Despite all the anxieties of the past few months, the advice, the regulations, the locking down, the unlocking, life has become more hopeful and even the simple things in life have made us all happy again – yes, the long-awaited haircut!
Some more good news – Yellingham Farm Bed and Breakfast is OPEN. The decision was not taken lightly and after hours of reading advice from every Hospitality expert in the world as to what to do and what not to do (which changed hourly), we decided to open – in fact the truth of the matter is, the bank balance told us we needed to open.
We decided a trial run was needed to make sure we were protecting our own safety and those of our guests, so we invited 2 very close friends, our Best Man and his wife Tim and Fiona, to stay over and try out the daunting “Safe System’ we had devised.
To set the scene, I think it is necessary for you understand that Tim and Fiona are city dwellers, have travelled the world extensively with work, eaten in the best places, dressed in the loveliest clothes yet they still want to come here – goodness knows why! Trying out the “Safe System” was the least of my worries. So this is how their stay unfolds……..
We have recently purchased some beautiful 4-week-old calves who are obviously still on milk which we feed twice a day via a very efficient basic bucket and teat system. Tim and Fiona were very intrigued to see how this worked. I insisted that they changed out of their clothes into something more suitable – when they walked down the yard I thought they were ready to go out for dinner, but they informed me it was their old clothes (need to check out which charity shops they send their “old” clothes to).
We proceeded to make up the milk powder, 3 litres per calf, and then pour it into the drinkers. That’s the easy part. Now, some calves feed quicker than others and then decide to try and push the other calves off their teat and steal. This has to be stopped and I always stick my hand in the calf’s mouth, and they are happy to suckle for a short while. This is when is nearly all went wrong. Fiona was squeamish about the idea, but I told her she needed to help me as 2 calves had finished and were trying to steal from the other 2. I instructed her to put her palm upwards and get on with it – credit to her she did. Then I realised we nearly had a very, very, expensive problem on our hands. She had used her left hand which were adorned with?…….yes you’ve guessed….. a few diamonds. I shrieked at her to remove her hand pronto as we could spend the rest of the evening waiting for a “motion” to be passed and I’m not talking about a Parliamentary “motion”.
All was well in the end. Tim and Fiona are more educated in the Country way of life and actually want to come back!
Aren’t we privileged in what we do and where we live.
Janet East