Breezes of Change

A few things have happened over the last week or so that suggest change is afoot. For a start, I had a Tarot reading on Friday. Now, I can read Tarot and have done so for many people over the last fifteen years or so. But I am rubbish at reading them for myself. So when my cousin phoned and said she was inviting a medium to her home to answer a few 'unexplained happenings' and he was going to offer readings whilst he was there I thought,here's an opportunity to see if I am on track with the grand plan of things. And as the first words he said to me before I could even open my mouth and say 'Hi, I'm Denise,' were 'If you think your writing is just a hobby, then be prepared because it's going to be work,' I took it that as yes, I did make the right decision to leave teaching and write full-time.

It turned out to be a very interesting and fulfilling evening and I felt hugely bolstered by it. And then there's pigs. The main reason for us becoming chicken keepers was the Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall 'Chicken Out' campaign. I'm very selective about my poultry products these days and of course, we have a good supply of free-range eggs. In fact, totting up the eggs for January our girls produced 84 between them. That's 7 dozen! And they also earned their first wages because someone asked to buy some eggs and gave me £1 for half a dozen. She said this would be a regular order so I'm think of opening an account for the hens' earnings. A nest-egg, in fact.

And now there was the recent Jamie Oliver piggie programme and I really want to move towards keeping pigs. Sadly, our back garden is too small to pursue this next avenue of farming for a living so I spent a considerable amount of time on the Internet last week looking at various areas of the country, comparing what we could get for our money and where. Lincolnshire looked very encouraging but we still have the urge to head towards the West Country. And the medium chappie on Friday, without knowing about the pull of pigs said, 'Your real happiness lies in open fields.'

I'm in a dilemma about bees. I was keen to start bee-keeping last year. I read so much information about the subject it could almost be a topic for my Mastermind quest. But I think we really need to be further out into the countryside before I start surrounding the house with hives and wandering about in a suit looking like a lost spaceman. (By the way, what do you do if you find a spaceman? Park in it, man.) So bees are still on the agenda but after releasing four hens into our back garden I don't feel I can push our neighbour's patience by adding bees to the equation. The bee currently living in Andy's ear is not producing honey. I think it is a rogue bee.

And then there's Andy's work. I don't want to go into too much detail but he is becoming mightily hacked off with the whole situation as it currently stands. Suffice it to say that this week-end a large box of wine and equally large bar of chocolate found their way into our house and the GI-NORMOUS slab of caramel slice that my son's girlfriend presented us with last night is fast disappearing. I may have to start a new story called 'Nearly Farmer Andy.'

We've worked out we need about one third of an acre of land to achieve our plans. Definitely no more than one acre. And I feel we're nudging towards it slowly. It'll happen. Don't know when. But it will.