THE COUNTRYFILE PRESENTER GOES BEHIND THE SCENES ON HIS SHOWS AND FAMILY FARM OUR FAVOURITE TIME OF YEAR ON THE FARM
Christmas preparations start early on the farm – in fact, some decorations don’t ever get taken down. One of Mum’s favourites, the outdoor Christmas lights, mysteriously seem to remain in place all year round. They are solar powered and, according to mum, cost nothing to run – though they have been cut through during the summer hedge trimming and replaced many times, so how they remain costing nothing is a mystery!
Getting into the swing of Christmas spirit starts with gathering holly and ivy from our ancient woodlands, collecting various shapes and sizes of pine cones, blue spruce branches and variegated holly to laden the mantelpiece. The house starts to take on a pine-scented aroma from what seems like the start of November.
Over the winters since my childhood, I can certainly see and feel a difference to the weather. As a kid it was the norm to be wading through blizzards and knee-deep in snow. The Farmers’ Almanac reads: “White Christmas, green Easter. Green Christmas, white Easter. If December is rainy, mild and unsettled, the winter will not be harsh,” and that seems to hold true here in the north. In recent years, the weather seems to remain milder for longer into the winter, with snow, if it comes, arriving closer to springtime. The average temperature in December 1961 in the UK was 8.3°C; now, more half a century later, the average in December is 9.3°C.
I remember one Boxing Day that was absolutely Baltic. Mum and I were out feeding the sheep, dressed in everything from overalls to thick woollen coats with hoods, scarves round our faces, trying to negotiate the difficult slippery conditions to clear the feed troughs.
