its been a long, long time!

After a long time without blogging i have finally bitten the bullet and decided to write again.

I should re-cap what has happened over the last few years:-

The children are getting bigger, hungrier and more expensive than ever, mrs g also...

The farm amazingly is still solvent - despite my best efforts (and mrs g's)

I see in my last blog that i was still working in the graintrade. Unfortunatly work was hard so i quit...

We have more ducks than ever, and will soon have even more as another shed is being built at the moment. that is, if it finally ever stops raining!

despite the economy, duck related construction work, and their ability to annoy me, the horses and horsey people are still here. we have our usual love/hate relationship. I love them all - they hate me, pretty much unanimously i think at the moment due to mud caused by duck construction, noise caused by duck construction, traffic caused by.. i think you have guessed by now!

We have expanded into private storage and workshop units. i quite enjoy this side of the business as it involves very little effort or management. two exceptionally good traits for any business i am involved in. I am not sure if my watching constant re runs of 'Storage Wars' and 'Auction Kings' is a good idea though. these television programmes (for the bennefit of my non TV obsessed readers) involves people who buy abandoned or bankrupt private storage units at auction and then they root around in the debris and oddments of the peoples lives stored therin, looking for valuables to sell on. it makes me secretly hope if anyone abandons one of our units and i have to go through it, that i will be finding the occassional unknown Piccaso or Rembrandt stuffed into the back of a shipping container, which would help my relationship with my bankmanager greatly! - not to mention my relationship with Mrs G. it would be my luck that i would just find a pile of dodgy asbestos and some really poor quality 70's porn - not all bad i hear you say, but its bound to be Betamax not VHS!


   

S & M on valentines!

Mrs G went all out this year and bought me a M & S special offer three course 'dine in' meal for our romantic valentines meal albeit a day early.

Being slightly dyslexic I got rather excited when I saw her Facebook status while i was at work on friday, I did not know what a S & M dinner was, something kinky with whips and rubber outfits I thought! however, I was not disappointed even though my treat did not involve any nudity, which in hindsight may have put Mrs G off her supper. As a general rule in life the only nuts I enjoy being whipped are walnuts.

Somehow I managed to put my back out Friday being driven round a rather rough farm next to Luton airport and I have been in stunning pain ever since. a trip to Sainsburys Saturday morning yielded every pack of 'stick on' heat pads they had. The pack recommendation states 'one pad to be applied to the painfull area for a maximum of ten hours in any 24 hour period' I am on my sixth today and have started applying them two at a time, I don't think anyone has ever died of overdosing on heat pads. I also got a large tube of deep heat and some Neurofen. a friend of mine uses deep heat when on long fishing trips as he suffers from a bad back when camping, though the whimper of pain I heard coming out of his bivvy (tent) one night suggested that traces of deep heat on your hands while reading a Playboy magazine is not a pleasant combination. Though he did not complain of the cold much after that.

A bad back is not condusive to a romantic valentines evening though after a bottle of fizzy pink Carver, a half bottle of rose we found in the back of the fridge and a couple extra heat pads on my back, the pain had been sufficiently aneasitised to allow me to have a romantic evening with Mrs G. I cant help wondering though what the S & M dinner would have been like....

back after a break!

It has been commented to me today that since I joined the grain buying trade four months ago, the market has completely collapsed, with the average value of wheat dropping by around £10/tonne.

While I don't think the market collapse can be laid entirely at my door, I think the general opinion is that I am actually a rubbish farm trader. my ability to persuade farmers to part with there hard grown crops is almost as good as my ability to grow Tilapia fish, or generate a satisfied livery customer (or wife, Mrs G is screaming at me). However I am learning. I know far more about the grain business than I did six months ago, which is not surprising as I knew next to nothing back then, now I know next to, next to nothing which is an improvement I suppose.

I have been doing some public speaking, Nuffield talks and the like. I thought in order to prepare for the talks I would do some warm-up presentations, so I went down to the local old peoples home to practise my jokes and improve my technique. my first talk to the old biddys went quite well, admittedly nobody laughed, but they all pissed themselves anyway!

