Planting the Pension

PLANTING THE PENSION

Prologue

Question: What does an ageing alcoholic do with three and a half acres?

Answer: Plant a vineyard.

#

Six years earlier

‘We’re mad,’ I screamed at him, ‘to think we can have it,’ I said, studying the glossy brochure with shaking hands. Ulley Farmhouse. The property I’d viewed every morning on the internet for three months, relieved it was still for sale, adamant it was meant to be ours. Now I wondered at our stupidity. It’s unaffordable, my common sense yelled. It’s stunning, an opportunity to be seized without question, my irrational mind over-ruled. I smiled. Chris and I had fallen in love with it.

‘We’ve always taken risks, reached for the unobtainable,’ he told me, grinning. ‘Think back.’

I did. Marrying whilst students and with a mortgage paid for by working evenings in the local Sainsbury’s provoked cries of “It will never last!” Years later taking on a massive mortgage when interest rates were a record high was regarded as financial suicide since paying for it was dependent on renting out the flat above Chris’s veterinary practice. I trembled at the memory. Even setting up the practice was scary- converting an old butcher’s shop into a veterinary surgery was a gamble. But all those challenges paid off and so back to Ulley Farmhouse…

‘This time we could be broke forever, always struggling, always working. No cosy retirement for us,’ I moaned.

‘It’ll be fun,’ he insisted.

‘Perhaps it won’t happen.’

‘It will. Wait until the morning. He’ll call.’

I went to bed anxious but the moment I drew back the curtains the next morning, breathed in the fresh air and felt the warmth of the sun streaming in through the open windows, I knew it would be a day to remember. Wednesday. The first day of the Henley Regatta July 2003 and we were joining friends for a few hours of over-indulgence drinking chilled champagne and eating posh canapes whilst watching the odd race or two along the Thames. But this year we had more on our minds than what to wear, although I had deliberated over numerous outfits before deciding on an elegant silk dress. Chris simply reached for the suit, shirt and tie I’d put out for him.

With daughters Becca and Sally safely dispatched to school, we set off mid-morning and as we travelled to meet everyone for pre-lunch champagne before driving to Henley, we sat in silence awaiting the phone call.

The mobile rang the instant we pulled into the driveway. My heart pounded. I released my safety belt not caring about the creases in my dress. Chris took the call, listened to the conditions outlined one by one, frowning, his eyes fixed on mine. He answered, tried to discuss, but the voice of the vendor on the other end of the phone, strong and authoritative, was menacing. There was no room for negotiation and with two desperate buyers waiting in the wings, praying for us to drop out, why should there be? I nodded. Chris gave our consent. The deal was done. Our lives were to change beyond all belief.

We were to swap our suburban five-bedroom house in Buckinghamshire for a seventeenth century farmhouse with six and a half acres in Kent.

We would build stables and the girls could keep horses. Mooster, their treasured pony, costing a fortune in livery, would move with us, and then we’d find another pony. I visualised the future and then considered the enormity of the undertaking. Maintaining the landscaped, but nevertheless vast, areas of garden and two paddocks was no small task.

Gripped by panic, I worried what we’d do with the land once the girls and their horses left home. After all, Chris being a veterinary surgeon didn’t automatically mean he loved horses. A ridiculous image of the two of us in ten years’ time struggling to keep the grass cut, flashed across my mind.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, studying my tense face, ‘We should go in and meet everyone and tell them our news. Surely you’re not having second thoughts?’

I explained.

‘I’ve already thought of that,’ he assured me, beaming and taking my hands in his, ‘And no, before you ask, I have no intention of keeping livestock. Far too much of a liability. Haven’t you worked it out? The land is perfect. South-facing, well-drained and partially sloping. One day we’ll be truly self-sufficient. We’ll plant a vineyard.’

I considered his outrageous proposal, shook my head and began to laugh dismissively, but like all brilliant ideas worthy of fruition it remained another dream locked away deep in our hearts, waiting.

#

The decision

It was in 2008. We were sitting on the old green canvas chairs precariously positioned on the concrete yard in front of the empty stables, enjoying an early evening drink, determined to make the most of the late autumnal sunshine.

‘It’s now or never,’ Chris said, surveying the redundant paddocks, ‘late October and still sun-soaked to the last. We must do it. Next Spring we’ll plant the vineyard.’

I took a large gulp of wine and cast him a disparaging glance, but there was no getting away from it. Chris was serious.

