My Devon Life: Leaning on the Gate....

C is For...

...CIDER WITH ROSIE
and my CATS

I took part in the 2015
A-Z April Blog Challenge

Have you ever read Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee?

In one chapter Lee describes their neighbours at their old farmhouse near Stroud in Gloucestershire. They are the two Grannies, Granny Trill and Granny Wallon, two old Biddies who were permanently at war with each other.

Granny Wallon – “ 'Er-Down-Under” lives downstairs, and fills her days making wines, gathering ingredients from the hedgerows and slowly fermenting the fruits.
Granny Trill, “'Er-Up-Atop” spends her days combing her hair and reading her almanacs. As a girl she had lived with her woodsman father and still seeks comfort in the forest.

The two women arrange their days so that they never meet, doing their shopping on different days, making use of different paths, and continuously rapping on their floors and ceilings.

One day Granny Trill is taken ill and dies, soon followed by Granny Wallon, who loses her will to live. They detested each other (if I recall, we never find out why?) but at the same time, lived for each other.

So what has this to do with Cats? MY cats?
Well, I sort-of have ‘Er-Down-Under and ‘Er-Up-Atop.

Mab usually lives Downstairs and Outside.

Puss-Cat's Penthouse Suite - the Hay Barn
above the Dairy

In nice weather, come the summer, she has her Summer Residence in the Dairy and Hay Barn. She spends her days asleep, her nights hunting. When it rains and the nights grow colder, she moves to her Winter Home, which is my study.

She sleeps on HER chair,

or in HER basket (which is actually MY 'In' Tray)

then disappearing at night to forage the hedgerows. Although in her case it isn’t for fruits and berries to make wine, it is for mice and voles – and the occasional rat, which she delights in leaving as gifts on the carpet in my study.

Mab pretending to be a barn owl?

Sybil is ‘Er-Up-Atop.

She often roams the garden by day, going as far as the stable yard if any one of us happens to be there, although she won’t go near the horses.

She often hides in the trees and complains – loudly – that she ‘can’t get do.. ow..ow..wn!”

By night she sleeps on my bed, usually by my feet, occasionally on top of me. She goes out from upstairs, comes in, goes straight upstairs.
She plays with her toy mice and her favourite ribbons along the landing, which is wood flooring so you can hear her bouncing about – it is almost as if she is rapping on the floor.

The two have their own routes, their own timetables, own ‘dining area’.
And yes, hiss and spit at each other should they ever meet.

Fortunately they are only four and five years old, so it will, I hope, be a long while yet before I discover whether they will, one day miss each other.

2020 Update ...
the two cats have reversed roles!
Mab now lives UPSTAIRS
Sybil is DOWNSTAIRS

They still hate each other...

Next Post
D is for DAWN MIST

for the full

Website: www.helenhollick.net

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And as an extra for the letter C....

what about CHOCOLATE?

Maybe not quite a box of chocs for Easter but I can offer you a

Selection Box of delightful authors

and a free download.

Dip in here... http://ofhistoryandkings.blogspot.co.uk/

Helpful tips for new
and novice writers

http://www.helenhollick.net/revudtd.html

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B is for...

... British BARN OWLS

I took part in the

2015 A-Z April Blog Challenge

Follow me every day (except Sundays)

throughout April for the

next letter in the alphabet!

I have always loved owls. No idea why, and my daughter, Kathy has inherited the same intrigue for them.

Kathy's Wooden Owl

Back in Walthamstow, North East London where we used to live three years ago, we very occasionally heard an owl – usually they were ones that had overflown from Epping Forest and roosted temporarily in the park. I didn’t hear many actually in the Forest because I rarely spent the night hours there.

Here in Devon owls abound. Tawny Owls: We have several in and around the orchard and front garden, and they make quite a racket!

Two weeks after we had moved in, to our delight we saw a Barn Owl skim across the orchard – this was January at about 10a.m on a somewhat dull morning.
Sadly we haven’t seen him or her since, although Kathy has seen a pair further up the lane.

