Matt Baker
THE COUNTRYFILE PRESENTER GOES BEHIND THE SCENES ON HIS SHOWS AND FAMILY FARM
OUR FAVOURITE TIME OF YEAR ON THE FARM
”Christmas preparations start early on the farm – in fact, some decorations don’t ever get taken down. One of Mum’s favourites, the outdoor Christmas lights, mysteriously seem to remain in place all year round. They are solar powered and, according to mum, cost nothing to run – though they have been cut through during the summer hedge trimming and replaced many times, so how they remain costing nothing is a mystery!
Getting into the swing of Christmas spirit starts with gathering holly and ivy from our ancient woodlands, collecting various shapes and sizes of pine cones, blue spruce branches and variegated holly to laden the mantelpiece. The house starts to take on a pine-scented aroma from what seems like the start of November.
Over the winters since my childhood, I can certainly see and feel a difference to the weather. As a kid it was the norm to be wading through blizzards and knee-deep in snow. The Farmers’ Almanac reads: “White Christmas, green Easter. Green Christmas, white Easter. If December is rainy, mild and unsettled, the winter will not be harsh,” and that seems to hold true here in the north. In recent years, the weather seems to remain milder for longer into the winter, with snow, if it comes, arriving closer to springtime. The into the average temperature in December 1961 in the UK was 8.3°C; now, more half a century later, the average in December is 9.3°C.
I remember one Boxing Day that was absolutely Baltic. Mum and I were out feeding the sheep, dressed in everything from overalls to thick woollen coats with hoods, scarves round our faces, trying to negotiate the difficult slippery conditions to clear the feed troughs. There was a freezing mist that hung heavy on your breath and made it difficult for your eyelids to close. Suddenly, out of the mist, a figure appeared jogging along. It was a woman dressed only in orange shorts and a vest top. “Morning,” she shouted as she passed by and disappeared again into the gloom. We stared in disbelief, first at her and then at each other. We waved politely and got on with feeding up – neither of us complained about the weather for the rest of the day.
As a family, Christmas is our favourite time of year. Although, in years past, we used to lamb our pedigree Hampshire Downs in late December, making it a full-on Christmas. Our new breeds of Herdwick and black Welsh mountain sheep lamb in April and don’t seem to mind the cold. They take it all in their stride, hunkering down in the hedges or with their backs to the wind, patiently waiting for it to pass – adopting a similar stoic attitude to the Boxing Day crosscountry runners in our area!
Watch Matt on Countryfile, Sunday nights on BBC One.