Remember the days when a wee chap on the door was answered by:
‘Och it’s yourself, come away in…’
Now a knock on the door only heralds a delivery too big for the Postie to pop in our box. The oversize parcel usually makes a welcome clink as it’s placed two metres away by the masked and gloved delivery driver. It’s no wonder the Great Dane goes berserk. She knows what a burglar looks like even if everyone else seems delighted at the clinking box’s regular arrival.
Bottles used to arrive with friends attached; a smile and a story, daftness and companionship. But nobody has been over the threshold since last summer when we had a brief, but brilliant, window hosting a couple of our best pals.
And you can tell.
Basic hygiene has been maintained, but plumped cushions and scented candles are a distant memory. These little details were the house’s equivalent of heely boots and a bit of lippy; the heralding of the weekend and the anticipation of a night on the tiles.
This week the house and its occupants are liberally adorned in a hip, organic material that perfectly captures the zeitgeist. There is straw absolutely, bloody everywhere. It’s jagging out of leggings and fleeces despite them being twice laundered; it’s in pockets of jackets we haven’t even worn and it’s eternally adhered to every soft surface.
This was this week’s delivery. Rather than replenishing the wine-rack, Monday’s arrival brought the finest bedding known to man or beast.
Picture a pile the size of a decent caravan, but comprising the most glorious, sweet-smelling, golden straw. Now try and pick it up. It’s not just sweet and pretty, it’s slippery as silk and has no intention of binding together like the handy sleeves we’d had previously.
Now add a workforce of four opinionated and vocal relatives tasked with transferring said pile from driveway to hay-store. Mix with a howling gale and a frisky canine trip-hazard and you have a few hours of fun that threatened to shatter our fragile lockdown relationships.
Each parent and each sibling was certain there was only one logical way to perform the mammoth task. One stomping teenager, armed with mask and sunglasses, sprinted with flying arm-fulls of the stuff, the elder one commandeered a wheelbarrow and pitch fork, but lost at least half each journey to the whipping wind. The parents attempted to carry piles between them, only to resemble a pitiable slapstick sketch, stumbling backwards between cowpats.
Maybe on a still, sunny day our efforts would have created the perfect Elysian scene; a memory of familial harmony and hearty good fun, but with reluctant recruits on a filthy, gale-blown March afternoon it was a grumpy, knackering slog.
Happily, it had only just begun to get dark when the slippery stuff was finally ensconced in its store and fresh bedding had been delivered to all. The cattle and sheep snuggled gratefully into the generous quantity we heaved into their shelter, but for the pigs it was just the start of a wild night of flitting. Wherever I try to create a comfy big bed for them is never right. The thron wee rascals shovel up snout-fulls of straw and race with it to a new spot every night. I suspect they just do it for the banter. I swear they shriek and snort with laughter as they tear down my creation and bundle it through the woods to a new night-spot.
There’s no doubt that it’s our porky pals that are having the most fun of an evening here on the croft. The new straw is their equivalent of cushions and candles – and they happily welcome guests over their threshold, but they’re definitely girls after my own heart.
It’s the visitors bearing buckets that receive the most rapturous reception.
The Softer Crofter 