The Dairy has had barn owls nesting in the eaves, no tenants since we moved in unfortunately, so it seems that the Windfall Farm Owls have not managed to survive. There are several at the far end of the village - a couple of miles away - and since these beautiful creatures hunt over quite a distance we are hopeful that a young pair might venture this far to settle. Barn owls are also non-territorial with adults living in overlapping spaces, each hunting territory covering up to about 12,500 acres ....or more than 7,000 football pitches!

that's the old entrance to a nest box
up on the end gable of the roof

We have erected a new box up in the stable yard, The opening faces east – ideal apparently – and out over rough grassland abundant with potential food.

The new nest box from inside the stable

Hopefully, fingers crossed, we’ll get a new family moving in one day.

The barn owl is a ghostly bird as it glides, often low, on silent wings – is it any wonder it has always been believed that it is a spiritual bird, carrying the souls of the dead? Even at up to three metres overhead (that's 9-10 feet) the barn owl’s heart-shaped face collects sound so with the silent flight the bird can hear the minutest sound made by small rodents (voles, mice etc) hidden in thick grass and vegetation along the edges of fields (and sadly, roads, which is where many owls die).

(Photo Kevin Keatley - Barn Owl Trust)

Contrary to belief the barn owl does NOT hoot – that’s the Tawny Owl. A barn owl has a drawn-out screech - almost a scream, and believe me at night it is a very eerie sound! Courting males give a shrill twitter, and both old and young birds can also hiss like a snake if alarmed or threatened.

Hear a barn owl click here (will redirect you to a different site)

I’ll let you know if we ever get tenants in the Barn Owl Box.

Find out more on the Barn Owl Trust Website
Barn Owl Trust on Twitter @BarnOwlTrust
Barn Owl Trust on Facebook

Next Post
C is for Cider with Rosie
(and cats)

for the full

If you have read a book and enjoyed it please leave a comment on Amazon (UK, US & Canada) Four or five star comments can help an author by boosting the Amazon Ranking List
I especially need more comments for my books please! Thank you

Want to catch up on my other A-Z posts
that you might have missed...
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A is for...

http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com

...ARCHITECTURE

I took part in the

2015 A-Z April Blog Challenge

Follow me every day (except Sundays)

throughout April for the

next letter in the alphabet!

To be fair the architecture of our farmhouse here in Devon is not, strictly speaking, all that amazing (although I personally think it is pretty awesome.) The house is not listed but we think it was built circa 1769/1770.

However, when we had the extension extended our architect, who specialises in old Devon buildings, confirmed that would be the likely date judging by the style of various architectural features.

The ceiling beams are old – upstairs the floor sags (not a good idea to walk around up there if you’ve had a glass or two of home-brewed Damson Gin!)

The window and front door lintels intrigued our architect. I had noticed, but he pointed out that they are all different!

“It’s almost as if,” he said, “the person who built this house knew exactly what he was doing and wanted to show the different styles that were possible to build

The front aspect of ‘Windfall Farm’ looks as if it were the eighteenth century equivalent of a show house.”

I wonder? Was it a case of “Come and see our place and decide what shape lintel you would like.”

Note the mortar in the walls - the front of the house has been re-done in horrible cement which will have to be replaced one day, but the original back wall (now inside the extension kitchen) has original limestone and shell mortar.

The Dairy is an anomaly as well.
It was a working dairy building (we have a milk bottle with the dairy stamp of 'Sandhurst' and the telephone number of Chittlehamholt 363)

The dairy is now a hay barn and feed shed

The Dairy in the snow

The shape of the dairy is old – look at the pitch of that roof. From a distance it looks every inch like an old Devon Cobb building. Cobb is made from mixing mud, straw and water together then set layer upon layer to build a wall, left to dry – hey presto a solid structure. Our dairy is modern (ish) breeze block though.

I think someone in the past has gradually rebuilt the dairy in the same style, replacing the old cobb with new breezeblocks as the walls have worn away.

The new extension has been beautifully done – fitting on to the old house as if it has always been there. I particularly love the dormer windows – they make the whole new part look old.

The dangling wire is for CC TV to be fitted
(when we get around to it!)

Plus we paid that little bit extra to install a solid oak staircase.
My only miff, it is American Oak not English Oak. Apparently the USA has plenty to spare, we don't.

Note the owls… come back tomorrow for the letter B for Barn Owl and next week for K…
(curious what K has got to do with architecture? Come back and find out! )

NEXT POST
B is for BARN OWLS

for the full

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