March and into April have been a time of change and challenge here on the farm and within our family.
The wettest March in more than 40 years came and went, bringing with it stress-inducing consequences.
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Compared to last year, we were three weeks behind with our spring drilling and 100 of our cattle went out a month later than usual to get them acclimatised to outdoor living before they hit the marshes in May.
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To be honest, its been that stress-inducing I went a whole day wearing my underwear inside out and only noticed when I crawled into bed at night.
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Now for the times of change. Since my last article, my grandparents have made the very difficult decision to put their small holding on the market.
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This decision has not been made lightly, with my nan having lived there for the past 65 years and them running a profitable market garden business from there, selling their bedding plants and veg at Liverpool market. However, it is indeed for the best.
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With the coming sale comes a massive amount of nostalgia for me. As a child, I would stay every Friday night with my grandparents, sleeping in the teddy bear decorated room, still as it was, today.
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My nan would tell me stories of Mrs Pig who got the Number 22 bus to Ormskirk to buy bacon in her red stilettos.
My sister and I would dance and sing in their kitchen to my grandads 50s music and most definitely to his annoyance as he tried to cook tea.
My granddad taught me how to pour whiskeys: two fingers he would say, while demonstrating his fingers getting further and further apart.
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We would ride in wheelbarrows while they cut lettuce or parsley and be given cardboard box houses to colour and decorate how we liked, mainly to keep us quiet while they worked in the greenhouses.
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We played the game of find the penny in said greenhouses while we waited to hear news of my sister being born and it was there I learnt that Ken Bruce is one person and not two separate people called Ken and Bruce.
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In more recent years, we have spent Christmas Eves and Bonfire Nights there and received Facetimes of a teddy Winnie the Pooh doing a tour of my nans garden and fields during lockdown as well as many updates of her new running ducks.
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As the inevitable horsey women come for viewings, all I can think of is how much this home and integral part of my childhood will be sorely missed, but I will always have the memories. How lucky I am to have had so many wide open spaces to wander through growing up.