‘It’s what we always said we’d do when the girls and their horses left, remember? This afternoon as I sat on the tractor cutting the grass, I planned it out. The front paddock is one acre, and we have two and a half acres at the back. Vines are planted in rows 2 metres apart, spaced at 1.6 metre intervals within the rows. Believe me, Rae, we will plant a vineyard.’

I started to laugh nervously. My husband cannot multitask and here he was telling me he’d not only cut the grass but planned out a vineyard. And in considerable detail.

‘I know what’s going through your mind,’ he told me.

He didn’t, not quite. I was thinking about the vine we’d allowed to climb the back of our house in Iver, and the crop of grapes Chris harvested to make wine. The wine was undrinkable, had taken a great deal of effort to produce, and been a constant irritation in the process, with the bubbling sounds and smell of first yeast, then alcohol emanating from the two demijohns strategically placed near the boiler in the utility room.

‘You don’t think we can do it, do you?’ he said, recognising the look of horror on my face, ‘I can see I’ve got a lot of convincing to do. Let’s thrash this out over another glass of wine.’

An hour later the decision was made.

‘This will work, Rae. I promise.’ Chris told me, ‘And it will be a viable business. Call it planting the pension if you like.’

Chapter 1: In which we argue, yet again

‘You resent the vineyard, don’t you?’ he said, one cold, dark Sunday morning in January 2016. We were sitting at the breakfast table drinking coffee and reading the papers. To be precise, I was studying the holiday section of The Sunday Mail. Page after page of inviting offers, enticing faraway places. The Maldives, Barbados, Sri Lanka, exotic locations I’d thought by now we should be able to afford to visit. But no. Discussing a trip away was not on the agenda. Instead, we must review the budget for the vineyard. Chris’s forecast for the year, a spreadsheet he’d printed, lay underneath the Sunday supplements. Resent? Pissed off without a doubt. I’d almost go as far as to say we were at breaking point.

I looked up. Chris stared at me accusingly. ‘You haven’t said a word since I gave you the budget you asked me to produce.’

‘What’s the point?’

‘The point is, I want to know we’re agreed.’

I huffed, took a deep breath and reached for the paperwork. I scanned the figures, the items of equipment to buy, the cost of the chemicals needed to spray the vines for yet another year, replacement posts to be ordered, oh and bottles. But that entry pleased me. I smiled. ‘At last,’ I said. ‘Bottles.’ The tedious chore of cleaning and removing labels to reuse wine bottles would finally end.

‘Oh good. I’ve got something right.’ He smiled, his face softening a little, and then he reached for my hand. ‘I love living here and promise you the vineyard will work and provide an income,’ he told me. Again. How many times have I heard that? I wanted to cry. But I didn’t, not all the while his eyes were fixed on mine, desperate for reassurance.

I shouldn’t be angry. The vineyard was a joint venture. I wanted to scream out in frustration. Instead, I nodded and smiled back at him. What else could I do? We're in this together, quite literally for better or for worse. It’s just that sometimes, like this morning, I wished we could jet off without a care in the world. I withdrew my hand and looked at the budget once again.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘This isn’t what I’d planned. I thought by now we’d be making money from the vineyard, and I know I must continue doing veterinary work, but please, I need you to be with me on this, and to understand,’

‘Yes of course I understand,’ I snapped, ‘that’s not the problem. There is just so much to do, and there is never a quiet time in the vineyard,’ I moaned, and then considered our wine. Much of it not up to standard. All those bottles wasted, ‘And when will you sell the wine?’ I shrieked.

Chris jumped up, marched across to the kitchen door and stared out at the garden, his hands clasped together at the back of his neck. He stood there for a few minutes then turned around to face me, tears in his eyes. ‘Rae I will sell the wine, but I want to be confident it is good enough. I’m new to this game. I’m still learning. You know I had a problem of crystallisation with the first vintage I thought was ready to market, but the following two years’ wine should be ok,’

‘I know but if we don’t shift the wine, we will run out of storage space,’ I complained. ‘I don’t want to get to October, pick grapes yet again to make more wine if we still haven’t sold anything.’

‘We will sell it.’

‘We could sell the grapes. Let someone else have the hassle of wine making.’

‘I’m not selling the grapes. I want to make the wine.’

I shrugged. ‘I just hope you can sell it,’ I said, doubting his ability. ‘You’re not a salesman,’ I whispered. As a vet he’s used to clients seeking his advice, paying for his clinical expertise. He doesn’t need to sell anything. People come to him. But wine, selling a product, that’s completely different.

‘I’ll become one. I’ll do anything if it means I can get out of this awful profession.’

And that’s another thing. When we began this project all those years ago, Chris got satisfaction and pleasure from his work but now older and cynical, he hates his profession with a vengeance.

