Inside Out

As we get more and more sorted inside the new place, we also start to broaden our horizons. We meet some neighbours. All through the project we have had regular visits from a local old boy who we only ever see driving his John Deere tractor. John Deere Bob, we've Christened him. He was very curious about us and our moves to do up the old house which he's known from his youth. He knew the previous owners, TK-Min and TK Max plus the three sisters. He seems delighted with what we've done and very impressed by what we've achieved and he loves the warmth, brightness and dryness of the finished place. Our other neighbour, Una, says "there was never any warmth in that house..." There is now! Mike the Cows finally gets round to letting his animals into the surrounding fields and also does a deal with Dad whereby we get our fields 'topped' (mowed down to 3-4" including the rushes) and Dad gets his allotment bit ploughed if Mike is allowed to electric fence off our 1.5 acre field to the east of us, and graze that. The cows are a purebred Charolais bull called Felix, complete with ring through his nose, about a dozen Charolais girls, some with young calves at foot, plus a few random hangers on including a dark bullock and a couple of darker heifers. These boys and girls amble around in the neighbouring fields and when we can get away with it we (Coco comes too, but the H can't be bothered) like to go shout at them. We never get too close because they are very big. usually they ignore us and just keep chewing the cud or lying down looking at us vacantly, but sometimes they all get up and start walking or half-trotting towards us, which sends us scurrying to and through the gate. I'm brave, but not that brave! Work moves from the indoors to the 'grounds. Dad finally un-boxes his chainsaw, assembles it on the dining room table and then takes it out for a try. It's a good weapon and we now have a source of logs for the stove. Dad hires a couple of skips and we can throw the pile of builders rubbish and left over thermal panel offcuts into it. We finally have a clear view of the front of the house, and from the terrace out across the lawn. The grass is damaged in places where the rubble was stored, so Dad rotovates up these patches, rakes it smooth and re-seeds with grass. Mum, who has always wanted a box hedge but never really got one going in Faversham, finally gets her chance at the kerb edge between front lawn and terrace. While he's got the rotovator out Dad tills a nice bed along this edge for Mum to plant in the rooted cuttings. That should get away nicely. A new face appears, another neighbour, Eileen C, welcoming us to the village and bearing gifts of a little auricula cutting and a photo (above) of the house taken in 2000 when the white outside paint was obviously still quite new and fresh, and the drive not yet overgrown with grass. Deefs