Why the housing market is an absolute joke

In my village this week, another house stands empty. A lovely, limestone, small 2 bedroom cottage, perfect as a first time buyers home. Except it will never fall into the hands of someone like me. My village in the Derbyshire Dales, as well as all the surrounding villages I know, are filled with empty houses. …

Feeling Unfulfilled

I talked on my last post about feeling fed up and frustrated. Perhaps this is just the January blues, but it feels more than that. Warning: This is a rather mopey, self indulgent post as a method of catharsis. If you're after a Northerner moaning about tourists and writing book reviews, choose a different post. …

Another weekend of snow and ice

Happy Monday! Another week has rolled by and while most get the Monday blues, I quite enjoy it. After forcing myself to rest on Sunday by means of vintage cider and classic Bond movies, I feel ready to crack on with work, planning things and completing chores. I always do my weekly food shop on …

Three day Snow Day

While North America is suffering from the terror of an unbelievably cold Winter, us Brits with our fetish for the weather are in the grips of a much milder - yet just as terrifying for us weaklings - bout of snow. Yesterday it was -8C here in the Derbyshire Dales. This is practically apocalyptic for …

Hens don’t like snow!

In the Derbyshire Dales we've finally had a covering of snow! We had a single snow shower back in October 2018, but otherwise nothing since the endless Winter that the Beast from the East delivered from October 2017 to April 2018. Yes you heard that right, snow in April!! In England!! We have around 40 …

Is mental age defined by taste in shoes?

Ok so this may sound a rather crackpot theory, but bear with. I've come to a point in my life where I have my staple shoes. I have farm wellies, dog walking wellies, nude heels, leather boots, suede ankle boots, farmer ankle boots and Vans trainers. I also have a pair of Crocs flip flops, Mountain …

How to get warm when you’re really fricking cold

January is upon us! We all know what the means... soberness, coldness and darkness. Except that there's no way I'm doing dry January. Sod that. I'ts both my partner's and my mum's birthdays in January anyway so that would be kind of selfish and arsey to say I'm not drinking to toast them. Plus I …

Goodbye, dear Ruby.

Yesterday was a very sad day. We had to say goodbye to our farm collie, Ruby. Ruby was just shy of 9 years old, and a red merle border collie - a very rare breed which I personally had never encountered before I met her. She was my other half's family dog. She was originally …

My best moments of 2018

A mere nine days into 2019 and I'm already reminiscing. I've been having a good 'old digital clear out and transferring photos onto Dropbox. My photos are very precious to me so I like to back them up onto there. I also use the Freeprints app to print off my fave pictures at the end …

Our first calf of 2019

You know how on Christmas day, you wake to find lots of lovely presents? Well on New Year's Day we walked into the farm yard and discovered a fluffy, healthy bull calf. To be fair we were expecting him. One of our cows, Gazelle, had been looking ready to pop for a few days so …