Harrop Fold Farm

Oh Golly Gosh....it has been so long since I have written, I am so sorry. For many reasons...the obvious busy summer...but the few weeks prior to that was a funny old time really. In looking through my diary I have found the following entry at the end of June...

‘It has taken me a week to be able to think about how I address our ‘blog’ with our exceptionally sad news. Firstly last Friday week the lovely resident peacock, Geoffrey, was run over and although the children rushed him to our vets sadly he had to be put to sleep as his leg was broken and nothing further could be done for him. The flowers in our house are acting as a shrine as each of the children has put in one of his feathers…but on a brighter note, they are so beautiful and are a reminder of his colour and magnificence. I do miss his hooting and mimicking the telephone though, and he always recognised the children coming home and would warn us of their arrival (whatever time of the day or night- made for some interesting stories sometimes!). I have made enquiries and I hope we will be introducing a young peacock to the farm very soon.

‘The weekend continued in the same vain when Alfie, the black pony, seemed off colour on the Saturday evening, by Sunday morning sadly he had died. It is thought he had either ‘grass sickness’ or a form of colic. It was such a traumatic day as poor Harry was missing his chum, never having spent a minute apart since birth. Now however, he is the most spoilt pony in the world and Alice was found with him in Mum’s cottage with Harry standing in the kitchen looking for a bite to eat! We are rather thinking that as ponies are herd animals it might be quite nice for him to have a new companion in form of a rare breed sheep. We have not had any sheep ourselves here at Harrop and they may be able to introduce a new dimension to the dinner menu in spring!’

Sad end to June...However, July arrived brightly with George’s graduation at Liverpool University and we were all very excited. The ceremony was held at the Philharmonic amongst lots of very proud parents…and siblings and grandparents!
After the Departmental photos in Abercrombie Square surrounded by beautiful architecture, we all walked in the sunshine to enjoy lunch at 60 Hope Street. We certainly enjoyed a taste of Liverpool’s Capital of Culture experience. We return to Liverpool in October for the North West Tourism Awards at St George’s Hall, which promises to be another exciting evening.

Moving on through summer, which was a mad whirl of wonderful visitors, children and plans for summer. We did have lots of brilliant days out ourselves making sure we visited places before recommending them to our guests to explore and the school holidays ended after we enjoyed our family break.

Moving on I am delighted to report that we now have a new peacock and his peahen. They are only a year old but are quite tame; we are however, trying to think of names. Anyone with any good ideas please let me know! Our good friends, Brenda & Alan Buxton, of Red Oaks Farm, Bollington bred the peacocks and no doubt will keep their eye on them when they visit! Another new addition to our home is our new puppy...a springer spaniel named Emmie – after Emma who bred her. She is so beautifully kind natured and Lottie is really enjoying her playmate as is Arthur who sleeps in the dog basket with her!

I feel now I have moved us quickly through the months...I will go now and take the dogs down the lane to pick some blackberries to jam this evening, the strange weather pattern with sun and snow in spring lost our damsons which is a shame as we all love damson jam! We have been very successful with our apples though and are tiring of apple crumble; I must try to be more inventive! Leah was at her friend’s home on Sunday and picked lots and lots of cherry tomatoes and has now started on chutney; the aroma in the house is gorgeous! David did well with his vegetable patch – the cows broke in just the once! We have enjoyed our first taste of Harrop vegetables for quite some time and had the yummiest egg Florentine the day before yesterday. The dogs are getting quite impatient; I think they have heard David on the tractor moving the silage up from the field. I think this is the latest we have silaged, but thank goodness it is now finished and wrapped...so must run,
Speak again soon,
Love Sue x