Here in the East Riding of Yorkshire, you will find our idyllic hamlet where a handful of converted mellow brick and pantiled buildings are scattered around the preserved remains of, what was, Yapham Windmill, each with a tell-tale name such as The Old Granary; Barn Cottage; Pond Cottage; Mill Royd; Mill House; Yapham Grange and Grange View.
There are always jobs to be done.
My favourite pastime is to gather up young shoots of the nettle plant to brew them into a refreshing and therapeutic drink – Yapham Spike. Urtica dioica – sounds painful but it soothes the aches and pains and has that particular taste that tells you that it is good for you.
From time to time, people, who just happen to be passing through, are happy to offer their labour in exchange for some recompense and a bowl of homemade soup and a rustic sandwich.
There are the seasonal labourers – hedge trimmers; mower, shear and knife sharpeners; rat catchers; blacksmiths and chimney sweeps. It is the country way and it takes things back to how they used to be before postcodes; bus stops; mobile phones and ‘No Cold Calling’ signs.
There are also the artists; potters; musicians and tumblers who seek out a place to set up camp for the night and, in exchange for shelter; food and water will entertain our coterie of friends and neighbours during the summer evenings, whilst en-route between the well-established and traditional seasonal landmark events such as Hull Fair, Nottingham Goose Fair and the York Waits.
Barney arrived a week or two late last year. He said he’d been busy with the rapeseed harvest – ‘It’s getting big in Yorkshire’ he explained. I had been saving the job of painting the porch to the rear courtyard of our house in the hope that he would lend a hand.
‘Come in Barney – have some of Michele’s parsnip and apple soup!’
‘’Same as last year? – With any of your local bacon and eggs from the best Deli in Pocklington?’
‘Sit down, eat up and then you can paint the porch’.
Once lunch was over, I handed Barney the paintbrush and tin of black paint – it was only half a tin – with the instruction to start from the top and work his way down. It wasn’t long before he was at the back door. ‘More paint needed’ he said. ‘Oh’ I said ‘There’s some white in the garage – carry on with that down the sides’.
A short while later, he was there again.
‘OK – If you can find the cans of blue and green, use them to paint the sides – no-one will notice’.
A later suggestion from Barney, now keen to finish the job, was to use up an old tin of yellow to go round the windows and across the front.
‘Ok’, I said. ‘And I need to head off across to the village hall to help set things up for tomorrow’s Local Produce Market so here’s a few quid for your trouble’.
Off I went, down the lane away from the front of the house, trusting Barney to finish the job. I hopped over the stile and through the woods, checking on Richard who was packing up his jars of honey ready to sell tomorrow.
Everyone else in the locality was similarly preparing their offerings of local produce for the big event.
I left a few bottles of Yapham Spike at the village hall then returned home, looking forward to seeing the newly painted porch, albeit in a an array of colours.
It was later than I had planned and Barney had gone, and before I ventured out into the courtyard, I saw the scruffy note nailed to the gate.
‘Thank you for the hearty lunch, the £20 and – by the way, maybe you didn’t realise – it’s not a Porsche, it’s a Maserati