(pause for laughter)

they dont get any better than that do they?!

Mrs G and I took the kids to Centreparcs for a long weekend a couple of weeks ago. four days of fun, laughter and quality time with the kids.

Centreparcs offers a massive variety of activities swimming, bowling, quad biking and all sorts of exciting stuff. so what do my kids want to do? get out in the fresh air and enjoy the thrilling sports? no. they opt to stay in the villa and chuck up all weekend. that's life eh!

So then, who did kill Archie Mitchel? my money is on young Dottie Cotton, just a hunch. Hopefully a better hunch than my deciding not to sell my wheat at £105/tonne three months ago thinking the price was bound to go up....

Waste

Am I the only one who thinks that Sam Mitchell on Eastenders is a really weird looking women? I don't know why people keep going on about how beautiful she is, to be fair there are much better looking women on Eastenders. Although the Totty standard has dropped in recent years. Gone are the halycon days of Dawn Swan. Tanya Branning is the only remaining eye candy worth noting (I don't count the Mitchell sisters - they are not the Duckman type) and then Tanya is only really a 7/10 on the best of days. But I am jaded, ever since 'Dee' (they never found the body - how did that work, she had a fine pair of built in life preservers?) drowned in neighbours, no other soap opera babe has been able to compare. I live in hope.

I visited a farm today that was storing about 3,ooo tonnes of rice. it was kept in one big heap on a shed floor. this was then being processed and will end up in Uncle Bens and supermarket own boxes all over the country. It was very impressive. But I couldn't help thinking that it could feed a lot of people in the third world for a long time, but sadly a lot of it would end up being chucked in a bin. Do you realise that we waste about 40% of the food we produce in this country? when you see a pile of food big enough to literally ski down it puts things in perspective.

November 15th

Have you ever heard the saying that its the second mouse that gets the cheese? well, I have been the first mouse several times. Obviously I am speaking metaphorically, otherwise I would be dead. Maybe I didn't learn my lesson well enough first time? or am I just thick? - maybe its a combination of the two? answers on a postcard please!

Those of you that know me will know that I have been rather unfortunate with my last two business ventures, and that since then my confidence has taken rather a big hit. However I am now starting to feel my self belief returning just a tinsy bit, the clouds of self pity are starting to clear.

But this time I will not be that first mouse. On a side note, when I was trying to catch a particularly noisy mouse I used mars bars as bait after several weeks using cheese, they seemed to prefer that. Then I discovered that they like peanut butter just as much which was good as I ate the mars bars. Frankly its a bit stereotypical that mice like cheese, this is the naughties and mice have more metropolitan tastes now.

I guess you are wondering what my idea is? keep reading my blog to find out!

Im Pooped!

I am as knacked as a small worm at coffee break time after a busy morning dodging the early bird.

In the last four weeks I have worked an average 75 hour week, with the exception of two days at the Nuffield conference where I had the undescribable pleasure of a 7.30 lay in. However even this minor relief was stolen from me by late nights in the bar and 4 hour drive either way!

But I cannot complain, there are many people worse off than me. I still have my looks, wit and charm. Actually, putting it like that I am in the proverbial!

I am looking forward to the weekend. Its my eldest sons (Master G) 8th birthday on Sunday. Wow. It is amazing how the time has flown by! a couple of weeks after that it is Mrs G's and i's 9th wedding anniversary. Ideas for romantic surprises will be gratefully received. don't let your suggestions be hampered by thoughts of the credit crunch. Just remember that I am a cheapskate!

Now I have completed my Nuffield Scholarship report and presentation I am a little unsure where to go from here. How do I develop this further? I don't want to put the report in the drawer and forget about it. maybe a sideline in agricultural motivational speaking?

Top class public speaker available for hire!

Last weekend was the Nuffield Winter Conference, where all the brightest and best young minds in British agriculture go to present there hard written reports for 'peer review'. The rest of us went for the beer and to catch up with our mates!

