Morwick

A striped fly lands on the ground in front of my feet, ochre and brown.  I bend down on my haunches to have a closer look and a small drop of Turkish delight ice cream rolls down the side of the waffle cone and falls next to it on the grass.  The fly disappears as quickly as it came, in an instant as if it had been spliced from a film.

There is not a cloud in the sky and the sun makes everything look pleasant even the out buildings of Morwick farm with their peeling whitewashed walls, broken fences and the piles of building debris that litters the ground.  It is a working farm, a dairy farm and we have come to indulge ourselves in the ice cream parlour that is doing brisk business in the spring sunshine.  Business is so brisk that the front car park is full, the lane running past the farm house is full and so we have made our way to the grandly named overflow car park, a small walled field suitable for a dozen cars or so.

We’ve queued and bought our ice creams, my cone and a tub of amoretti and are walking back to the car park behind the parlour, away from the crowds and the children’s park.  A young girl is enjoying herself on the swing that caws like a crow with each sweep and is in need of a bit of oil.  Customers have occupied all the picnic tables and are enjoying the variety and choice of flavours, chatting and licking and biting. 

The grass in the car park hasn’t been cut and it tickles our ankles, free in the fresh air for the first time in months.  To the side of the field a small pen holds half a dozen calves, white dappled with brown and black, the buds of their horns appearing as stumps just above their deep brown doe eyes.  Their tagged ears get caught in the railings as they stick their noses in the trough filled with food but they back off at the slightest movement of people towards them.  A group of children say hello to them and hold out their hands through the railings to pet them but with no luck, the calves are too shy.  Most are out in the sun but others are lying down in an igloo like structure at the far side of the enclosure.  A couple are frisky and rush around the pen in mock fights, making games and having fun like any other children.  In the main barn a cow is lowing, missing its calf and all the ears prick up in the pen.

We look on and smile at their antics, cute little calves in a pen to allow the dairy farm to function.  We pick out our favourites while eating our ice cream flavoured with rose and chocolate and almonds and wonder what they would think of what we have done to their mother’s milk.

Morwick ice cream can be found just outside of Warkworth and is always worth a visit. http://www.royaldouble.com/