So, how DID I end up here?

I am a townie through and through.

I like my nails long, my clothes clean, and my plans well organised in advance. I think “roughing it” is unpredictable WiFi and my idea of outdoorsy is sitting in a pub garden. And yet… here I am. Living in the middle of the countryside, engaged to a farmer and raising our baby to the dulcet sounds of cows and tractors just outside our kitchen window

I still have moments where I look around and think — How did I end up here?

Like so many modern love stories, ours began with a dating app. I saw James’s profile and immediately clocked the two essential things: he was over six feet tall (non-negotiable) and the kindest smile. If I’m completely honest, I don’t remember fully registering that he was a farmer until...

We went on our first date, and he turned up with his arm in a sling. A cow had kicked him and broken his shoulder. And he was laughing and shrugging (not with his bad shoulder) off?? That probably should’ve been a warning sign. But I didn’t run — I thought 'wow, so manly!'. And the rest, as they say, was history.

This photo was taken the very first time I came to the farm— and met our pet cows, Ginger and Betsy. Pet cows. Another sentence I never thought I'd be writing.

Here I'm wedged between two of the biggest animals I’d ever been near in my life. What you can’t see is the sheer panic I'm feeling. I had no idea where to stand, how to move, or what to expect. And yes, I was wearing bright white trainers.

That probably tells you everything you need to know about how prepared I was for life here. Not a speck of mud on me, not a single thought spared for what “rural” really meant. On our first Christmas together, James bought me my very first pair of wellies—probably the most practical (and necessary) gift I’ve ever received. 

His last name (and mine soon!) is Speed. Fitting really, because four months after we met, we found out we were pregnant. The best surprise — but a massive surprise nonetheless.

I told him. We processed it. He went milking, (because, farming.) Later that night, we sat in the back of his truck on an old mattress, parked in one of his fields eating M&S picky bits. A proper “townie meets farmer” moment.

That night, we decided we would make this life work. Whatever that looked like. What I didn’t know then was just how big a learning curve it would be.

Pregnancy added a whole new layer to the culture shock. Every midwife appointment somehow drifted into a conversation about farming. We’d start off talking about blood pressure or birth plans, and before I knew it, James and my midwife were in deep discussions about cow calving, or “rearing” in general. It's now become a running joke between James and me: no matter what the topic, it will always find its way back to farming.

And then there were the comments. So many people would look at me—visibly pregnant and slightly terrified—and say,

“You’ll be fine. It’s not that different from calving a cow.” 

If you've never seen a calf being born, do yourself a favour and keep it that way—especially if you're nine months pregnant, hormonal, and trying not to picture your own labour as a muddy, hoof-filled, ratchet bearing ordeal in a shed. Yes, I said ratchet. 

The cultural gap had never felt wider. 

But then Woody arrived and changed our world as we knew it. I spent my maternity leave trying to settle into a life that didn’t feel like mine anymore. It wasn’t the world I knew. I wasn’t in the classroom, where I felt sure of myself. I wasn’t part of the farm, which belonged to James. I was somewhere in the middle—learning how to be a mum, trying to find my footing in a space that felt so unfamiliar.

But slowly, that started to change. Woody grew, and so did I. I found comfort in the small routines. Bit by bit, this unfamiliar world began to feel more like mine too.

A few months later, we decided to recreate our original “truck date” — mattress, field, picky bits — but this time, Woody was with us. And it was there, in front of our baby, Ginger and Betsy, that James asked me to marry him. It was completely unexpected and the easiest “yes” I’ve ever said.

But reality struck... James did his back in. Badly. Another farm injury. So I spent the next few weeks looking after a six-month-old baby and a bedbound 35-year-old farmer. Again — if I didn’t laugh, I’d have cried. (I definitely did both.) 

Thankfully, James made a full recovery and is now mostly on the tractors, which brings me to the next chapter...

My Harvest Widow Era.

Apparently, during harvest, the man I’m marrying disappears into a tractor and doesn’t re-emerge until… November? I don't know. It’s a whole new season of life I know nothing about, but that seems to be the running theme lately.

So that’s why I’m starting this blog.

To figure things out. To laugh before I cry.

To share what it’s really like to live in a world you didn’t plan for with a man you love and a life that doesn’t look like the one you imagined.

And to remind myself, on the hard days, that just because it wasn’t the plan doesn’t mean it’s any less of a love story.

***

No, I don’t help out on the farm. I don’t do early mornings, and I definitely don’t understand tractors (and I’m not really trying to).

But I do love James. And somehow, between parenting chaos, wedding plans, and days where we barely cross paths, we’ve built something unexpectedly beautiful out here.

But let me be clear, I may even be an unexpected harvest widow but the long nails? They’re not going anywhere.