Out West: Day 5

I woke at around 6:20 a.m. Total silence. Pitch black. The first croaks of the crows started at 6:33 a.m. By 7:25 a.m. it was light.

Light? Ha! Will it get much brighter than this all day? One hundred percent cloud cover and there was light rain by 9 a.m. Whatever the forecast for the weekend, the temperature today is going to sit in single figures.

When dealing with brambles, wild roses, hawthorn and blackthorn, as well as some stray wild plum trees, wearing sturdy gloves cannot prevent every barb, spike and thorn. I woke in the night with my hands throbbing in pain, as every pump of my heart pulsed through my wounds. I was wondering whether I might need to nip to the minor injuries unit at Glastonbury’s community hospital for help to remove the fine needles and darts that have pierced my hands and fingers. I did get back to sleep, waking to find the inflammation much reduced, bar at a couple of points. Experience tells me that I will be picking out the offending pieces of plant for a fortnight, or longer. Thankfully, this time round, there are few scratches and punctures of my legs.

The inn was much busier yesterday evening. There was talk of house values, soil treatment, tree species, chickens, a passing reference to golf (urgh) and new immigration regulations making it expensive for ex-pats to return to the land of their birth. This last topic cleared the bar. About six people simultaneously realised they had to hurry home, drained the last of their respective pints and left the man who introduced this politically controversial subject, alone with his phone at the bar.

Does being born in a particular country give you freedom to return, (if you are white, was the strong implication), or do you join the queue like everyone else who hasn’t paid any taxes, nor National Insurance, all your working life?

A more interesting conversation developed between a retired army officer and an HGV driver, who still works having passed retirement age by some miles. While the driver told stories about queuing to get through the Iron Curtain, (no CB Radio allowed, how helpful a box of SKB branded pens was to bribe the border guards, how queue-jumping lorry drivers, (a queue that might be 20km long), had their vehicles vandalised), the ex-officer, (probably a former senior officer), listened with interest. Ironically, given his age, he might have spent years of his career on patrol at this side of the Iron Curtain, never meeting his Soviet opposites, never having a laugh and a beer with them, while the lorry driver was more than familiar with travelling through the militarised border, transporting whatever it was being traded. He told me it was mostly meat from the Republic of Ireland.

If we could get rid of all the weaponry held by every army, people would happily trade and travel the world over. Sadly, arms and munitions factory owners seem have to make a living too.

The other topics that run regularly around the bar are the weather, potholes in the lanes and those flipping roadworks. The road closure on the Main Street is due to a water supply being needed to serve a landowner’s stable yard. It’s inconveniencing everyone, especially me on my walk to and from supper. The name of the landowner has not been mentioned, but ‘the bloody horses’ are frequently referenced.

The road block of cones and temporary fencing had been reinforced by parking the dumper truck and ditch digger across the whole width of Main Street following Monday night’s local resistance to block. The metal fencing had been dragged out of the way and the cones moved by an irritated local needing to drive through the work. Getting through on foot now is a bit easier, but still requires some clambering around the two pieces of construction plant.

The prolonged cold weather had put a stop to egg-laying for a while. The five chickens’ reserves had been concentrated on staying warm, until yesterday when a beautifully shaped, light-olive coloured egg was retrieved from the henhouse.

In other good news, this season’s lambs are on the way. The ewes are noticeable more vocal and a local farmer was leaning over a five-bar gate, checking his flock before nightfall. I sense the first spring lamb will be sprung before I head back to Norfolk next Tuesday night. It would lovely to hear the first local lamb / ewe duet.

An improvement in the light, including a flash of sunshine and a patch of blue sky, meant working outside for the afternoon was on the cards. After completing my designated painter and interior decorating apprentice’s tasks, I collected clippers and secateurs from the shed. The afternoon hedge job was more delicate than Monday’s mission and far less prickly. In fact, I collected no scratches, or thorns all afternoon. Result!

I worked on until beyond five o’clock. As the year progresses, lighter afternoons can throw me out a little. My estimation of the time by the diminishing intensity of daylight trickier as winter draws to a close and have often had to rush to catch evening appointments at this time of year because I had not realised how late it was. I don’t wear a watch, i hate them constricting my wrist, Today, there was no rush, but the falling temperature eventually persuaded me to drag off the cuttings and call it a day.

Weather permitting, I will continue first thing tomorrow, hoping my exposure to prickles remains limited.

CLP 19/02/2026