Never count your chickens before they’ve hatched.

I actually finished work a week early because my Dad had been a bit unwell after a fall, and I had realised, that, if I left it another week, I could not get to see him a couple more times. I wanted to ensure that he was safe and being properly attended to before I left. Obviously, I was not going to spend all the week with him, but it was better to have this full week to get properly prepared, rather than the three days I would have had otherwise.

Being at home meant that I had plenty of time to pack and get everything sorted out in my mind and be at peace before I leave, but, our small farm is never without both its attractions and also its chores, and so, on Saturday morning, a request from Wife to help her sort out the croft and clear some hedging, so that she could graze it with sheep, found me with the chain saw, in intermittent showers, cutting down four old elders and then trimming back 100 yards of untamed Hawthorn and Ash hedgerow. For a desk driver, this was pretty tiring work and reminded me that some parts, mostly my back, shoulders and knees are definitely beginning to know their age. The real problem of clearing this area was that it made it even more obvious that the area we have adjacent to it, surrounded by 5foot high wire netting, is what was originally our “fruit cage”, but over the years had become swallowed up by a return to nature. We also kept our chickens in there, but they were all taken by a fox and a weasel about 10 years ago and never replaced. Wife had actually caught a weasel pulling a chicken through the hen hatch door and fought a tug of war with it, which the weasel incredibly stayed around for and won! We have always planted our own home grown trees on the farm, grown from seeds, and here, in about 1995, in a brick cold frame, which should have been for courgettes and such like, we had put about a dozen plastic pots containing conkers and some Maple seeds we had picked up in Cirencester Park. About half of those had been planted out, but when I left for Germany in 1997, the rest had been left and forgotten. Now they were closely packed, 6 metre high, small trees, some lying down for a couple of metres before arching upwards. In addition, the elders had spread from the croft and the ash seeds had produced about 6 saplings; the gooseberries had gone wild before going huge, and the whole of the ground cover had been replaced by willow herb and nettles. It was actually a miniature domestic deciduous jungle, but with clearing the croft, it was now exposed for the mess it had become. It had always been my intention to clear this sooner or later, preferably later rather than sooner, but now that it was on view, I felt it had to be tackled.

On Sunday, thankfully, it poured with rain, so the fruit cage was not really an option and I started to pack the bike, very carefully thinking about everything I need and don’t need, because there is a real space problem for 3 months living off a motorcycle. In a car you just bung it all in, and in the camper, anything goes, but in three panniers, it all has to fit and be essential. One side pannier has just emergency kit, a ground winch to haul it upright if I should be unfortunate enough to drop it (it has been known), jump leads, securing straps, a high-viz overjacket, a high-viz mountain sack, whistle, flashlight etc, and my wet weather covers. The other side pannier has most of my camping stuff, sleeping bag, bivvy sack, mozzy net, cooker and pans, and a water bag. The top box has to be reserved for a spare helmet, my painting things, laptop and tent. Finally, strapped on top of that, is my trusty “Oxford” bag in which my clothes and personal stuff will live; pretty much three of everything, one to wash, one to wear and one for emergency. (I decided to adopt the Army habit on clothes use, rather than the Navy. (On submarines, it is rumoured that, because of the lack of space and laundry facilities, it is recommended to wear ones underpants right way round, first week, back to front second week, and then repeat, inside out, for the third and fourth week respectively. This need does not arise with a motorcycle and frequent launderettes and, the alternative method, i.e..4 weeks the right way round and correct side out may have been a habit of early teenage life, it most certainly is not now!) All went well, and the pile of stuff, which I had laid out on the trestle pasting table, gradually disappeared. I have had to leave out my gallon fuel can which worries me a bit, but, as an empty can, it takes up too much space. I hope I don’t live to regret that. Anyway, all was packed well and ready for off.

On Tuesday, the weather had settled, and the question of the fruit cage was raised, with Wife suggesting that, if I “lopped of the saplings (saplings!?) she might like to get a few chickens again, which would soon clear the ground weeds from their pecking and scratting. Well, suffice to say that the nettles and willow herb were actually no problem at all, because, when you have felled, logged and finally sorted out 8 trees in a confined area, the undergrowth becomes a thing of the past, an irrelevance. Most of the day was dry with few showers, and Tuesday evening, after a hot soak to relieve the pain, I sat down and decided that I would repair the zips of my fleece pockets which had been annoying me for months. I had my passport, with my U.S. visa in, in the inside pocket, because at work, I had to carry formal identity at all times. I put it into the back left hand pocket of my jeans and sat down to repair the zips. On Wednesday morning, the final clear up was on and, by lunchtime, all that was left of the jungle was a pile of logs, some trimmed gooseberry bushes, and the chicken hut. I phoned the bank to order some US and Canadian dollars for Friday. “Don’t forget some form of I.D.” the cashier had said, “either a passport or your bank card will do”. No problem. Passport in back pocket, all ready.

