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Paid a visitor to Farmer Ray today but took Seb for back up. Being the scary guy that he is I felt that he wouldn’t hit a guy with a child on his shoulders and may take pity on me. Bad isn’t it that my child is like a human shield for me. But then you haven’t seen the gun that he takes around with him.

We approached his gate which I can just about peer over. There he was sunbathing fast asleep. I was gutted, I had spent 5 days building up the courage to walk up the road to speak to him and here he was fast asleep. I didn’t dare wake him and so just started to tip toe away and then, at the top of his little voice, Sebastian, who was about 2ft above me and could see considerably more of the garden, shouted “woof woof” at the top of his voice. As much as I love his fascination with animals at the moment I have to say this was not one of those endearing moments.

In a flash Ray jumped up and looked around. Now, imagine this image. This is a farmer who spends all day walking around in head to toe, blue overalls with a flat cap. I have never, in four and a half years, seen him in anything different. He is a true, hardcore, do not mess with farmer who is just slightly eccentric (those of you who follow this blog know that he believes he is the “egg man” from the Beatles lyric “I am a walrus, I am the egg man” – there may be an element of truth in this but that is for another day).

So Ray had jumped up to the sound of “woof woof” from a less than convincing dog at the gate. He stood there, flat cap still on and yet his overalls were almost on except that the zip had been undone all the way. The view that greeted me was a gentleman in a string vest and the most beautifully ornate Bermuda shorts. In an embarrassed rush he did up his overalls and strode over saying “Ahh, just the man I wanted to see”. However, his aura had been quashed. This was now Ray the floral short wearing farmer that I now had as a neighbour.

Anyhow, all went well and he was more than happy to have the bees on his land and wasn’t too concerned that they would be close to him when he was cutting the grass. Result on many parts I say – especially as Sebastian then proceeded to run through his gate and start chasing his chickens around the garden. Ray and I had to laugh. All in all a worthy meeting and one I shan’t forget for some time.