Page 63 of Christmas at Hollybush Farm
‘Well, then, you’ve already got me questioning what I’m doing. Why I’m buying up land for solar panels, or to use as building plots, looking at other options for farmland. But you’ve taught me that’s not what we should be doing. We should be looking at how farmers can make a living. Teaching people to know where food comes from, how to cook, how to eat better.’
‘But when? After Christmas, in the new year? When everyone goes back to how they were? When Coffi Poeth opens? What then?’
He shakes his head. ‘I don’t know. I really don’t know.’
‘Me neither,’ I say, but I like having him around and I don’t want this to end. I know it has to. When his car is ready, he’ll be going back to wherever his home is. And the only memory of his time here will be row upon row of solar panels. If only I could tell him how I feel. But with Matthew only just becoming a thing of the past, that would be totally foolish.
27
As we pull down the ramp and start to set up, the queue is already massive.
‘Looks like we’re in for a busy time,’ I say to Mae, and we get to it, setting out the food we’ve brought with us, and letting people know where we are on social media.
We’re cramped behind the table as we lay out the food we’ve brought with us. In no time at all, jacket potatoes and shepherd’s pies are flying out of the lorry.
‘I need to reach over you,’ Mae says, grabbing some napkins. As she does, a load of them fly up into the air and whip away on the wind, landing in a puddle. The light snow has been replaced by rain, and the mood is a little more sombre.
The rain pours down on the roof, melting theremnants of the snow that was there yesterday, drowning the Christmas tunes as we work around each other to serve as many people as possible and get home to the warm and dry. Myfanwy and Dad are squashed together, handing out her Welsh cakes from a corner and taking more orders that Dad writes down. It’s pretty packed in here.
Outside, I hear a bark and a shout.
‘Hey!’
I look out of the lorry. A woman is holding two Labradors pulling at their leads and straining to get at Jess. She’s cowering from the dogs and the woman.
‘That dog should be on a lead!’ she snaps. ‘I could report you for unsettling my dogs.’
Evie stands up from where she’s sitting in the lorry, talking to a couple more of the farmers there, and offering to check their blood pressure. She sees the woman.
‘I mean it! That dog needs to be on a lead!’ I recognize her as the dog-walker in Dad’s field and plan to have a word with her. But Evie reaches forward before Owen has time to answer. She fishes her newly finished scarf from her knitting bag and ties it around Jess’s neck.
‘She is now!’ says Evie, defiantly.
Owen turns to her and I see the spark land between them, taking them and me by surprise. I watch themsmile, which makes me smile too. There is hope everywhere, I think.
‘Excuse me, are you selling those?’ asks another woman. ‘I’d love a scarf for my dog for Christmas.’
‘Er, no, but I could,’ replies Evie.
‘You could bring more down, sell them here,’ says Owen, smiling at her.
I turn back to the queue. We’re nearing its end now. A woman seems to be hanging back. ‘We’ve still got a little left,’ I call to her, and beckon her forward. She walks up the ramp, into the brightly lit, festive lorry. ‘Hi, what can I get you? We’ve got a final shepherd’s pie. Mae? Jacket potatoes?’
‘Just with butter and cheese now,’ says Mae, clearing away around me.
‘Actually, I just wanted to …’ The woman swallows ‘… I wanted to speak to you.’
Her tone is serious.
‘Look, if it’s about us parking here, we didn’t think it would be a problem … I know we should probably have applied for a licence. If you tell us what we need to do …’
‘No, no,’ she says, waving a gloved hand at me, cutting me off, and I can see she’s plucking up courage to say something. ‘It’s not that. It’s your social-media posts,’ she says.
‘Oh. I know the company weren’t happy and I know they said they’d withdraw the offer of a newjob if I did another. And I agreed to that and left. I’m not with them any more. I didn’t think they’d send someone down. But I’m not reconsidering. I realized my dad needed me. And he still does. And … if I’m honest, I need to be here. Seattle was me running away, trying to prove I could get to the top of the ladder. Probably to my mum, proving to her I was someone and she shouldn’t have abandoned me. But anyway …’ I’m waffling, as if someone has turned on a tap that has been tightly closed for years and now won’t stop flowing. I take a deep breath. ‘I don’t need to prove myself any more. I need to be me. I’m happy here. Not working for a big company. I was running away, trying to find my happy place, when it was here all along. I’d lost sight of what was important, where food came from, and how hard farmers are working. Big companies should be supporting them, not just chasing profit and getting food for the lowest price.’
‘I agree,’ she says.
‘You agree?’ I’m confused. ‘I thought you’d come here to tell me to take down my posts. Or persuade me back … Are you a journalist?’
