So where has eleven years gone? why did i stop blogging on this blog? well all you have to do is look at 2010 and you will see that shortly after winning the 2009 Devon Envitonmental Business Awards life took a very different turn with my daughter aged 26 at the time and as a result of tests to eliminate possibilities me,in my late 40s, both being diagnosed with an agressive form of breast cancer despite my daughter having a nodule the size of a pea and me a deep seated tiny tumour of a centimetre diametre which was undetectable other than by a mamogram.
This led to surgery, six months of chemotherapy, a months worth ofradiotherapy, 18 months of IV Herceptin and five years of hormone treatment....and me nearly dieing of septicaemia on New Years Day 2011.
It also led to friends suddenly vanishing, some family backing away and general shock as people tried to come to terms with a situation that had struck out of the blue to two very fit healthy people.
It also led to meeting a whole load of other people, who had been diagnosed with various types of breast cancer and investigations that revealed that both my grandmother, aunt and estranged mother had all died from breast cancer so it was concluded that there was a genetic link and so genetic tests were undertaken revealing that whilst there was not a BRCA1 or 2 connection we were probably one of the genetically linked families that had not been 'discovered' as yet.
This put a lot of things in perspective and made us realise that life was fragile and the future unknown. our youngest child was 7 when his sister was diagnosed and 8 when i was and we decided a new start should be sought.
Woolly Shepherd that had been my absolute pride and joy and was at the point of huge expansion at the very point of my cancer diagnoses needed to stop.
it was a bit like stopping a steam train at full pelt....but the word cancer had already caused competitors and others to start circling like a pack of wolves waiting for the injured animal to fall.
However i couldnt mothball it as we had rent on three huge business units to pay.....so i split it and sold it and the main part went to safe hands where it flourishes to this day.
my wonderful old machines went to various places including Oban in Scotland but sadly some then vanished never to be seen again including my needle felter that I'd had made in Michigan and the garnet carder.
i didnt really realise how ill the treatment to save my life had made me until 2012 when after tests for generalised pain i was diagnosed with fibromyalgia.
2012 also bought the sad deaths of both my step mother who had severe demetia and lived in Sussex and who i hadnt seen since my fathers death in 2005 and Petes mum, both in their 90s.
we now felt that the oppotunity to move could be now as in 2013 youngest child would move from primary to secondary education and next one up would still be at university.....
The next big decision had to be made...The Ouessant sheep numbering nearly 30 and a small flock of Ryelands I had acquired....as you do!
I'd also still got a few pigs....farming never really stops....especially when you like sausages.
so late in 2012 the entire Ouessant flock save for a group of wethers went to Cumbria to found The Danaway flock. The pigs went to the freezers of various people and the Ryelands went to others along with Gilles our old Ouessant wether who was companion for the Ryeland ram. We were left with the poultry and the four grass mowing ouessant wethers.
in February 2013 we found Berry Lane Cottage a house that had been empty for nearly two years after the elderly owner had died, it was the most modern house we had looked at having been built in 1990 and yet even standing empty it felt dry....Ivy Cottage being over 200 years old had always had damp issues!
it had six flattish acres and a bedroom and bathroom downstairs...for when we got old we thought...
Ivy Cottage had been a vertical smallholding all the land we owned...nine acres....was on a steep slope and even the house was on several levels and full of steps and stairs. with my knee problems a flat bit of land seemed a good idea and a house with only one staircase seemed perfect....after all Berry Lane cottage had been built as a retirement project for the previous owner and her husband when they were in their late sixties and was designed for easy management.Little did we know what the future would hold....
So in June 2013 we moved, lock stock, shepherds hut and chicken house....and god knows what else....to Cornwall....quite a sight....a convoy of various lorries other vehiles and trailers containing everything from one smallholding to the next and anyone who has a small farm or smallholding will know its not a task undertaken lightly and i still have visions of the hen house full of hens hanging bu huge straps from the prongs on the front of Ruths John Deere tractor slowly making its way up the steep lane at the side of the house and being loaded onto a flat bed trailer on the road and the traffic chaos it caused.....along with a goose house full of hissing geese.
The idea was that i would start a new life and new bed and breakfast business and Pete would continue working in Somerset two or three days a week and look for work in Cornwall.
it was a clean break from the loss of my business world, cancer and everything that went with it. a fresh start in a county we had tried to move to a few years previously, a place a lot of my family had originated and a place i felt was coming home.
