Page 38 of Snowflakes at the Little Christmas Tree Farm
I follow him and Glenna inside, glad the farmhouse is looking marginally better than it did on the first night. After coming back from the walk with Noel and Gizmo yesterday, I found my way to the nearest supermarket to buy food and just about every product in the cleaning aisle. I spent the rest of the evening scrubbing, mopping, turning furniture the right way up, hoovering with a vacuum cleaner I found in the cupboard under the stairs, washing out the fridge and kitchen cupboards so I could actually put my food away, cleaning the bath so I could wash after such a sweaty day, and not worrying about how much water and electricity I was using until the bills come in next month.
I didn’t expect any help with cleaning, but seeing Glenna and Noel come to help touches me in a way I’ve never known before, and I have to turn away for a moment and blink furiously to stop tears forming.
They both have their own work to do – Noel has made no secret of how busy he is in October more than any other month – but they’ve both come to help me because some people are just that kind.
Even though this farm is more isolated than I’ve ever been, and I’ve left all my friends and colleagues six hundred miles away, for the first time in the two years since my parents died, I feel like I’m not alone.
***
While Noel’s upstairs hammering boards across the window frames, Glenna and I tackle the rest of the kitchen, and it turns out she’s an expert cleaner with tips and tricks for everything, and between us we make fairly quick work of the kitchen and bathroom, to the soundtrack of Gizmo’s adorable snores as he sleeps on the sofa with Noel’s jacket covering him.
Noel’s moved onto the roof when Glenna and Gizmo leave. I’m on a roll with cleaning now and want to keep up the momentum because I know I’ll probably fall asleep if I sit down. I tell Noel to shout loudly if he falls off, slip my welly-boots on and grab one of the garden forks and a scythe from the barn, and head out to tackle some weeding, pulling on gardening gloves as I walk.
One of the books I bought says that Nordmann firs and Norway spruces are the most popular trees sold in Britain, so I decide they’re the two fields I need to get ready to open first. If that’s all I can do, then it’ll be better than nothing for this year. With Iain starting next week and the seasonal workers in November, if we can get all of them sheared and the two fields weeded between us, that’ll be a good enough start for this year, especially with the Peppermint firs as well. The balsams and the spruces will have to wait.
I try not to acknowledge how daunted I feel as I open the gate and look out at the vast forest that greets me. It looks so much bigger now than it did with Noel explaining things and Gizmo running around tree trunks. Now it looks like there are at least a thousand firs spread out in front of me, the staggered planting making them all different ages and heights, branches so overgrown that they’re tangling with the branches of the next tree, and so many weeds that I can barely get near some of them.
I knew it would be a challenge. Iwantedit to be.
I just didn’t expect it to be such a jungle that I half-expect Ant and Dec to pop out looking for some celebrities.
I take the scythe out of its sheath and start where I stand inside the gate, slashing away at the taller weeds, knowing I can’t even begin to start digging their roots up when they’re at this height. I’ve never used a scythe before, but I’ve watched the topless scything scene inPoldarkmany times, and that’s pretty much the same thing. Who says television isn’t educational? Aidan Turner looks a lot better topless than I do though, and he doesn’t have to worry about boobs getting in the way. I’m not going to try it, but I suspect boobs would be hazardous to topless scything.
After I’ve cut down a huge patch along the edge of the field, I gather up the limp weeds and pile them in a heap beside the gate. I’ll get a wheelbarrow later and take everything to the composter between two of the tin sheds on the scrubland. I get the fork and push it into the earth, driving it down with my foot, and levering a huge clump of roots out of the soil. I shake the loose mud off and then toss the roots onto the pile too. I move over and heave out another clump, and another, and another, until there’s a space of fresh sandy soil and I’ve freed a couple of metres of the holly hedge from weeds.
I try not to look at how far I’ve got versus how much there still is to do, and this is only one field. If I think of it as a whole, it’s too much. One step at a time. One patch of weeds and then the next. One tree and then another.
I run my arm across my forehead to wipe sweat away and stop for a minute to get my breath back. I’ve barely stopped moving all day. It also feels quite … good? My lungs feel full of fresh air and greenery, a healthy feeling, as opposed to the body odour and pollution they feel full of when I get off another crammed train in London. I know I’ll ache tomorrow but I ache at five o’clock when I get up from my desk after a long day of sitting still, and this feels like a much better ache, if aches can be divided into categories of desirable and non-desirable. A much healthier ache.
I tell myself that as I swish the scythe through another load of stalks and dig up their roots, and another, and another. I know this isn’t the end of it. I know I’ll need to put down herbicide to stop them coming back, and flatten the newly-dug ground enough for customers to walk on it when the farm opens, but for now, it feels good to be outside and doing something productive – something towards making the dream of this farm a reality.
I don’t know how long I work for. It’s late in the afternoon judging by the grey tone the sky has taken on, but I jump so much when Noel clears his throat that I nearly take out half the holly bushes with the scythe.
‘Well, aren’t you a regularPoldark?’
‘Oh ha ha, I hadn’t thought about that once.’ I stop and swipe an arm across my forehead again. My hair’s falling down despite already putting it up again twice. How many times in one day can you look an absolute mess in front of one of the hottest men you’ve ever seen?
He flips a bottle of water in his hand and holds it out to me. ‘Second rule of farming: dehydration isn’t fun. Bring a bottle of water every time, even at this time of year. This work is hard and I wouldn’t mind betting that you aren’t used to it.’
Is it that obvious? ‘Actually, I do plenty of scything and digging at home. You barely see me indoors for all the scything and digging I do.’
‘That’ll be why you asked me if The Grim Reaper had left his “thingy” behind when you saw it in the barn?’
I glare at him. ‘I was winding you up. I knew it was a scythe.’
‘FromPoldark?’
I huff and he nods towards the bare soil in front of me. ‘Got to admit I’m impressed.’
I can’t hear any sarcasm in his tone, and I wait for him to follow up with a snarky comment, but he doesn’t. I look around at the patch I’ve cleared. It isn’t a lot, but it’s a start. And I feel better for it. For actually getting out and getting my hands dirty. Literally. I pull off the gloves and look down at my nails. Three are broken and all of them have got mud ingrained underneath them, even through the gloves.
‘The roof’s done temporarily,’ he says. ‘But it’s not going to hold up under a storm, and there are a few due this winter. All I’ve done is nail felt across the broken bits. You need to get onto that builder as soon as you can.’
‘I know.’ The roof is already on my endless list of things that need repairing or replacing. ‘But I have to pay the workers and fork out for insurance. The roof can wait. Opening this place in December can’t.’
‘I agree, but living in a warm, dry house is also important. But your priorities are admirable. I thought you’d be all about the cosy home comforts and the trees would be an afterthought.’
I’m sure there’s an insult in there somewhere. It’s no secret that he thinks very little of me, but he doesn’t sound insulting. ‘Thanks for everything you’ve done, Noel.’