Two full days of sitting listening to other scholar reports gave time for my nerves to build up to a level similar to a fifteen year old boy on a promise. I had decided to approach the event with a less technical, lighter presentation, as I thought most people would be out to impress with deeply intelligent, well considered and balanced reports. Obviously that path was not open to me, so I had to rely on my good looks and charm (not my strongest points either to be fair, so i was kind of out on a limb) In the end I settled for humour to make me stand out. After much care full thought I left out most of the knob jokes and all but one of the terrible puns.

Unfortunately Mrs G had found something more important to do, rather than attend my presentation. When I spoke to her before I left she said something about being busy alphabetising our DVD collection.

Before I knew it I had given my report, and sat back down to thunderous applause, probably caused by the cessation of my pain causing puns, or because it was very close to lunch time, i am not sure which but my ego lapped it up all the same.

if anyone is interested they can view my full report at http://www.nuffieldinternational.org/reports/report.php

Just to boost my ego my report was 'Highly Commended' unfortunately this does not come with a life changing cash prize, or the sort of public accolade that leads attractive girls to throw there underwear at me in the street and beg me to ravish them. However again, the ego accepted it and was duly boosted.

Back in the real world, my grain trading career has yet to reap me a British bank busting bonus, (about 35p i would imagine) however I have just submitted my first ever expenses claim form. I don't have illusions to political office, but if I ever did I feel very confident now about my expense form filling skills not letting the side down.

Random meaningless title

The Duckman is now an office boy. But I guess that except for some special interest groups, an 'Office Boy Diaries' would not be a very exciting blog!

I hope not to be an office boy for too long, as once I am trained a large proportion of my new job will be out of the office and on farms dealing direct with farmers, building relationships (not 'Office Boy' special interest type of relationships) but trading relations with farmers, purchasing there hard won produce. So if you farm in Royston, Thetford or the Colchester area you will be receiving a introduction letter from me and then if you are unlucky a visit.

Lots has happened since my last blog, which I appreciate was back in the dim, dark past. Happy days when the pound was strong and MP's where honourable and true. Well maybe not that long ago! Anyway, I have been fishing to France at least once since last blogging. Which was great for me, not so great for Mrs G, and even less great for the Carp.

I have to give my big Nuffield Presentation in a couple of weeks to the whole Nuffield organisation at the annual Nuffield Winter Conference. So far my speech notes consist of reading out my study title and a couple of knob jokes. I am working on padding it out a bit but I have run out of knob jokes. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

We now have two new additions to the family. They are small furry and very energetic. before you start wondering why we have Welsh miners living in our house, I should point out that these are in fact Guinea Pigs. I bought for little Miss G's 4th birthday a couple of weeks ago. I am open to new culinary experiences and am very keen to delve into the unexplored world of Peruvian cuisine, but I really cannot see the piglets (as I affectionately call them) tasting that good, way too boney.

friday feeling!

Its been a while since I last blogged. I apologise to my reader, (sorry mum).

Busyness has been happening. I have been offered a job after three interviews, which i have accepted. The general opinion is that I will hate working. but I am not so sure. I think it will be nice to let someone else do the worrying for a while. The position is as a farm grain trader, buying crops from farmers on behalf of a trading firm. We will see how it goes! I will keep you informed.

I will still be the duck man, in fact if we get the planning application I have processing at the moment we will have more ducks than ever, with the capacity to produce 90,000 birds a year.

in my personal, non-business life Mrs G and I have bought bikes. This is with the aim of keeping fit. I managed a 5 mile cycle Wednesday. I must be honest and say that it nearly killed me. I had to stop twice to catch my breath and rest my wobbly legs. I was a little disappointed as I had not Even got out of the front drive by that point. All I can say is that improvement should be swift. I have decided that living on top of a hill is not great for a budding cyclist. The fun part (downhill) is at the start when you are fresh and (relatively) fit. the rubbish bit uphill is reserved for the final leg home when you are just a hairs breadth short of cardiac arrest. also the last leg of the journey is the busiest bit with cars hooting at me (mainly due to my shorts keep riding down revealing a little too much of my tidy whiteys). I need to get some proper cycling shorts, not for comfort but to avoid causing a major accident.

