Wife in the North

It's cool and cloudy here this morning (a Seattle day!) and the dozens of California poppies that popped up in the wildfower bed this past weekend are staying closed.

I don't have time to do deep, meaningful blogging but I did have to share this wonderful bit I just came across:

I receive the expat e-mail version of the London Telegraph which today features stories like that of Brits who survived the ordeal of renovating a ruined house outside Rome,etc.

But this edition of the Telegraph also tells of the saga of a British blogger who has created a sensation (and been given a book deal) by simply venting on line.

Judith O'Reilley was desperate when she, a Londoner to the bone, and her husband moved to the wilds of Northumbria 2 1/2 years ago . Trapped in cottage with two small children, an absentee husband who was still working in London, blizzards, and the complete absence of good coffee, O'Reilley turned to blogging for solace - and became a celebrity overnight.

I just found her blog and I can see why: Wife in the North is very well written: funny, sharp, and yet endearing. It reads like an updated, spicy, woman's version of "All Creatures Great and Small" .

Here's a taste. her March 17 entry: Ewe Don't Say:

Popped round to see a friend for coffee.

This being the country, this being spring, she was not in the kitchen, she was in the lambing shed. The sheep which had not yet given birth were milling around in an open area penned in by bales of straw; sheep which had given birth were in their own small enclosures with their lambs.

I said to my friend: "How can you tell when they're ready to give birth?" She said: "Well look at that one." I said: "Which one?" She said: "That one." I looked at the sheep she was pointing at. She said: "You see. She looks "starey"." I said: "She looks like a sheep." It is not like there are any give away clues - no one was straddling a beanbag, sucking on ice chips or screaming for an epidural. They all seem to take it all quite calmly.

In fact it was almost biblical. Sunshine fell through the open side of the barn where there was tranquility, warmth, new life and just a little bit of blood being spilled. Every now and then my friend who has a bad back would drop to her knees and I would think: "Is she going to say a prayer of thanksgiving?" Instead she would do something to the backside of an animal that made me think: "I am so not having another baby."

At one point she tried to "put a lamb on" that is to say persuade a ewe to adopt an orphan, she eased aside the ewe's own lamb, wrangled the mother to the ground then knelt on her. She took hold of the orphan lamb, handed him up to me and said as if it was nothing very much: "Put him in the water trough up to his head would you?" I carried the long legged lamb across the straw carpetting the barn and over to the trough and ducked him under. I said: "Sorry mate."

I just about resisted saying: "Do you renounce Satan and all his works?" I carried the dazed, wet bundle back and she smeared him with goo from the ewe and his "brother" lamb. I suppose that is what you call being born again.


See what I mean?

I can't help but smile and remember the Gower peninsula in March with the hundreds of daffodils blowing in the wind and hundreds of lambs leaping about on stiff, springy legs. (Like these lambs looking over magnificent Rhossili Bay)



I know that coffee is all the rage in London these days but it is good to know that tea still reigns in places like Northumbria - and I hope, in south Wales. Bow to the inevitable, I say. The tea is good. Stock up on Yorkshire Gold and enjoy the views. Remember, civilization is only a few hours away by train.



Moonlight on Three Cliffs Bay, Gower.

The picture above has a copyright. Where I found it online, I can't remember but the artist is worthy of his due and hire. Go here for more information about the photograph and the photographer who specializes in pictures of the beautiful Gower peninsula.