You see, I’m married to the Doc Martin of the veterinary profession. Intolerant of ignorance and the inability to speak the Queen’s English are his pet hates. Poor time-keeping is sure to enrage, and the unhealthy misuse of the internet to diagnose invariably elicits his standard reply to clients, “Yes, and the last time I looked Elvis Presley was alive and well, and working in a fish and chip shop in Cleethorpes.”

I first made this observation about my husband the day he told me he’d removed the chair from his consulting room. He’d had enough. Clients should hold their animals if they wanted them examined. And listen, not sit down. And if anyone dared to answer a mobile phone the offence would bring an abrupt end to the consultation. Walking out and making coffee, his usual course of action. Depositing said mobile in the fish tank in the waiting room his preferred choice. You get the picture. My “Mr Grumpy”, or “Mr Gripple”, as I have named him, (gripples are the grey metal clips used to join and tighten wires in the vineyard), is tired with dealing with the public and hankers after a quieter life. A life in the country. Outside in the fresh air. In short, he’d prefer to be a farmer. The only tiny problem is the need for an income.

‘I know that’s how you feel but until we have another source of income…

‘Perhaps I should go back to work?’ I offered, shuddering at the thought of returning to optometry.

‘Don’t be ridiculous. If you did you wouldn’t have time to keep up with everything here. Anyway, no point in arguing. I’ve got work to do outside. You stay in the warm.’

I glanced outside. A fine drizzle of rain wet the windows. My heart sank. I couldn’t let him do it alone. Winter pruning. Three thousand vines. Then the cuttings to collect and burn. Shoots to be bent and tied to the wires ready for this year’s growth. Another year, another cycle. I could only hope this will be the year we make some money from the vineyard. But if not, if we can’t sell the wine, then what? I visualised myself camped out in the redundant stables which have become the winery. Locked away in the winery, surrounded by bottles, I considered my fate. Screw-tops, no need for a corkscrew, I reasoned, imagining the scene. A delightfully uncomplicated existence, ‘Escape. If only,’ I murmured, closing my eyes for a second.

‘It’s not raining much. Should be ok out there,’ Chris looked out of the kitchen window, ‘no need for you to come out.’

‘No, I’ll help,’ better than moping inside on my own, I decided, ‘And perhaps we should try the 2015 wine later. See if you think we can sell it,’ I added optimistically.

‘Yep, that’s an idea.’

We wrapped ourselves up. Boots, hats, gloves, secateurs in hand and traipsed across the back lawn to the vineyard. The rain was easing, the clouds moving rapidly, and with the sun breaking through, a faint glimmer of winter sunshine cheered our fragile souls.

The air was bitterly cold, but I didn’t notice. Instead, I took in the beauty of it all. The secret garden flanked by magnolias, the willow trees alongside the stream where snowdrops flower. My stomach churned. Pre-occupied with thoughts of first selling up and then making a go of the vineyard, my troubled mind wouldn’t rest. We walked on.

As we passed the stables, I glimpsed row upon row of vines and stared. The bare-rooted twigs we planted eight years ago, now mature vines. We owned an established vineyard. I kept walking, following Chris to row twelve. Another thirty-three rows to do, I calculated. My life in numbers. Vines, rows, bottles. And then I’m back to the wine. The unsold wine. I turned to face Chris.

‘Look, I said you didn’t have to come out. Go back,’ he insisted, ‘I know you’re fed up with the vineyard. I’ll manage on my own. I got us into this mess and I’ll get us out.’

‘Ok yes, I am fed up. Not with the vineyard but with our life. We never have time to do stuff together other than work out here,’ I said, waving my arms around, ‘I want us to have fun.’

‘We will. I promise. Once we sell the wine.’

And my heart sank again. Selling the wine. Complete novices, we should congratulate ourselves. The vineyard. Our vineyard. One huge achievement. We’ve mastered everything- planting, nurturing, spraying, protecting the grapes from the birds, harvesting, pressing, fermentation, and making the wine. Everything except the most important crucial task of all. Making money. The purpose of this toil.

‘We could sell the vineyard,’ I tentatively suggested, ‘and keep the house.’

‘I’ll do anything for you, Rae,’ he said, reaching for my hand, a look of determination on his face.

I waited, fearful of what was to follow, ‘Except sell the vineyard.’

I shrugged. What was there to say? No escape. Trapped. We must finish what we’ve started. Another year ahead. Give it one final year. Resent the vineyard? Maybe, I thought, blissfully unaware that by the end of summer resentment wouldn’t begin to describe my feelings.