Poor Bernie is mortified.

“Ann, I didn’t stir out for days. I warned Timmy. I said Timmy, “there’s no way this won’t end in tears but he was on a mission.”

And of course, when he was gung-ho that the parenting crowd were all egging him on. But when the you-know-what hit the fan. Who was there? No one, Ann. Only maybe yourself.”

“I didn’t do much, Bernie.”

“But you didn’t run away, Ann.”

Bernie and Timmy have a handy-sized farm out the Drumfeakle road and this summer was the summer Timmy got his brainwave, out of the blue.

“Farm camp,” he says to Bernie one day. “He had got chatting to this detachment parenting crowd on Facebook. They’re all about letting the children run free and the next thing is he says we’re running a farm camp.”

It was all the talk of the area. There was talk of RTÉ’s Nationwide doing a bit on it. I’d say they’re glad they stayed away.

My own daughter Deirdre sent her two, Adam and Ailbhe. They’re 10 and eight. She hadn’t a clue what it was going to be but she just needed them minded for the week.

Parents these days, I don’t envy them, panicking over camps. Long ago, you’d just be minded by whoever on the road was the eldest. But these days if you so much as let a child sit on the gate, someone will call Tusla.

They came home the first day all excited. “Nana, we got to pull ragwort,” said Ailbhe. “It was so much fun. Farmer Timmy brought us into a field and told us ‘to clear out them hoors’.”

And Timmy was charging money for this. I was thinking to myself, the man was a genius.

Complaints

Tuesday was thistles. That’s when the complaints started. Not from the children, of course. They were only delighted to get their first go of a slash hook.

But one little scut arrived home with a bit of a scratch, and I wouldn’t mind, he didn’t even get it from the thistles. He got it from climbing onto a plough he was told not to climb.

On the Wednesday, they were picking stones and someone took photos of them and put it up on Facebook, saying that it was like a Famine scheme, and there was talk on the radio and the whole thing had to be pulled.

I brought the two on Thursday morning only to be greeted by Bernie in tears. The whole thing is cancelled, Ann. The HSE were in looking for documentation and sure Timmy is not strong on documentation.

I wouldn’t mind, said Bernie, but Timmy was awful disappointed that they didn’t get someone to thin his carrots.

Timmy didn’t help himself on local radio. He went on a bit of rant about obese children and the nanny state and then he got himself drawn into something about vaccines as well. But I do remember this line.

“Ye are all complaining about children not having a bit of freedom and when they do, ye complain too.” But then he was saying ADHD was a scam and made up by big pharma, so that didn’t help.

“I don’t know where he got that from,” says Noreen. “Timmy is well able to take big pharma in his thyroid tablets. There’s no scam then.” I brought the two for a while thinning carrots just to take his mind off things.

So farm camp is a bust for now anyway. An awful pity. I never saw the grandchildren as excited. Coming home every day scratched and dusty, but happy out. Although I don’t know would they keep it up for long. There’s only so much fun out of picking stones.

But I’m already thinking of next summer. I can see it now. Tidy Towns camp.