News from our farmstead #24

I don't want to complain, but...

Actually, you’ve been deceived. This newsletter is not coming to you from our farmstead in the hills of eastern Spain, but from a cute little third floor apartment in the centre of Rome.

Rome, Italy

For the last 10 days or so, Mauro and I have been exploring Naples, followed by the island of Ischia, a little corner of tropical-feeling paradise about 30km off the mainland coast. Well, I say we’ve been exploring. Mauro’s been doing more exploring than me: I’ve mostly been vegetating and practicing my pain-relieving breathing techniques (which don’t work). More on that later.

Earlier this week, some of our closest friends travelled over from the UK to farm-sit for us (thanks so much, guys!). For those of you wondering how anyone ever gets a break once they start integrating animals and piling up the daily responsibilities - farm-sitting is the answer. For us, it had to be people we knew and trusted, so we’re really grateful to have friends who were able to step in for us. However, there are also lots of other ways people find farm-sitters - on local Facebook groups, for example, or on Workaway (as long as the volunteer understood there would be a period where they’d be on their own). In other countries there are even dedicated farmsitting websites which can help you match up with someone. Luckily, our friends had visited the farm many times before and had a pretty good idea how it worked, but we spent the weekend before we left adding a bit more irrigation so they didn’t have to haul too much water to the fruit trees and just generally trying to leave everything as straightforward as possible. Even so, the list of chores, instructions, what-ifs and look-out-fors stretched to several pages and that wasn’t even counting the “if it rains” contingency plans, which we weren’t expecting to need! If you want to get some perspective on some of the more needlessly cumbersome chores and ridiculous routines you go through which really could be a lot simpler, trying to explain them to someone else and writing them all down is a great eye-opener. I think we can clearly see now where we could be working to improve efficiency and what really needs fixing - “sometimes it just doesn’t work, we have no idea why, it’s incredibly annoying but we just live with it” suddenly doesn’t sound like a reasonable explanation when you hear it out loud…

A handy new tap I installed near the polytunnel before leaving the farm

Taking a break away from the farm has been long overdue. It’s the first time we’ve really taken a holiday together since we moved to Spain almost 3 years ago, and shortly after moving here we immediately became consumed with the search for land and the purchase of the finca. Very little else has been on our minds or agendas since then. Even other major life events, like having surgery and changing jobs, seemed to take place in the background, with the farm project and chores remaining the principal occupation in our lives, now that I come to reflect on it. I was up and about trying to make a batch of wine with the perfectly Brix-scored grapes just days after getting out of hospital, and job-changes were planned with projects in mind that could be completed during the changeover period. Holidays from day jobs were spent working on projects here, running volunteer days or spending time here with visitors, who of course love seeing the farm and experiencing finca life.

The last couple of weeks, though, I’ve been getting more familiar with the other side of the coin: not-doing. I drafted this newsletter a few days ago whilst we were still on the island, and just getting that done was honestly my one and only goal for the day, besides the general tasks required to keep alive, which were also a challenge. For the last few weeks I’ve been dealing with a lot of pain caused by my abdomen stretching during pregnancy, and not being able to due to internal scar tissue from previous surgeries. As you might know, scar tissue is fibrous and tough and doesn’t stretch all that well so instead it pulls on other tissues and tears if it has to. I was told about the possibility of this happening, we just didn’t know when it might start or how bad it might be. The pain started a couple of weeks before leaving for Italy and got pretty intense in the final week, and has kept me in bed throughout most of our trip so far. Any kind of movement seemed to set the pain off, and finding a position where I could fully relax all my abdominal muscles seemed to be the only thing that would allow it to subside. So: lots of time spent horizontal.

Lots of time for reading

However, I’m finally returning to the draft of this newsletter a few days later, having now made the arduous trip to Rome by ferry and then train, consulted Italian hospital services after some extremely intense pain and a suspected bowel obstruction (which can also be a complication of abdominal adhesions during pregnancy) and given (finally) some pregnancy-safe painkillers and anti-spasmodic drugs. Luckily I didn’t have a bowel obstruction, and the painkillers have been really helping. It feels too early to say I feel like I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but today I managed to walk around the old Roman Forum and Colosseum for several hours, whereas for nearly 3 weeks I haven’t been able to walk more than 2 minutes before needing to return urgently to a horizontal position, clutching my stomach. It’s really been quite embarrassing and I feel like I should have spent this whole trip wearing a t-shirt with “Don’t worry, I’m not in labour” written on it. In Italian.

I don’t like to complain and I know nobody needs to know the ins-and-outs of my pregnancy aches and pains… but since the last newsletter, this has pretty much been the main event of my life, so it feels weird not to mention it. And who knows how short or long-lived this reprieve will be. I can’t take these painkillers for the next 4 months so I’ll have to see how things are without them pretty soon. Maybe (as my midwife optimistically but unconvincingly suggested) the uterus will just “find its place” in the chaos of my abdomen, or maybe I’ll be back in bed in a few days.

Earlier this morning. Out and about like a normal human being

Whilst we’ve been away, we’ve been consulting the forecast back home daily. After months of drought, there’s apparently a big storm on the way, due to touch down across all of Spain any day now - except, as always, it keeps getting pushed back. Often this happens and it gets pushed back and back and then never materialises. However, it looks like the rain has finally arrived today. It’s kind of sad to miss it, but it does make me excited to see how the garden will have exploded in our absence. It’s the time of year when things grow so fast. Just two days and things can double in size - I can’t wait to see how everything’s looking after two weeks and some decent rainfall. I’m glad we didn’t rush to strim the fields just yet, because after this rain we’ll be sure to get one final growth spurt before everything finally dies off for the summer so it would have been a waste of time.

Right now I’m hoping to remain on my feet for the next few days so I can enjoy our remaining time in Italy, and most importantly my best friend’s wedding, which was the whole point of this trip in the first place. When we get back, we’ll see how things are. Before we finish I have to say a huge thank you to Mauro, who’s been amazing and done literally everything for me and the farm over the last few weeks, and hasn’t exactly had the holiday he imagined either. Although he has eaten all the pizza he dreamed of, and more, so he claims to have had the perfect trip. He’s really the best.

Until next time,

Harriet 🍕