The Townie Farmer

It’s the one good thing that comes with a stillbirth. 

Losing my daughter Emily was an emotional bushfire.

The kind of experience that sorts out in your mind the stuff that really, properly matters. 

There’s no room for dead wood and detritus in the mental forest when you face such a death so squarely. 

Emily’s legacy to me was a boat-load of perspective.

And I try my best to honour that by not sweating the small stuff.

Keeping calm and carrying on. 

But every so often something happens that undermines that inner calm.

Something that makes me aware of a build up of leaf litter on the forest floor.

An irritation that highlights a need for a spot of woodland management to regain that precious perspective. 

The repeated photographing of us and our workmen by our objectors is one such irritation.

As is being shouted at from the footpath or libelled online and in the parish magazine.

Those libels have included being called ‘dishonest’, ‘criminal’, engaged in ‘subterfuge’.

One particular favourite of mine said we were just like ‘the creeping barrage of the Somme’. 

So when I see a lurking paparazzo in the bushes it occasionally ignites my fury and I can feel a raging rant boiling up inside me. 

But then I remember Emily’s gift to me. 

I cannot possibly begin to fathom the personal miseries or internal battles that incite these people to harass us like they do.

I do not live in Syria.

Just look at the incredible place Oli and I will be lucky enough to call home and the wonderful life we will be able to provide for Chloe and Rory there. 

Emily is buried under a beautiful oak tree at Rowan Farm. 

So she’ll keep me grounded there.

And if I ever get frazzled, I’ll pop over to see her and imagine her telling me to calm down and pipe down and carry on.

And I’ll thank her for the umpteenth time for her wise words. 

Because I’m truly the luckiest mummy there has ever been. 

I just wish Emily was here to tell me in person. 

Take ’em out. 

That was the instruction we gave to Yew Tree Landscapes And Tree Care Ltd. 

The hit took place yesterday afternoon. 

Although it may look like a senseless arboreal attack, this is actually a mercy mission. 

Like two hoodie thugs, the ash trees we took down were in fact crowding out the old lady oak. They had to go if she was to survive and flourish. 

They were also diseased and dangerous, like all good crims. 

But we won’t let their downfall be nothing more than environmental vigilantism. 

The useable timber from the felled ash trees will be planked up on site and used in the construction and fit out of our new home. And any off cuts will be stored to fuel our biomass boiler. 

You couldn’t really get more local with your timber and fuel supply. 

We are also busy planting many new native trees and other plants in an effort to improve the biodiversity of Rowan Farm. 

So despite arranging a contract kill with Yew Tree, we are not the boonie mobsters those troublesome ash trees might have you believe. 

Big Kev. 

That’s what we affectionately call him.

The Grand Designs guru is bestowed with an almost god-like status in the Guthrie home.

His show is property porn as far as we’re concerned. 

So it was with considerable excitement that I found myself discussing filming schedules with one of his producers last autumn.

They liked our story.

Kevin McCloud would be spending a full six days with us.

Our project would be documented by Grand Designs.

GRAND DESIGNS!!!

Coiled springs doesn’t cover it. 

When the producer in question later sent me a Dear John email – citing logistical and editorial reasons for ditching us – I was gutted. 

But as with so many break ups, what initially seemed totally devastating has turned out to be a blessing in disguise. 

Inevitably with a conversion (or even any building project really) there have been unforeseen challenges; we’ve had to make decisions on the hoof; we’ve made some mistakes we’ve had to hastily rectify.

When Oli walked on what he thought was a dry footing and fell Dawn French-style into waist-deep wet concrete we’d have looked like rank amateurs in front of the cameras. 

But that’s the joy of this construction game.

Every day’s challenging; every day’s exciting; every day’s a school day. 

If only Big Kev were here to give a thought-provoking piece to camera. 

This shiny beauty is our newly power-floated concrete floor. 

Completed last night at 10pm sharp. 

The Dream Team of Oli, Toby, Moley, Rob and Donk have been working towards this watershed moment for nearly two months. 

It’s one element of the project that I have been most excited about and I am totally bowled over by the roller disco result. 

But it was very nearly a complete disaster. 

The concrete was booked to arrive on Thursday. It was a date that wasn’t flexible. Come hell or high water, Thursday was when 54 tonnes of the sturdy stuff was being dumped on site. Oli and the lads had worked like stink to get ready for this crucial deadline. 

But on Monday of this week we had no one to help pump it, lay it or power float it. 

Now being ‘can do’ sort-of folk, we had a brief moment of thinking we might give it a go ourselves. But after a quick consultation with those in the know – who told us in no uncertain terms that it would be borderline insanity – we had a swift change of heart. 

Cue frantic phone calls to every concrete outfit Google could lay hands on. And like an angel on horseback came riding Danny from CBS Concreting. 

I cannot recommend this company highly enough. They were delightful, great value and exceptionally hard-working. The CBS team got cracking at 7.30am and barely drew breath until they had a perfect surface well after nightfall. 

And what a finish. 

We haven’t even had it polished yet (which comes next) and already you could fix your lippy in it. 

It may not look like the best start. 

Asbestos roof, willy graffiti from local school kids, decades of compacted animal poo on the floor… It would take even Kirsty and Phil a spot of imagination. 

But somehow it feels like home. 

It will be home.

After years of doing battle with planners and locals bearing metaphorical pitchforks, we finally have planning permission to live and work at Rowan Farm. It’s the chance of a lifetime. 

Here is Site Manager, Chloe (aged 4), overseeing our first efforts to transform this run-down barn into our family home. 

The build will be as sustainable as possible. We’ve already dug a borehole for water and worked hard to improve the ecology of the site, including planting an edible hedgerow and native trees and providing new owl and bat boxes. 

Next up… Our building materials, energy provisions for our home, furnishings, interior fit out, life once we actually live here… Will all be as green as we can possibly make them. 

But being green isn’t always easy. Just trying to find out exactly what the greenest options available are isn’t always very clear. So we’ve been busy doing a lot of homework and there’s yet more head scratching to do. 

We will keep you posted about what we learn in case it helps others doing their level best to be fractionally greener than Jeremy Clarkson eating Blue Fin Tuna on a Transatlantic flight. 

Watch this space.