant authorities and have an assessment to diagnose the problem before we began to rectify it and find a solution.

  He was less than amused when the scaffolders arrived in November with the express instruction to scaffold the north-facing gable end.

  ‘Wrong end o’ t’house mate,’ he said flatly, whilst leaning against the Land Rover and watching the poles being erected beside the kitchen door.

  The scaffolders begged to differ. ‘Look ’ere mate, this is what we were told to do, it says it right ’ere,’ said one of them as they waved a piece of paper around.

  Clive shrugged. ‘All I’ll say is that watter is pissin’ in at t’other side o’ t’house.’

  It was indeed the wrong side of the house and, a week later, they returned and scaffolded the correct side. Nobody said anything.