Sorting the junk

Mrs G has told me to write about how great and understanding she is in letting me go fishing in France again. I have done it Mrs G, stop hitting me now! one day i will tell you the story of when she stabbed me. But not today.

To give me a chance to raise my marital Karma levels (which must be fairly low I reckon) Mrs G offered me the opportunity to spend the day filling a skip she had ordered for tidying the garden and immediate house surroundings. I was under threat of death that I was not to put any farm waste into the skip, just house stuff. I was absolutely amazed at the amount of junk I found lying around. to add to my fun I got out my old oil drum incinerator and burnt any flammable waste, obviously only waste for which I had a waste exemption licence to burn (just in case any EA officials are reading) smashing up junk and burning it is a great way of releasing pent up frustration. There must be a way of marketing it, I just have to think of one!

I must say I got a little worried when the 20ft flames where licking the wooden trellis/archway above our garden wall. Everybody including myself got very worried after the third massive explosion, even Mrs G was worried, it must be said that Mrs G is normally rather indifferent to any personal injury I may cause myself. It turns out that it wasnt the rapture signalling the end of the world but that I had accidentally put a bag containing a pigeon scaring 'Thunder Rope' onto the fire, there was three major explosions followed by about a dozen smaller bangs (which I guess was shotgun cartridges). My ears have been ringing ever since.

I could draw a deep and meaningful theological conclusion about sorting out our live by getting an 'emotional skip' in, but I wont as that would be boring.

A new challenge! ideas please

Terrible, life shattering news. Readers Digest is going bust. Shock horror! what will I and thousand others like me read while in the loo? how will I increase my word power or discover how eating 15kg of asparagus a day can ward off testicular cancer? Can I live without Laughter the best medicine and Humour in uniform?

To fill the gaps between adverts for stair lifts, hearing aids and incontinence pants (which suggests to me that I am not the target demographic) Readers Digest has tasters of new books and specially commissioned articles, usually of an adventurous or biographical nature. This months edition was no different with a piece where the journalist spends a whole week in silence with humorous observations resulting from this. The writer draws witty and thought provoking lessons from his experience to enrich and challenge the reader.

One book that was previewed in the Readers Digest has been turned into the new Jim Carey film 'Yes Man' where Jim Carey's character can only answer yes to every question, the film was inspired by a Danny Wallace real life book where he discovers how liberating it is to actually take every opportunity.

This got me thinking, I have some spare time and fancy a challenge. What crazy challenge could I undertake, then write a book about it and then sell the rights to Hollywood for millions of pounds? though to be fair I am not sure who they would get to play me, Hugh Grant I think, though he would need to work out a bit for the role.

Ideas for challenges I have had so far:

• Change my name to 'Jock McStrap' and wear nothing but a kilt and subsist on a diet of Haggis and porridge for a month (the only downside I can see is that it may traumatise the ducks whose eyes would unfortunately be below kilt level. also there is a strong risk of excessive flatulence)
• Travel around the country with nothing but a twenty four can pack of Asda's budget baked beans with which to barter for transport food and accommodation. (also runs risk of flatulence)
• In the style of Yes Man and the vow of silence challenge I could undertake a grammatical challenge along the lines of only using words with the letter P in for a week or refusing to use vowels. (conversation would be limited to sentences involving fly, sty, my and pry - it may be hard to write a book about it)
• Travel around the world staying in 5 star hotels and sleeping with beautiful women every night. (I am not sure what the challenge is but I am actively seeking a funding sponsor)

Mrs G had a few ideas as well but hers where mainly along the lines of my doing all the washing up and housework everyday or giving up sex for a year. Her ideas obviously have no artistic or literary credibility so I will therefore disregard them.

