It’s that time of year for us. Do we go on holidays? When is the best time? I know this game. It’s called find the best time of the year to go away for a fortnight, a week, a few days, overnight? Can we? God be with the days as a city girl (in Celtic Tigerland mind you) when I’d have the week-long holiday plus a European break a year. One sun lotion factor or two? The dilemma - is this guidebook too heavy for hand luggage? Urban holiday problems.

On more than one occasion, countrywomen advised me on marrying a farmer to make sure he commits to going on holidays. Oh there will be holidays Mrs, mark my words.

Mark my famous last words.

Threats to the holiday budget

So the slurry tank is giving a bit of a death rattle every time it passes the farmhouse. It would be cynical to suggest that the farmer gives it an extra wobble on the way past to drive the point home. Slurry tank, what slurry tank? There is always something that needs mending, extending, reseeding. Some farming need that hijacks the holiday budget, one that is safely guarded by the farmer’s wife.

Our last holiday was two years ago. Yes, two years ago in 2013 during the crisis whose name we dare not mention but it sounds like Bother crisis. We had booked a week abroad in May. No sooner had I uttered the words ‘What could possibly go wrong?’ when it started raining and it didn’t stop. It goes without saying that the farmer, like many others was stressed. The farmhouse chorus that spring was ‘will we cancel?’

We said it daily, we said it as we spent the money we had buying in silage, we said it the day before, we said it looking to each other for the answer. We didn’t have the answer; we had the booking and carried on regardless.

Normally, when we leave the farm in good hands, I ask him, ‘Where’s the farm?’ to which he replies ‘behind us.’ I didn’t say it that time until I got to Dublin airport where we saw mowers cutting the grassland bordering the runway to give to local farmers.

Then I asked him because at that point, you could either laugh or cry. Laugh we thought was the only option; the tears were used up. The farm was behind us, left in good hands. We didn’t cancel.

Lessons

That holiday taught us a lot. It was the best holiday of our lives because it was the most needed holiday ever. The worry of the previous months melted away as we enjoyed the change of air and perspective. A change that meant we were able to get up and fight another rainy day on our return.

Luckily things changed on coming home. As you know, the weather changed. Our perspective on leaving the farm for holidays had definitely changed.

We haven’t booked the holiday yet this year. But we will. More than likely the slurry tank will hang up its hose and, I hate to say it, the year could still go anyway. Laugh or cry you might ask. Neither. Regardless of what goes on outside the door, it will always be a good idea to leave the farm behind for a few days. It will always be a good idea for a farmer to take a holiday. Are you reading this? Oh, there will be holidays.

Mark my famous last words.