We've got 22 acres here and we're currently registered as organic with the Soil Association. The farm is run by my mother who lives in the Granny Annexe. We have a small flock of sheep now, but originally moved here from Worcestershire in 1985 with a herd of British Toggenburg goats and two horses.
How time has flown! Animals have come and gone - the farm currently boasts three dogs Mido, Scamp and Polly and four cats - Calico the house cat and Winston, Mitch and Toby who form the Black Pack. They're supposed to keep the rat population down. We have two much-loved guinea pigs and eight hens at the moment.
We have three ponies. Pippin is 13hh, getting on a bit now and we nearly lost her a few years ago to toothache. She had a major operation at the veterinary school in Bristol and now has to have annual tooth raspings to keep her teeth in check. She was joined by Bullseye, an 11hh Welsh section A gelding when I answered a plea by the RSPCA in Country Living magazine. He was one of a group of 53 ponies they had rescued. They had so many that they ran out of names and used the menu of the restaurant they stopped at on the way home, so when he arrived he was known as Steak and Chips. Our third equine resident is the very glamorous Isty, a beautiful bay Section C mare who arrived a few years ago in need of a permanent loving home.
We have a large garden (I keep pinching bits of the fields) and grow as many of our own vegetables as we can. I've recently redesigned the main garden into three level tiers (we're in the hills, so everything slopes) and I'm working on a prairie-style border at the front of the house.
Work-wise I used to be the reporter for this area for the Western Telegraph newspaper. I switched to subbing and was deputy chief sub-editor and farming editor until I left on maternity leave in 2002. I did a bit of that job as a freelance in 2009/10, but I mostly prefer blogging, writing for the website Ready for Ten and writing fiction these days. Brian works as a statistician at Dyfed-Powys Police headquarters in Carmarthen and our daughters go to the local bilingual school.
I love cooking and baking in a sickeningly domestic goddess kind of way and I make a great cup of coffee. I have recently become addicted to running and try to do at least 20 miles a week - but not all at once!
I'm a very keen photographer and take hundreds of pictures each month with my Canon cameras - a Powershot compact and an EOS 300D.
I love cooking and baking in a sickeningly domestic goddess kind of way and I make a great cup of coffee. I have recently become addicted to running and try to do at least 20 miles a week - but not all at once!
I'm a very keen photographer and take hundreds of pictures each month with my Canon cameras - a Powershot compact and an EOS 300D.
