Mother's garden: A new chapter

Once upon a very long time ago I'd watched and wondered why my great-aunt Grace put the kettle on six or seven times a day. She planted out her own vegetable patch until she was 90, and lived to be 101. Serendipi-tea (ho-ho-ho!), much like Mother's Garden, our little farm of mostly pleasant surprises, where the pot is rarely cold.

And that's not all that's brewing as I sit here far away, writing to you. Wine is fermenting in the barn, a pony is on the point of foaling, and a new book about this far-flung existence of ours is about to be released.

Shaking The Tree, the sequel to No Going Back – Journey to Mother's Garden, will be published on December 1, blatantly timed, one might think, to tap into the Christmas market; the perfect gift for insomniacs (two pages and they will be out like a light); a happy chronicle which, I hope, sheds a great deal more light on this slightly skew-whiff life, universe and everything.

It is seven years since No Going Back was published and, as the new cover announces, Shaking The Tree is a weave of tales about The Growing Years; the fruits of labour, the children growing up, we decrepids growing creakier, perhaps wiser. I am told, too, that it is both funny and full of erudite opinion about what really matters, but I'll let you be the judge of that.

I have very happily and proudly written for the Yorkshire Post for many years now, and it has spawned such vital friendships. The essence of some old tales I have told in this chronicle are woven into the book, but there is much that is new.

It is dedicated, incidentally, to Joe and Lorraine Williams of the charity Imagine, in Mozambique, who have been supported so importantly and wonderfully over the years by some Yorkshire folk, not least the children of Allertonshire School, Northallerton.

I first met Joe and Lorraine in Mozambique 10 years ago while covering the flooding disaster. Joe has passed on, but Lorraine continues their work among the poor and ill in one of the most impoverished corners of our contrasting world. More than anything, I want Shaking The Tree to foster more understanding of, and support for, such selfless, vital people as they.

So you can well imagine, then, how I have been getting through the tea while I paw over page proofs, fret about cover designs and lie awake at 3am worrying how on Earth we are going to make it all happen.

An alarming number of book and olive oil gatherings are now organised for the first two weeks of December, when we – Ella and Joe Joe included – will endeavour to somehow whizz from Dover to Oxfordshire, on to Leeds, Scarborough and York, then down to East Anglia.

The plan, which appears more ludicrous the nearer we get, is to load a six-seater hire van with olive oil, sacks of our almonds, hazels and walnuts, and hit the highway through France, before spinning to bookshops and delis.

Very significantly, this tour includes The Blake Head Bookshop and Vegetarian Caf, 104 Micklegate, York, on Monday December 6, where, at 6.30pm, I will attempt to rise to my feet and string a few sentences together.

I sound organised. I am not. Wings, prayers, the kettle and Tina Boden are involved. Friend Tina, north of England regional director of Winning Moves, the enterprise development agency and a regular visitor to Mother's Garden, has taken the boar by the tusks for us and, well, has infused the whole proceedings with some Yorkshire common sense.

The van idea is alarmingly expensive, but necessary (I keep telling myself) because we will be bringing freshly-squeezed new harvest, unfiltered extra virgin olive oil – in a sort of Beaujolais-type run – and plan to return home with copious amounts of English cheeses (including Richard III Wensleydale), Christmas puddings and the residue of our former life that has been gathering dust in my mother-in-law's Norfolk shed for a decade.

Our logo is a tree of many colours, so it was the obvious illustration for the book cover, complete with a symbolic baby boar with whom we share these wild 10 organic acres of garden, woodland, flower meadow, vineyards and groves.

Last week we more than earned our 4pm brew-up as the last grape was picked and crushed. After days of thumping rain the sun returned and, like the boars large and small, we left our tracks through in the soft earth between the vines. Life called out from all quarters. Cousin James pointed into the sun, but we had already heard the three Bonelli's eagles and were straightening our backs and shielding our eyes with finger blinkers.

The farm is so verdant again, but the spring hasn't responded to the downpours that were heralded by fiery skies. It is running, but something is definitely stemming the flow in the 50 yards of tunnel from the source to the reservoir. I must try and find a day or three to dig it out before the frosts and snow.

Things can change here as fast as on the moors. When November hove into view it was still reaching nearly 70 degrees Fahrenheit in the mid-afternoon sunshine. Fool's gold, because if I don't get the wood cut and stacked before the weather turns we are going to be cold come February.

The olive harvest looks like it will be our finest, and we have pencilled in the third week of November to spread the nets and fill the sacks. Preparations have already begun, because volunteer helpers Jonathan and Deanna (from Melbourne, 10,500 miles away Down Under) are here for a fortnight, sent on to us by a friend, an ex-Bradford resident, who lives on a farm in Italy. They are on a world tour and will move on to Argentina.

So while the strimmer (or whipper-snipper to Aussies) purrs through the grove, Maggie and I oscillate between kitchen and office, trying to level out the mountain of fruit and deep hole of accounts and business planning.

It's apples, persimmons, elderberries, and quinces right now, so mother-in-law Beryl, here for a fortnight, is rarely without a chopping board in front of her. Cordials and chutneys bubble on the cooker, cherry tomatoes, rocket leaves and peppers queue beside the salad bowl, while potatoes we lifted in August bake in the woodstove, offering the appetising warmth of autumn.

In the office I try and juggle Spanish VAT returns with being an oilman. Maggie has always struggled to work at my, er, intricately organised work environment , so I have built her a desk upstairs and she now has a mini-computer on which to post her popular online recipes. You should see how the worldwide "hits" peak every time she offers a feast, far higher than any of my tales from the Garden. So one thing is abundantly clear – once Shaking The Tree is out there we must figure out how and when we can put together an illustrated Mother's Garden recipe book. I must also set up a new website page of all the places you can taste our oil, including Dolly's Country Larder at Cottingham.

I mentioned a heavily pregnant pony. I resisted photographing La Petita the other day when she lay down on the grass and, with Joe Joe stroking her head, warmed up with some trial Braxton-Hicks contractions.

We couldn't be sure exactly how things were going to evolve, so we ran in all directions. I willingly removed myself to source some straw from a friend's stables, to make a comfy bed. She promptly recovered her composure and ate the straw. But soon there will be another mouth to feed.

Before I go, I must tell you about a folk hero of Catalonia, El Timbaler del Bruc. The story, of how a lone drummer boy played so loudly that he scared away the French forces during the Napoleonic Wars, has been retold to much acclaim by the dance company that our children have been a part of for some years now. The production has toured Catalonia and other parts of Spain, and we went to see it again last week.

Only this time the boy who for two years has played the lead has grown too tall for the role. He has handed the drum to someone else – a 10-year-old English boy called Joe Joe.

See you soon, maybe...