Any ideas would be welcomed! In tomorrow's blog I will tell you what happened when I was fencing yesterday and unknowingly put a post into a wasps nest, with hilarious consequences.

sad times

The end of my arable farming career passed yesterday without celebration. As the combine completed the last strip of wheat that signalled the end of harvest on my land, I was not sure how to react. normally I am very pleased to finish harvest and have all the crops in the barn, but not so this year. The combine will be cleaned and serviced and delivered to its new owner, the rest of my kit has been sold and will leave the farm shortly.

Next week someone else will till the soil and plant the seed, next year someone else will anxiously watch the weather forecast, and next year someone else's combine will harvest the corn. Obviously as a big tough farmer I do not show emotion, but somewhere inside of me, a little tear was shed. Sad times.

As a child I used to love playing in the crops, or sitting on my grandads lap in a tractor and helping the men feed the pigs. My favorite photograph I have is of me as a toddler with a little red cap on feeding the pigs with my grandad, he used to scold me if I gave one pig all the food so i could watch the other pigs squeal trying to get to it, but nonetheless he still bought me a little child sized feed scoop so that I could help him. Good times.

These things and slowly the people too, are just memories now, a haze in my past. Golden rose tinted images flash frozen in my mind, which sadly grow fainter with age and all too soon the reality will be blurred with the fog of time.

I wonder what if any farming memories I will leave for my children? are they are too busy with ipods and computer games, and too young to realise that the world is irrevocably changing around them, or is it just my world that is changing and I should just accept it?

Are they forming there own memories that they will look on when they grow old? what are they? I hope they are good ones, Its always the little things, like the Winnie the Pooh wallpaper that I had as a child or my grandmas fry-ups, at the time they where not important but there significance grows with teh passing of time.

On Tuesday night I completed my first public speaking engagement, giving the after dinner speech to the Agricultural Valuers Association's agm. I came away hungry as unfortunately the speech was actually after dinner and I was to nervous to eat much beforehand! I thought though that asking for a doggy bag to eat afterwards would give the wrong impression.

My talk seem to be well received, in fact one person commented to me afterwards that most people give talks about how brilliant there businesses do and how clever they are, he though it most refreshing to hear about how somebody has cocked everything up and is actually a really rubbish farmer. My audience left cheered up hopefully that however bad there businesses may be coping during the recession at least they are better farmers/businessmen/consultants/advisers than I am.

I am available for speaking engagements, I just ask that my fee be paid in the form of double helpings of pudding, payment due immediately on completion.

Okey dokey

right then, first off an update on the job search, after my first job interview on Tuesday I received a call from the recruitment agent to say that the company loved me passionately and would like me back for a second interview on Thursday, and that basically he thinks they are going to offer me the job. Wow, this raises several dilemmas, I have had several positive responses from other companies, including agricultural banking for a major (and fortunately solvent) high street name. Is it good to take the first offer? should I ask for 10k more and demand a page three stunner as a personal PA? obviously I will need a expenses account on a par with a Labour MP or the gross national product of a small developing nation, but then that goes without saying.

I have had a busy day today, completing a haymaking job for a horsey client in the village, rather embarrassingly and quite unlike me I was reminded on completion that I forgot to bill them the previous year for making there hay, and that they would appreciate it greatly if I would forget to bill them again this year! No wonder I have to get a job! Mrs G will never get her indoor pool and sauna complex if I forget to bill people! its makes me think what else I have forgotten!

I then wrote some notes for a after dinner speech I have to make on Tuesday night to the Agricultural Valuers Association's AGM. These guys are professional farm consultants who help people do the tedious paperwork on farms and consult on farm developments. I am supposed to go and tell them about developing farm diversification's. which is kind of like taking coal to Newcastle or teaching sex education to Essex girls. I am working on some cracking jokes, most of which so far are completely unsuitable, mostly involving essex girls, but very funny in my head. which is where they should stay. Forever!

busy busy!

