The Nightmare Before Christmas

Christmas isn’t the same as it used to be, and I’m not just talking about the impact the infernal virus called Covid has made on our festive habits.

When I was a journalist, the last two weeks before Christmas were busy. We would try to produce a fortnight’s worth of material in a week so we could get the usual two papers out over the festive period and have something of a break. True, a good deal of the last edition would be bulked up by filler material like “the best photos from the last 12 months” or “a review of the year” but you still needed news and current-ish material to run alongside those pieces.

It was tough but we met our deadlines and more often than not, we had a backing track of festive choons to keep us going. I pretty much turned into the Herald’s resident DJ during my last December at the Farnham office, as I belted out Christmas classic after classic from the room I shared with my editor. They woz good times.

Fast forward 24 months, and my days as a desk jockey are becoming a distant memory. Gone is the nice warm office, its view of West Street and its Christmas shoppers, and the banter about the latest numnuts on The Apprentice. Indoor jobs at this time of year usually involve spending time in greenhouses or polytunnels, and there’s a definite lack of central heating in both.

The last two weeks on the farm were spent in the former as we planted the best part of 76,000 – count ‘em – juvenile strawberry plants within a nine-day spell. The team at its strongest was a magnificent seven of Steve, Graham, Ryan, Mike, Sam, myself and Harry, who answered a call for help during his Christmas break from university.

Whatever way you look at it, that means each of us planted around 10,000 strawberry plants, or 1,100 per person, per day. Some were faster planters than others with Steve and Ryan leading the way, but the rest of us still did our share and got our hands dirty for a solid week and a half.

All of our plants were bought from a Dutch firm and arrived from Der Nederlands frozen in a big lorry. The plants were laid horizontally in wooden boxes and needed a bit of thawing before going into our growbags, which, you’ll remember, are on racks several feet above the ground. Many of the plants were still frozen when we rescued them from their wooden cages and that made planting even harder, especially if the bags were already sodden from the odd leak in the glasshouse roof.

The planting process began in Stock House, where the racks are a little bit higher, and consisted of thus: Get three or four boxes and put them on your bench. Open the boxes and lay many plants to the left or right of the bags that need filling. Make a pouch in the soil, plant the little Dutch blighter, and repeat ad Infinium.

Doing such a job on your own would be seriously soul-destroying so being part of a team with good camaraderie made the job much more bearable. Getting a bit silly and having music also helps, although putting the two together has mixed results.

I started off this entry by talking about music, so here’s the tenuous link between the past and present. Throughout the two weeks I reprised my DJ role thanks to the combination of a speaker, a Bluetooth connection and my Spotify account. We had the ability to listen to any song or album any of us wanted, requests were made and accepted, and the music was our constant friend as we filled growbag after growbag for hour after hour.

We started well and our little army, backed by good music, quiet determination and team spirit, finished Stock House in just over a day. By lunchtime on Tuesday one half of Field House was in the bag and the likes of Ryan, Mike, Sam and I were racing each other.

But the music began to deteriorate all the while Ryan and I kept up pace with each other and sang along in karaoke fashion. We decided to kick off the Tuesday session with some Abba, and soon enough the opening bars of Dancing Queen were belting across the greenhouse floor.

Possibly not Mike's favourite band.

Our productivity was excellent and Steve (who’s got hands like shovels, don’t you know) also appreciated the Swedish foursome as his pace was even better. However, not everyone enjoyed the Gold experience and after two-and-a-half hours Mike requested a change. I’m not sure how Sam and Harry felt about it, but I suspect the latter also probably found it a hellish experience given he’s a metalhead.

Things didn’t get any better on Wednesday as Ryan and I decided to open things up with The Rocky Horror Show OST. Eyebrows were certainly raised when Andreas, the “plant doctor” from Berry Gardens walked into the greenhouse with I Can Make You a Man blaring out from the radio while we finished the morning to a dose of vulgarity as we opted for Kevin Bloody Wilson’s Christmas album. It’s not one to play to your young grandchildren, let me tell you.

Ryan and I should have been slapped because the silliness reached a new depraved low on Thursday when we opted for the worst mix of songs you could possibly imagine. It sounded a fun idea in theory, but there’s only so much Snooker Loopy, Zig and Zag, Aqua and Crazy Frog a man can take.

Who remembers these two? They had a hit single, you know. And I decided to play it to everyone.

Graham was unimpressed, Steve called it “f###ing sh#t” and Sam pumped up the volume on his French musique as loud has he could. The nadir was probably The Birdie Song, which prompted a bout of hysterical laughter from me and general derision from everyone else.

Harry called it a day after that and it’s 100 per cent accurate to say we wouldn’t have completed the job on time without his help. But I can only assume he might have stayed longer if the tunes hadn’t been so horrific.

A taste of some of the awfulness I subjected the team to. I'm very sorry, guys.

At the beginning there were fears the team would have to work through the last weekend before Christmas to get the job done but we achieved so much that Graham gave the order for everyone to stand down.

The turning point for me was the impulsive decision to get my booster jab during the weekend. Now I admit this was a risky move as the first jab knocked me out and I had to skip work because of the flu-like symptoms it gave me. But I had no reaction to the second so I decided to take a chance. Booked it on Saturday, got jabbed on Sunday afternoon in Havant, job done.

I felt fine until I went to bed as the cold hit me upon getting undressed. The next morning I felt so groggy and cold but there was no way I could stay at home, so I manned up and went into work.

I felt dreadful for the rest of the week although I think that was down to a heavy cold I caught off a snooker buddy than the side effect of the jab. Regardless, I felt drained for a couple of days and my speed reduced dramatically.

The temperature in Pheasant House didn’t reach double figures during the week as the vents were mysteriously opened. It’s not so bad when you’re working but the cold hit whenever I stopped and I found myself going straight to bed to get warm when getting home.

Finishing in the largest glasshouse probably didn’t help as it was soul destroying to look around and seeing a black ocean of empty growbags. Row after row – I think there’s 54 of them, all 40+ bags long - waiting to be filled, all the while nursing a heavy cold and the sensation of a punched arm.

This aerial image gives you an idea of the area covered by our glasshouses. The farm shop is in the top right of the photo, with the Wickham to Bishop's Waltham road in the bottom left cover.

But we pressed on and my speed and mood improved by the second half of the week. I ended with a flourish, possibly buoyed by the sight of the finish line and an absolutely superb trance classics mix on Spotify. And I have to say the camaraderie was great throughout and that certainly helped. We’ve got a great little farm team and I get the impression that Graham is very happy with it. I also got the impression he really enjoyed the final few hours in Pheasant House, although that could be because of the trance mix and the festive Jagerbomb Ryan treated us to at lunchtime. Makes a change from coffee out of a flask.

We finished the job, drippers installed and all, on Thursday afternoon and spent Friday morning moving poles and spraying weeds at Ford. It was an untaxing way to finish the year and a welcome relief after the relentlessness of the previous fortnight.

I expect similar jobs in the New Year as we prepare the crop for the 2022 season but for the moment, and I write this on New Year’s Day, I’m making the most of a rest and losing track of time and the Gregorian calendar. Time for some more chocolate…