The dream team have been working hard this week to service the machinery, as we plan to start combining the first of the winter barley on Friday (weather dependant) This is probably the most stressful time of the year as 90% of the farms entire income is dependant on everything that’s harvested in the next 8 weeks. Mark Job is driving the combine and pulling funny faces at me as we pass in the field. I drive his tractor and trailer and collect the grain from the combine and race back to the farm yard where Marks younger brother Ben empties the trailer and dries it in a huge drier and then stores it until it can be collected. Marks older brother bails the straw that’s left by the combine.

I did some harvesting of my own in the garden this morning. Unfortunately with life being quite so busy at the moment we haven’t the time to do any baking with the fresh fruit, so with the fruit we haven’t managed to eat straight away I’ve stuck in the freezer to make jam and crumbles with in the winter. Today I collected a lovely bowl of strawberries, some rhubarb, blue berries, raspberries and red currants. I just wish I could grow a chocolate tree. As chocolate is essential to a chocoholic. I’ll give you a laugh…I went to see a nutritionalist a few months back to find out if my diet had anything to do with my lack of energy. She found foods that didn’t agree with my body whole heartedly and suggested I should have less of these foods. The worst culprits were wheat, sugar, egg whites, tea, and chocolate…you could have knocked me down with a feather. This was my entire diet. What was there left to eat if not chocolate? Needless to say I still eat all of the above, but maybe not in the quantities I did before.

I escaped from my ever growing mountain of work this afternoon to meet with Liz for a coffee and a hand over some work I’d been doing for her. Living 70 miles apart we agreed to meet half way at a gallery. We thought we’d make the trip even more worth while by taking some of our products to the gallery to see if they were interested. It looks like it was a good decision…

Arriving home this evening in desperate need of the toilet I jumped out of the car and found myself face to face with a young heifer who had escaped the confines of her field. I thought she’d be fairly easy to turn and head her back to the field gateway still wearing my high heels I tottered round her and waved my arms, unfortunately she had other ideas…10 minutes later having climbed over rocks, squelched through mud and with the help of Mark we had her back with the others. My quest for the toilet even more desperate! Would I swap all this for a quieter life? Not for all the tea in china. (though I might if someone was offering chocolate)