Unfortunatly I have been to busy harvesting to write the blog for the last few days, however a wet day today has given me a bit of a break.

A wet saturday gave me the time to take the kids to the circus, which was an experience that I have not had for a long time. there was a troupe of 5 stallions, camels, elephants and best of all five (unfortunately) well trained and beutifull tigers. I must admit to being just a tinsy bit sorry that the tigers did not eat the trainer and that the elephents did not break free and rampage around the big top with deadly consequences. admitidly it would not have been great having the kids in the same tent with wild tigers and elephants eating people, especially with me being so plump and tasty looking. fortunatly that did not happen, though maybe if i had not been so tight and had paid out for front row seats the tigers may have had there appettites piqued.

I had my first interview for a job yesterday which was an interesting experience. Entering the corporate world will be a novel and new experience for me, one that I am excited about but am also, if I am honest, very nervous about as well.

combining at last!

Right, a proper farming post. On Tuesday we started combining in winter wheat (Einstein for the arable nerds reading this) yields are not great at around 8 tonne a hectare but better than nothing! another good dry day today helped and we are now over a third through the wheat. Ironically it started raining as we where driving the combine home, the black clouds where threatening all day but they behaved themselves and did not open until the day was done.

My ginger mate is off to France fishing tomorrow. Without me. Its the first time that he has been and I have not gone with him. so when I am sitting bored on my tractor waiting for the combine to fill up, I will be able to think that I could be fishing in France with him.

As I am sitting in my lounge writing this I can hear the rain thundering against the windows, so I will just turn up the volume on Eastenders (thank you Sky plus!) and probably fall asleep on the sofa.

Your Fired!

Mrs G and I are sitting watching 'Young dumb and living off mum' a programme where a load of slobs are stuck in a house to try to 'improve' them. Its not worked with me yet. or the kids. They are going to work on a farm tonight, I have seen the trailer and it looks funny.

Its time to come clean. I was under a publicity screen whereby I could not discuss it, now though it is time. I wanted to be a TV star, I thought the would should see more of Farmer Gage (no, not centre spread in Playgirl magazine) but alas TV fame is not going to happen, unless i one day end up on Crimewatch.

I went to Manchester to be interviewed for the next series of 'The Apprentice'. People say why would I want to look like an idiot on national television in front of the whole country. I am just bored I guess!

Anyway, I went to the interview and was duly led into a large room to stand in front of three judges, X-Factor style. This was done in a large group of fifteen and we all had thirty seconds to say why we should be the next apprentice, I was inspired to wear my tweeds and go for it 'farmer' style, ending my thirty seconds with the tag line 'Its time for this country mouse to come to town' this went down great with the guardian reading, torn jeans TV executive types running the interviews. Naturally I was selected out of the group of fifteen to go through for an individual interview which I thought went really well, the interviewer even suggested i should keep using the 'country mouse' line. However it obviously did not go that well as I was not ultimately selected for the programme. It is British Broadcasters loss I assure you!

New ducks, new start

We have had some new residents move in on the farm yesterday, so I have had a busy night tonight. They need to have there little water trays filled up every three hours. Its a hot sweaty job as it is around 29 degrees in the shed and 80% humidity.

We have guests staying for the weekend but I have found it pays not to drink too much on duck day, the ducks tend to get under you feet a bit, sober you can skip over them - but tipsy you tend to crunch them. a two ounce duck will never win an argument with a sixteen stone guys foot.

I have put my name into some agricultural recruitment agency's, seeing that I now have not a lot to do on the farm. I have been getting a few responses, mainly grain buying/trading positions. The trouble is that I am not sure what I want to do myself. I need to do something interesting as I have a low boredom threshold, the trouble is recruiters see my CV, and say I would be great, then they say why do you need a job? and it all goes downhill from there... But I am sure that something interesting will come up eventually. I reckon Gordon Browns job must be on the vacant soon, how do I apply for that one?

Im depressed.

In Wilbur Smith's latest book Assegai the auther describes money as being like the tides of the sea. well at the moment my tide is at low water. Over the horizon in fact. It makes low tide at Southend seem like a flood.

