Not long after Tom was born, in March 1995 I very proudly showed him off to the farmer who used to farm this place, when it was a working farm (as did generations of his family before him). Freddie the farmer (you’ve heard about him before) used to spend a lot of time after he retired and moved down in to a bungalow in the village, for an easier life, pottering around in the lanes, you’d see his car parked up in a gate way, Freddie would be leaning on the gate in the time honoured old farmer sort of way, watching the seasons go by, with his dog Scruff (a dog that could have no other name, it was him to perfection) sat at his feet.
Not a Spring goes by but I think of the words he said to me about Tom.
Ehhhh, a Spring baby, grand as owt; he’ll grow up wit’ grass
And grow he certainly has, he’s taller than me and his dad, and his younger brother is not far behind him (and may well end up the taller of the two).
The problem with this is that they no longer fit in the house. When Mr Uhdd and I bought this place (20 years ago this very month) we could never of imagined that our children would be so tall as to have to duck through door ways and stoop under beams.
I may have to show and tell.
June 21, 2011 at 4:08 pm
I’ll swap you houses – ours has nice 8 foot ceilings and 6 and a half foot doorways. I see precious little chance the girls and I would bump our heads. Himself is a tad bigger, but he can take his chances!
June 21, 2011 at 5:15 pm
That grass looks pretty delicate. Amazing the power it has. I suppose you’ll just have to build a wing on the house with space for the sprouts to stretch out. Or stop feeding them so well. Or strap pillows to the doorframes.
June 21, 2011 at 11:30 pm
As a tall person, I will say that we get used to ducking down to avoid hitting a head against doorframes and such. But I can see that watching your boys fill the house might feel a bit constricting for you.
June 22, 2011 at 8:55 am
I remember the last words of David Attenborough’s mighty TV series Life on Earth. I think he says something like, ‘The grass will inherit the earth’. If we stop gardening and farming and building, grass will be everywhere. Likewise, somewhere between the rainforests being cut down and the desserts spreading is a time when grass takes over. Let’s hope babies continue sprouting along with it.
June 22, 2011 at 3:14 pm
Fantastic pictures. Don’t give the boys so much to eat.
June 24, 2011 at 2:47 pm
I like those two pictures. they have an interesting abstract quality about them. As for tall people, my 6 foot 2 inch dad used to have to duck the pendant light fixture in the den. However, now that he is nearly 87 years old, he walks around it. Carefully.