Some Good, Some Bad.

It's been a busy summer holidays and I don't feel I've had enough time to catch up with blogging. I knew it was going to be hectic as I'd planned such a lot, mainly to keep Amy occupied, but other things have happened and subsequently eaten into my time. Not a bad thing, but occasionally life does get in the way. I've had computer problems (which I still seem to be having), and have spent far too long on the phone to various government departments concerning entitlements, not to mention the annual finalising of the accounts. All very time-consuming (and a little bit boring, if I'm honest).

Amy and I had a weekend at my mum's recently where we met up with family and had a very enjoyable evening. We also met up with friends and had a trip to Camelot, a theme park based on King Arthur, that consists of adrenalin rides, roller coasters etc, all very much up Amy's street! I was, as always however, relieved to be home and Sunday night in my own bed was absolute bliss. My mum is considering buying a  laptop at the moment. Her and her partner feel they need to bring themselves up to date with technology and invest in some Internet activities. I can't see her on Twitter or Facebook, but to think she might start reading my blog regularly does fill me with dread a little. My rants leave a lot to be desired, as does the language I sometimes use, so for fear of turning this blog into a fluffy bunny, everything's hunky-dory type of witterings, I'm going to have to bite the bullet and just go for it. Maybe she'll see me in a different light; could be a bit dimmer, but nevertheless, it could be entertaining.

The one drawback we currently face is that our impending trip to Scotland in October might need to be cancelled due to the weather we've had during the summer. Farming relies heavily on the weather and unfortunately this year has proved absolutely, bloody awful. It's possible we won't get the yield in order to make a decent profit and as we still have many fields to cut yet (with the combine) it now means that harvest for us could be rather disappointing as far as the accounts are concerned. Each crop, in our case wheat, barley and oil seed rape, needs to be a certain moisture before it's good to cut, otherwise it will need a substantial amount of time and money spent on it in order to have it dried before it can be sold. Therefore, it's in the farmer's best interests to cut it at the right moisture. The barley and wheat is starting to suffer due to the excessive rain, though we have cut the oil seed rape which seems to be okay. Once the fields have been cut, the straw left after the combine has spat it out is to be baled. The bales are then brought into the shed before the land can be worked, i.e. ploughed, prepared and sown with a new crop. This all takes time as you can imagine and The Farmer won't go away when there's still work to be done involving harvest. It's difficult because I'd quite happily pay a contractor to come and do it for us but he won't hear of it. He's worked the land for over four decades and I'm not going to change him now. So if you can, save a little prayer for the farmers this year, and remember that they work so very hard in order to put bread on your table.