This situation is somewhat depressing me. I was thinking earlier today as I was preparing my ducks for there final journey this evening, that I wish that I was a character in a novel. The hero always suffers some terrible personal disaster but always ends up Prime Minister or something equally grand after a few hundred pages. In one of Wilbur Smith's earliest books the heroine is stranded after a shipwreck on a desert beach in East Africa, penniless, without food or supplies and facing a certain death within hours. With hyenas circling, her future could hardly be viewed with much optimism. However, to prove my point, after a hundred pages she discovers (after being rescued by San bushmen) a massive diamond in what turns out to be one of the largest diamond fields in Africa and therefore the world, making her one of the richest and most powerful women in the world. Bully for her. I should start looking for diamonds, Its about time I found my own diamond field!

I used to believe that what does not kill you only makes you stronger. I am starting to think that I got it wrong. I am starting to that that what does not kill you straight away is slowly chipping you down and will get you eventually.

Anyway. I apologise to my reader for being depressing. I am sure I will have cheered up by the time I write my next post. Who knows, I may have found my own Diamond mine by then, I think I will go and find my spade and start looking! That or go to the cinema, buy a large coke and a massive bage of M&M's and eat my sorrows away.

Digging for diamonds sound like hard work.

Bath time and pure mathmatics.

Tonight in the bath I had an Einstein moment (don't worry this is a 'clean' blog).

Or really it should be a Newton moment. I have realised that fatties like myself help reduce global warming and have a lower carbon footprint than 'skinnies', this is because in the bath us fatties require a lot less hot water to fill the bath than other slimmer and therefore more polluting members of our species. Therefore i can eat my second portion of pudding safe in the knowledge that i am doing it for the environment and my children, and my grandchildren's future. I should develop a technical, pure mathematics equation to illustrate and explain my findings, publish it and make myself famous. But I am too thick.

Farming wise we are waiting for the rain to stop and the sun to shine. Our rape and wheat are still a few weeks off. We have never been so ready for harvest, the barn is clean, the combine serviced, the trailers have even been washed out! normally we are running around like headless chickens when the combine starts running.

The farming media always cheers us up while we are waiting to start harvest, with stories of those super efficient farmers who have already got there crops in the barn and have sold them forward at double the current grain price, while I watch mine spoiling in the field safe in the knowledge that when I do get them in and sell them the market will have plummeted and i will be lucky if I make enough money to put a slice of dry bread on the table for the kids supper, let alone keep Mrs G in the lifestyle to which she is accustomed.

Breed your own clients!

I am on my own on the farm this week. Little Dave (my right hand man) is on holiday so apart from Cheryl in the horses, I am left running the farm alone. As I am possibly the worst ever tractor driver and mechanic, I always have a feeling of trepidation whenever I start a tractor related job, as does Dave, as he probably spends 25% of his working life repairing things that I have broken, one bonus is that my ineptitude at tractor driving helps keep the unemployment figures down. Gordon Brown should thank me.


I am such a bad tractor driver that after failing my MO1 (tractor skills) test for the forth time at college my tutor in all seriousness suggested I take up building as a career and forgot about farming altogether. In hindsight probably a good idea.


We had our first foal born at Barnley Equestrian Centre this week (its a new marketing idea of mine to get new liverys by breeding them). 9.30pm on Tuesday night little Trilogy was born. We used to have a lot of animals born on the farm, Trilogy was the first for a long time, it has been really nice. So congratulations to the proud parents!


Little Trilogy with his mother Geneva. Our first foal at Barnley!

I have spent today repairing bust drinkers and cutting grass. We seem to have a wave of stupidity amongst our equine guests at the moment. they are grabbing there field drinkers and playing tug of war with them. The winner gets a cold shower as the water fittings explode. I have had three do it in the last two weeks. Idiots. I used to say that it was the owners that caused all the hassle and the horses where innocent. I am starting to change my mind.