My Not So Perfect Life(52)

Everyone loves the shower barn, with its reclaimed school lockers and pegs, but they love our open-air roll-top bath even more. It’s painted in rainbow stripes—inspired by a Paul Smith design—and has its own mini wicker-fence enclosure, open to the sky, and it’s just brilliant. I sent a photo of it to Alan, to upload onto the website. It showed the rainbow bath, with a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket and a cow looking over the wicker fence, and Alan sent back an email: Wow. V cool. I mean, if even Alan appreciates it, it has to be good.

The roll-top bath is so popular, we’ve had to instigate a rota. In fact, everything here is popular. I always thought Dad and Biddy would be able to make a go of this. What I didn’t realize was how far they’d throw themselves into it or how much effort they’d make.

As for the yurts, they’re beautiful. There are six of them, in pairs. They’re close enough that a couple could put their children in an adjoining one, but far enough away for privacy too. Each one sits on its own little deck and has its own fire pit. Dad knows a guy called Tim who works with wood and owed him a favor. So Tim put together six beds out of local reclaimed timber, and they’re spectacular. They’re on huge, exaggerated legs, and the headboards have ANSTERS FARM carved into them, and you can even separate them into two single beds, for children. We have extra trundle beds too, because we’ve found that lots of families like their children in with them, if they’re young, and the yurts are plenty big enough. The sheets are 400 thread count—we found a trade supplier—and the cushions are all vintage prints, plus each yurt has a sheepskin on the floor.



Each family gets a little hamper of milk, tea, bread…plus homemade organic Ansters Farm soap. Biddy looked around at local organic-soap suppliers and then decided that she could easily do it herself. She makes it in tiny guest-size cakes and scents it with rosemary and stamps AF on the front. And then, if guests want to, they can buy a big bar to take home. Which, usually, they do. She also offers personalized soap with any initials on, which people can order as presents. That was all Biddy’s idea. She’s incredible.

We’ve also invested in good Wi-Fi. Not just good-for-the-country, really good. It gets beamed straight to us from a mast twenty miles away. It costs a bit and Dad was against it, but I know London people. They say they want to get away from it all, but when you tell them there’s a Wi-Fi code they nearly collapse in relief. And luckily we have phone signal at the house—although not in the fields or the woods. If they want to call the office from the middle of a hike, too bad.

Meanwhile, Dad’s created a bike trail through the fields, and a mini adventure playground, and a gypsy caravan where children can go and play if it rains. At night we light lanterns along the paths of the yurt village, and it honestly looks like fairyland.



“Farmer Mick!” I can hear excited shrieks coming from the path up to the woods. “Farmer Mick!”

This is the biggest revelation of all: Dad.

I thought Dad was going to be the problem. I thought he wasn’t going to take it seriously. So I sat him down the week before the first guests arrived, and I said: “Listen, Dad, you have to be nice to the glampers. This is serious. It’s Biddy’s money. It’s your future. Everything depends on your being charming and helping the glampers and making life easy for them. OK? If they want to climb trees, help them climb trees. If they want to milk the cows, let them. And don’t call them townies.”

“I wouldn’t!” Dad replied defensively.

“Yes, you would. And be especially nice to the children,” I added as a parting shot.

Dad was very quiet for the rest of the day. At the time, I worried I’d offended him. But now I realize: He was thinking. He was creating a role for himself. And just as Biddy has blown me away with her ideas, Dad’s blown me away with basically turning into a completely different human being.

“Farmer Mick! More tricks!”

Dad appears round the corner of the shower barn, accompanied by the three-year-old triplets who have been staying this week. There are two boys and a girl, and they’re super-sweet, all dressed in little Scandinavian stripy tops.

Dad, meanwhile, is in his “Farmer Mick” outfit. He’s taken to wearing a bright checked shirt with a straw hat, and he practically says “Oo-aarh” every other sentence. He’s walking along, juggling three beanbags very badly, but the children don’t care.



“Who wants to ride in the pickup?” he asks, and the children all shout excitedly, “Me! Me!”

“Who wants to see Agnes the cow?”

“Me!”

It’s not Agnes the cow, it’s Agnes the bantam hen, but I’m not going to correct him. I mean, whatever.

“Who’s having the best holiday of their life?” He winks at me.

“Meeee!” The children’s shouts are deafening.

“Let’s sing our song now!” Dad launches into a lusty tune. “Ansters Farm, Ansters Farm, best place to be…Ansters Farm, Ansters Farm, never want to leave…Who wants a Somerset toffee?”

“Meeeee!”

Honestly, he’s like some sort of children’s party entertainer. And he’s not stupid: Every other minute he tells the children they’re having the best holiday of their lives. It’s basically brainwashing. All the little ones leave the place actually weeping because they’re going to miss Farmer Mick, and we’ve had a load of re-bookings already.