I went home to Huddersfield for a day on Monday. A cheap Ryanair flight to Manchester, overnight at the folks' and then back to Brussels on Monday night. I primarily went to see some elderly relatives that are having a tough time and are both in hospital. I also had what I now realise was nostalgia overload.
This makes it sound like I have been living in some foreign clime for years on end and only go back to the homeland for births, marriages and funerals. This is patently ridiculous, because I actually live in Brussels which is two hours away from London on a train and is quite possibly the easiest foreign city to live in. This is not a hardship.
On Monday morning I got up and went delivering milk for an hour with a friend of mine who has done the run every day for 35 years. I delivered milk with him from aged 12, spent ages practicing shearing (badly) with his sheep and then when I passed my driving test he could stay at home and see to the farm while I took care of the milk round. And now I live in Brussels and I feel a long long way away from all that. Delivering two pints of blue top to Molly at number 10 ("watch them bloody steps, this weather is lethal") and 1 pint of red top on Woodhead Road ("round back 'a that terrace there, it goes under a bucket") brings you right back to it.
You can waltz around with a tie on all you want, but this is where you get your hands mucky.
Then I went and had half a pork pie and a brew with Raymond and Jenny. Raymond runs the butchers shop in the village where I worked after school, washing out and learning to cut up. Raymond is pushing 65 and wants to retire. The shop has been unchanged for certainly as long as he has been there, with a traditional tiled floor, white wooden slatted walls and the block that has a dip in the middle from years of use. The horsemeat carry on has been good for business, and the shop was like Christmas Eve on Saturday in the snow. They were queuing out of the door. Stocking up, some folk think they're going to be snowed in forever. We'd run out of beef at 11.
Then I saw the wrinklies in hospital and took Belgian chocolates. Then I had a beer in the Head of Steam with the folks and remembered that this pub (after the Rat and Ratchet where I worked first) is one of the best. Then I got on the train for a flight to Brussels, where the beer is good and the frites are better but there isn't any nostalgia at all, at least not yet anyway.
And then when I got home I saw this from the Telegraph here:
Then I realised that the day of nostalgia overload had finished off with a horrendous story that made me want to do something. I can't go and help on a farm, as much as I would like to. I can't really even buy British food when I am here either. But I can tip some spare money to farming charities who are under significant pressure in helping farmers in the best way they can. Money to a farming charity at times like this I think is really needed. So I have done my small bit, and I think it would be good if other people did the same.
Then I realised that the day of nostalgia overload had finished off with a horrendous story that made me want to do something. I can't go and help on a farm, as much as I would like to. I can't really even buy British food when I am here either. But I can tip some spare money to farming charities who are under significant pressure in helping farmers in the best way they can. Money to a farming charity at times like this I think is really needed. So I have done my small bit, and I think it would be good if other people did the same.
The Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institute is a good one and they are here.
Their sister organisation in Scotland is here.
Farm Crisis Network are no doubt taking a lot of calls and they are here.
The Addington Fund help with housing and other things and are here.
The Princes Countryside Fund opened their emergency fund and are here.
I think these charities need a hand at the minute to help farmers at a pretty miserable time for many in the countryside. Let's hope that they get it.