If my barn had a belt, I would need to let it out a couple of notches. In times before, (before the war, before covid, before…everything) I’d buy in reed for the next job as I was finishing the one I was on. Because of the on going uncertainty of availability and price, I’m buying in what I can, when I can for the whole year ahead. The barn has been stuffed to the gunnels, and obviously the thing you want is always behind everything else … as were the bees. Daisy was throwing down bundles of reed for me to load, when she revealed a little hive of now very angry bees. I put on my very own bee suit, given to me by Martin and Karen of Chaffcombe, and moved the hive into a shoe box and put them high out of my way and theirs.

So we are off and running on a large water reed re-thatch in Honiton. There is a Georgian front added to a much earlier farmhouse at the back, and as we took off the thatch in the valley we could see all the old hip of the roof still in place inside. What we could not see were any timbers holding up the sheets of tin lining the valley (where one roof meets another at an internal right angle). How in the world it had held itself all in place was a mystery and lucky that neither of us fell in! A couple of days later and all the old tin was gone, new timbers in and a lead lined valley glaring at us in the rising temperatures. Pressure on a little bit as we were booked to go on holiday with Daisy’s girls and their friends, but with a day to spare we finished the first section. Just as well as the skies opened and threw several tons of water at it. We were soaked through. A change of clothes and we were off to retrieve one of Daisy’s cows from the Dartmoor Dating Agency. The cow decided she was quite happy on Dartmoor thank-you-very-much and went off with the rest of the herd to the farthest corner of the field. A hike through gorse and more rain had us soaked through again, but at last she loaded and we were off back home.

Daisy fetched her friend John to look after Jelly and Widget went to a friend of mine, under strict instructions not to let either of them onto the furniture, and then after what seems like years, of course it has been years, we were packed and on our way to Crete. This was Lulah’s choice for her 16^th Birthday, and what an excellent choice it was. We started off in the Old Town of Rethymno, solidly built by the Venetians in the 16^th Century, with narrow alleyways several degrees cooler than the beach, and great limestone arches bracing meter thick walls. It felt like up to half the houses were now guest houses, much like our own coastal villages I suppose, with the remainder split between local people hanging in there and derelict houses waiting for something to happen to them. These to us are the most fascinating as we peer through gaps in doors or missing stones to see which of them would be our hearts desire to restore. Very few are for sale though as most are firmly held by families waiting for either the time or the funds to reinstate them. 

The girls either window shopped or made for the beach,  while we tried and I think failed to walk every one of the alleyways. I’ll be honest we managed a fair bit of snoozing too. We needed it. Daisy’s not been so well of late, and I think the Cretan heat made us slow down and just rest a bit. Saying that, we also hiked two gorges, one small and full of natural pools to swim in in the shade and cool off, one claiming to be the deepest and longest in Europe at 16km long. A bus takes you to the top of the gorge and you hike to the sea past more beautiful natural pools and a lot of stern looking wardens reminding you that it’s drinking water and not to put your stinky feet in it! After 6 hours of fairly hard hiking you pretty much throw yourself into the sea to cool off and ease your aching feet. It was stunning though, definitely worth the effort and the day after, we did about the most touristy thing we could find and went to a water park. Daisy and I only discovered the pure, simple, childlike joy of water slides fairly recently. I think it balances out all the cultural things we visit and the hikes we do. It’s just great fun.

For our last few days we moved up into the mountains to Milia Mountain retreat. Built out of the ruins of a village uninhabited since the 50’s, it’s completely off grid with banks of solar panels, spring water and much of their own produce for the restaurant. Two local families whose parents had lived there decided in the eighties to get the right to enclose the land, I would guess between 5 and 10 hectares…hard to say when half of it is a near vertical mountain … and reduce overgrazing and manage the land in a more sustainable way. The difference between their parcel of land and their neighbours was stark, theirs being more lush and green, the neighbours while not barren at all was definitely the poorer.

It took us a while to get Daisy out of the restaurant each day as the list of delicious things to eat was as long as Daisy’s desire to try them all, but when we did, we headed to a secluded beach edged with 1000 year old Cedar trees, each lazily dripping sap into the shady sand. Instead of parasols each family had a tree to shelter under. The sea was as clear and blue as you could possibly imagine. We had a snorkel to share and there was shoal after shoal of fish of all sorts and sizes. Lulah and Emma each saw octopus too…and as it turns out, probably a bit more than any of us had bargained for as two young Greek gods took to the water with not a stitch on. Daisy and I laughed out loud as we watched the girls stuck on a rock looking in all of the other 300 or so degrees around, anywhere except there! 

The only thing that really riled me was as we drove to the beach through acres and acres of greenhouses, growing mostly tomatoes I think. There were goats on what at first I took for piles of old plants, which it partly was, but it was mostly old baler twine used to hold up the tomato vines. And then when we parked it was in a sea of litter, mostly from the greenhouses but of course a lot from the likes of us. There was just so much of it, I felt quite angry. Daisy just quietly got out and fetching a bag from the boot filled it with rubbish from next to the car, tied the top and walked it over to the huge waste bins left for the purpose. Baffled, I did say to her, “What good will that ever do, look how much there is?” Cool as a cucumber and already getting ready for the beach she just said, “Yes, but at least that bit is clean”. I admire her for it but struggle with that myself. I’d have to go back with industrial sized skips and a contract with a polypropylene recycling company in my hand. It says a lot about both of I s’pose, and it’s no different at work; I’m all about the big Italian gesture the grand sweeps of jobs done and jobs to do, while Daisy focusses on the small stuff, all the small things I just can’t be bothered to do. I’d spend all day walking awkwardly over something just to get on with the work, but Daisy’ll move it straight away, tidying it into the right place. She just smiles, and then I don’t walk awkwardly anymore.

So here we are, home again, back thatching in Honiton and living with Widget’s wistful eyes begging to be let up on the sofa as she had been with my friend….I guess she had a great holiday too.