The Ant tracked down his illustrious predecessor for a catch up on where her travels had taken her, since stepping down from editing this eNewsletter. The results aren’t necessarily what the readers might expect but as ever with the Beetle, its been adventure !
If you’d asked me two years ago what I’d think of running a cheese business and making cheese in a very rural location in the north of England, I would have laughed heartily, but that, in a nutshell, is exactly what has happened to your once globetrotting friend, the Beetle.
Two years ago, the Beetle was living and working in Brunei, then Bangkok and Singapore. Prior to that, for almost twenty years she has lived and worked in four continents, some glamorous places, but mostly not, and working hard. It was a very transient lifestyle, working hard, playing hard, diving hard, but always change: different place, different job, different people, different language, different cultures – always a different situation and embracing a great deal of change and cultural diversity.
In October 2006, she came back to her Beetle nest in London to organise a complete move to Dubai. A flat share had been organised, friends of friends were e-mailed, dates for coffee set up and the Beetle was looking a forward to life in the United Arab Emirates, job hunting, making new friends and embracing another new culture and all that that entails.
Well, a funny thing happened on the way to Dubai. The Beetle’s uncle, Goaty, called her and asked if she could stop by North Yorkshire to help him value his cheese business as he was looking to sell it as a result of ill health. The Beetle said ‘sure, but I’m on my way to Dubai, I’ll push the flight back by three days, will three days be enough?’ Goaty said yes, three days would be ample and promised to fill the Beetle’s luggage with Goaty cheese. Who could resist!
Sadly, by the time the Beetle landed in North Yorkshire, a beautiful part of England (when the sun shines) Goaty was in hospital and he died ten days later. The Beetle was asked to run the ailing cheese business in the interim and so she did. The three days will be two years come November 2008.
The Beetle is now the proud owner of a cheese business, specialising in goat and ewe’s cheese and a ramshackle old farm house that dates from 1660, three acres of wilderness and a field full of rampaging and mostly evil sheep and enough rabbits to make rabbit casserole to the moon and back.
Who would have thought! For the first time in her Beetly existence the Beetle has a real home, not a transient crash pad or a six month let in a foreign land or a snatched few days here and there, this is long term, which for months was quite a scary proposition. The responsibility of owning a house, keeping the fields and garden under control (an inevitable losing battle), the incredibly rural location, the work the Beetle nest that is a cold bleak house needs to bring it in to the 21st century….
A similar difficulty the Beetle encountered was the feeling of being anchored to a place because of her cheese business which has become the focal point of her existence over the past two years. We are talking about a rural community of about 200 people and 10,000 sheep, no local shop to wander down and buy a paper and a litre of milk, no bookshops, no theatre, cinema, no meaningful public transport and the first time in over fifteen years the Beetle had to have a car. This has taken quite a lot to get used to, however, the Beetle is nothing but flexible and relishes a challenge.
There are of course ups and downs in any situation, but it is a situation entirely of Beetle making. Her Beetle nest seems to be falling down at each of its four corners. Each upstairs room sags ominously. There is no mains water or sewerage. Water comes from a bore hole under the ground outside the kitchen. Sewerage is occasionally successfully piped into a septic tank at the bottom of the wilderness. When the electricity cuts out which it does about 6 times a year, then you can’t flush the toilet because the pump to get water out of the ground won’t work. Telephone lines go down regularly at each hurricane like gale, and there are many. When it snows, you can’t get a car up the drive. Once the Beetle had to ask a neighbouring farmer to pull her out with his tractor – oh the ignominy – and such a change from leaves on the track in other parts of the country or commuting by over crowded tube in London. The postman won’t deliver mail because he says it is too far out and inconvenient. Such is rural life.
A rash bit of DIY involving dismantling a fireplace downstairs almost culminated in the upstairs bedroom crashing through the ceiling. Ok, ok, the Beetle admits, DIY is not her forte, but she simply cannot afford to get builders in! Finding a good plumber or electrician or builder even here in the sticks is just as difficult as in London. You get put on a waiting list. The Beetle has been waiting for over a year now for a plumber to put in a shower. Her impatience has mellowed as things just don’t happen quickly here.
Things most people take for granted, such as broadband are not available because the Beetle nest is too far away from the exchange so is reliant on a rural community internet service, often uncharitably referred to as Drivelnet. Suffice to say, it is not reliable which is partly why the Beetle (with regret) relinquished editorship of the Globetrotter’s e-newsletter.
On the plus side, hordes of pheasants gather each morning at their and the Beetle’s breakfast time to eat cheese off cuts garnered from work, building up to a gaggle of around thirty when it gets really cold. They become very tame and have names like Bent Feather, Chequer Neck, Fat Pheasant, Timid Pheasant and so on. The garden has signs in rabbit welcoming all rabbits to make burrows and breed as freely as they like. As a result, despite the cold and windy individual eco-system that exists, all attempts to grow vegetables or flowers are thwarted at every turn. The Beetle bought plastic greenhouses on e-bay to grow courgettes and beetroot and attempts to devise new ingenious ways to stop the rabbits from getting inside. They don’t work.
There’s a pair of woodpeckers that live in the wilderness, and a buzzard who has a bachelor pad in the big tree, hedgehogs scuttle galore. Driving to work dancing stoats are a regular sight at certain times of the year. The Beetle has learned how to light a hearty fire with wood and coal in five minutes, cook in the dark when the power is cut off. Gas is bottled and lives undecorously in large orange canisters outside. She can use a chain saw dangerously to chop up logs. She feeds her neighbour’s sheep who graze in the Beetle’s wilderness to keep the grass down. This sounds very Bo Beepish, but in reality should involve the payment of danger money.
Sheep are nothing like as stupid as they are portrayed, in fact, they are really quite cunning. To call sheep, you shout Ho, Ho, Ho, like a rural version of Father Christmas. Then watch out because they will run en masse towards and at you. As they get used to you, they become quite fearless and will head butt you behind the knees causing you to follow over in pain and surprise and they get to gobble up all the sheep nuts your tasty sack contains. Yes, they will attempt to eat the sack as well. The Beetle got wise to this and started to take a stick to protect herself from marauding sheep, but still they got the better of her. The next incident involved being head butted on the bottom which is far too embarrassing to go into details about. The irony of such a life-change!
The other reason the Beetle stepped down from editing the Globetrotter eNewsletter is because the cheese business is a seven day a week commitment; there is so much to do to turn this thirty year old business around and bring it back to its former glory; the Beetle has many plans. There were three people working in the cheese business but in early July, Mac, the Beetle’s great friend and colleague died leaving a large and unhappy gap in the business. There is now the Beetle and Eddie the Steady. The cheese industry is an exceedingly skuldugerous one, but it is something that the Beetle enjoys and has learned much. The business recently moved into larger premises, which was very stressful and by the time you read this, the Beetle will be a cheese maker, making goat’s cheese every three days. Just have to make sure that she does not fall into the cheese vat and become Beetlecheese.
To be continued…..
The Beetle’s cheese (Ribblesdale organic Sheep cheese) can be investigated further here.