Worth it's weight in straw (From Gazette & Herald)

Worth it's weight in straw

THERE is a good trade in straw now. John and Geoff have just loaded up a couple of lorries with straw due for Scotland.

Must be worth something if the transporter is willing to take it all the way up north.

With the wet weather looking set to prevent any spring time sowing, there will probably be an absolutely roaring trade in straw next year as there will just be no straw available to buy. John had planned to drill spring corn next month but it is impossible to travel on the land. It is sodden. All the dikes are full, the land is too wet to absorb any more water and I have noted that the rivers are creeping up to the tops of their banks.

I drove my daughter Jo to catch a train this morning, and it was an eerie sight to look up to the banks of the river and note the sandbags piled high all along its length. Just imagine all that water spilling over the edge. Scary.

Any land that we cannot drill will have to go into set-aside. Multiplied all over the country, the national crop of wheat must be going to be down on last year's. The farming comics are all starting to tell a story of higher demand for wheat worldwide as countries like China develop a taste for sliced bread. World stocks are declining and the price is starting to creep back up again. Not a moment too soon, when it is still half the price it was five years ago.

If wheat and barley cannot be drilled this spring, however, that will directly affect the straw crop next autumn. Tricky stuff to store though, straw. Not your ideal consumable for panic buyers like me.

By the time you are reading this, I hope we shall be far away from wet fields and soggy riverbanks. John and I are going to my sister's house in Spain, with daughter Bryony and her husband Chris, to experience a week of family bonding and squabbling.

As a pair of newly weds, Bryony and Chris are still establishing who is top dog. As both are doctors, working the same number of hours and earning approximately the same amount of money, Bryony considers equality should also reach to the shopping, cooking and cleaning chores.

Chris sees things differently and therein lays the source of one or two little domestics. Should I interfere? Definitely not, but being on holiday for a week together could stretch my vow of non-participation.

For once, though, the weak euro could work in our favour. For the last few years we have railed against the strong pound and weak euro forcing up the prices of British goods abroad and making our crops too dear on the world market. What a good excuse, therefore, to take advantage of the cheap prices abroad and go out for meals every night and not have any arguments over who is to do the cooking and washing up.

Younger daughter Jo, meanwhile, is being left alone at nights, with a freezer full of ready meals, to cope with floods, cow breakouts, early lambing and fox raids. She had an invitation to come, but preferred to stay at home and go out later. Wonder why?

Updated: 17:11 Friday, February 23, 2001