Now I like chickens, don’t get me wrong, but, in retrospect, the best thing that could have ever happened was that the chicken hut had caught alight with the bonfire on which we burned the top branches and twigs off the trees, but it didn’t. Instead, we (we?) decided that it would be nice to re-stock with chickens NOW, so we also totally secured the fence and wired up any holes, and decided to go to the local auction at Clitheroe on Wednesday night, the so-called “Fur and Feather” auction because it’s when they sell all the poultry and other birds, rabbits, and ferrets etc. So, quick wash and change, and off to the market about 6 o’clock. The market was very busy; there were lots of people there and a lot of fur and feather. Ducks, chickens of all kinds, geese, quails, plenty of choice. We looked down the cages for our “trio” of hens and saw several cages of good birds, some nice Wellsommers and some point of lay Warrens. There were also a lot of rather scraggy birds in, but on the scale of things, birds at auction are pretty cheap, usually about £2 to £6 a bird, and some of the scraggy ones will go for about 50pence. Farmers bring them in knowing that they will get a few pence for them, usually sold to ethnic groups who, by hearsay it is said, use them either for sacrificial purposes or as very cheap food, and some who just like to buy live meat as they did in their own countries. The auction started then, a mass of people and languages all mashed to together, slowly moving along the alleyway between the bars of the cattle pens, almost themselves like a herd of animals being encouraged down the run by the auctioneers feed bucket. We ended up with rather more than I expected in the way of chickens, but I don’t have to look after them, and 9 chickens and a cockerel isn’t exactly overcrowding! It was fun night, but Fur and Feather always is, although usually I go to look at all the other miscellaneous stuff that is sold there and get a bacon butty, which, sadly, because of the intent of our purpose and being locked in a mass of people, I sadly missed out on this time.

On Friday afternoon, I almost forgot to go to the bank, but at 3;45, suddenly did, and remembered to check for I.D., passport?…..No?…..Yes, of course……passport back left pocket of jeans?…..NO!…Passport not in back pocket of jeans! I think passport may be in car, though why it should be there I don’t know, but then time is going on, so pop down to bank with usual bank card.

On my return, I have a quick look around the cars and the dining room table where all my travel documents sit expectantly. Not there. Then I check my bedroom, old jeans pockets, no they’re in the wash, shirt pocket, likewise, linen basket, then more desperately, under the bed, all around the kitchen, all drawers, chests, wardrobes, jackets I haven’t even seen let alone worn for ages, still no sign. I check the garages, the workshop, the “boat shed” the outside shippons, the stables, under the cars, the grass, the croft where we felled the tress, the chicken house, even the ash of the bonfire, but sadly the passport is nowhere to be seen. And then I entered frantic mode. Everywhere I had checked, I checked again, and again; I found items I had not seen for years, but I wanted none of them; I just want my passport with the U.S.Visa inside it. After 8 hours of feeling sick with the realisation of the consequences of having lost this important document, I accepted that it was lost, and thinking carefully realised that I had indeed had it in the back pocket of my jeans when I went to the Fur and Feather auction. What made me more sick, in the light of the recent increase in Islamic terrorist attacks, was that I had been surrounded at the auction by at least a dozen Asian youngsters all apparently bidding for the cheap birds. You see, terrorism does this to people, it makes them suspicious of everyone around them, even though they were probably perfectly innocent young men, but nonetheless I could not help thinking that a 10 year British passport with a 10 year U.S. Visa inside it would be a perfect theft for would be terrorists, and it made me cringe to think of the possibilities. I phoned the Police to report it missing and got a crime incident number and then phoned the out of hours passport office to do the same. They were very kind, took the details and gave me an appointment at Liverpool to apply for a new passport, but told me that it would be a week before I could get one because it had been stolen and the fast tracking was only for new applications or renewals. If I had not been sixty, I would have cried; I damn near did!

That evening, a couple of local guys turned up to take my 17 year old Rover, which has finally died, to have a short but exciting new life as a “Banger Racer”. They strip out all the windows, seats, fittings and weld up doors, fit roll cages, move radiators about and finally race them round a sort of bumper car circuit to destruction. The Rover would enjoy that! It was still capable of 120m.p.h. just before the lower radiator pipe broke and the speedometer to gearbox linkage packed in. They loaded the car on to the recovery vehicle they had brought with them. I had already emptied it out but they did another check before it went. “You’re gonna want this mate” said the young man, waving a maroon passport at me. “It was stuck under the drivers seat electric motor”. I shamefacedly took my passport from him. But, I realised in horror, that the passport he showed me was one that I had had to report missing in August last year and it had been cancelled and replaced by the one that I had lost now. I just stood like Victor Meldrew, in awe, aghast at the irony of the discovery. Almost unbelievable that on the very day I have reported my passport missing, my last one should turn up. How the hell would I explain this to the passport office I felt so ashamed. I wouldn’t even know where to start this tale of unremitting carelessness. If a passport that was lost is thereafter found, it has to be returned to the Passport Office, rather an apt parable for the sinner I felt, being found, and returned to God! Perhaps, I should ignore it and burn it? Perhaps I should just cut it in half and put it in the filing cabinet in the Office until its 10 years was up? Then again, perhaps I should come clean and eat humble pie and admit that I had been the UKs number one prize idiot ? God, I felt a fool!. Standing there, speechless, with jaw dropped, and with old, and now useless passport in hand, the Rover disappeared off down the drive. I didn’t even say goodbye.

