Global Warming – if ever there was a misnomer set to confuse people, this is it. Climate Change is the preferred description at the moment and a changeable climate it certainly is. The first two weeks of the New Year saw some of the coldest nighttime temperatures that my children have ever experienced. And thanks to my decision to convert our heating from nasty oil to environmentally sustainable local wood they got the true experience! Minus 13 was the lowest recorded temperature on the moors and bloody cold it felt too.

Now whenever they get some poor farmer to talk about the freezing weather on the local news, he or she always comes up with the lines that a couple of weeks of frost is ‘good for the ground’ and ‘kills all the bugs’. Well as Cathy could testify from the full to bursting wards at the local hospital where she puts in a couple of shifts a week – the bugs have nearly killed off half of Cornwall and I can only add as the farmer that the whole experience was a right royal pain in the butt.

For the first few days of frost, it was simply a matter of going around the farm and breaking the ice off the tops of the water troughs as you fed the animals. By midday the pipes had warmed in the sun, and water would trickle in again.

Then as it got colder the pipes would remain freezing and each day the levels in the troughs was dropping ‘til eventually there was no ice left to break. Bemoaning to my father-in-law he said, “Well you don’t have any problems – you do have a river!”

And of course he was right. So the next day saw me and the dogs shepherding the flock onto the moor and across to a wide ford in the river to drink. They must be thirsty – I thought. But no…the sheep stood with their backs to the water and looked at the dogs and me while we looked at them. You can take a sheep to water – but you can’t make it drink!

To be fair, the only ewe that did try to get a drop, slipped over on some waterside ice and promptly gave up. So we rounded them all up and headed back to the field.

Fortunately the next day it started to thaw and the water problems resolved themselves. That is until a couple of days ago, when we opened our campsite boiler room to find that a burst pipe had been spraying water all over our plumbing and dry storage for the last three weeks! As the temperature starts to drop again we find ourselves up to our necks in builders quotes and insurance claims while we huddle around the stove, waiting for the snow to arrive.