The nightmare continued. I started to realise that I would not now get away on the 6^th July, and that it may be several weeks before I could, but then if the total time was less than 90 days, I didn’t need a visa for the U.S.A. anyway. I ‘phoned the U.S. embassy to report the loss of their visa, as I thought it was an important security event and should be reported, but they were closed ‘til Monday morning. I ‘phoned the travel insurers who told me that “Yes, a lost passport causing delays in flights was covered, but not if it was lost before leaving the UK!” I e-mailed the travel agent in Montreal to inform them of the probable need to cancel and re-book, but to stand by until I knew when I might be able to get another passport. I spent a thoroughly f------ miserable bloody weekend, full of shame, disappointment, anger at myself for being so stupid and suspicion about immigrants, the latter of which was, quite possibly, totally unfounded and nothing at all to do with my own carelessness.

On Monday morning, I was till so worried about it falling into the wrong hands, that I phoned the U.S. embassy in London again, and when I finally got through to the Visa Section, on their £1.20 a minute advice line, the lady said it was of no importance to them, phone the police, they didn’t do replacements, and she would give me a new appointment on 27^th July to go through the whole process of application all over again. I declined politely in some degree of shock, because I had discovered that, although the U.S.government consider staying in Canada part of their 90 days visa allocation, the Canadians do not, so I could adjust my trip, spending my 90 days in the U.S. and leaving the last 20 days of my time, before the date of the return ticket, in Canada, which I would enjoy anyway.

The visit to the Passport Office in Liverpool was really such a relief. The cashier on desk 6 called me forward, a young woman, about Daughter’s age. I ate humble pie, and chattered senile 60 year old “so sorry stuff”, which I really meant, and I humbly handed in my old passport with the application for a new one and the lost or stolen declaration form. The new photos, which I had done on Monday morning, were only slightly better than the one in the old passport; slightly less criminal looking, but still not the ones I would choose to post on a dating site. She listened calmly and politely, and I felt so stupid. “You have been silly haven’t you?” she smiled, and I shrunk even more in humility and with no slight acknowledgement that she was absolutely spot on there. I had told her that I was due to fly on the 6^th, and she looked at her computer screen and said, “I’ll see what I can do”. “How about after 10?” she said. “Yes”, I said, “I’ll have to cancel the flight, but only delay by a week, that’ll be fine”. I breathed a sigh of relief that I would only have to cut short by 8 days. “No”, she said, “not the tenth, 10 tomorrow morning”. I couldn’t believe my ears. I could come back to Liverpool in the morning and collect a new passport, on the very day I had intended to depart for Gatwick. I could have kissed her, hugged her, bought her chocolates and flowers and paid for a dinner out for her and her choice of friend! YES! Fantastic! Goal! Result! Thank you God!. And thank you so very much to the lass on Number 6. ( who, of course I did none of the above to, or for, because taking flowers or choccies through the security screen at the passport office I suspect would be considered bribery or some such politically correct rubbish, and if I had acted on the immediate instinct and given her a big hug or a kiss across her counter, that would almost certainly have delayed my departure for a deal longer than a week, depending of course on the understanding of the Magistrate who would have dealt with my case. But, sweetheart, if you ever read this, and know who you were, I LOVE YOU!

The home improvement, and “repairs around the farm” plans, that I had put in place over the miserable weekend, to occupy myself and forget my disappointment, were all put on hold. The things I needed to do now, were re-pack my bike which I had totally unpacked on the fruitless search, empty the porta potti on the camper( 3 months left maturing would not have enhanced the living in it on my return ) and replace the clear broken panel on the chicken house roof. I bought that on the way home and did it at 6.45 on Tuesday morning in the rain. The bike I re-packed on Monday night. The passport was duly completed and collected on 10.30 on Tuesday morning and from Liverpool, I shot another 100 miles north to say good bye to Father and then returned home. The chickens laid their first two eggs, and I departed for Gatwick at 0320hrs on Wednesday morning.

I left my dollars from the bank on the hall chest!

Best wishes,

Doc.