‘Red clover, butterflies, cuckoos, curlews and swallows are all around’: Helen Rebanks

There’s a preconception that rural life is quiet. Not a bit of it here in Matterdale. The farmhouse is always full of family, work deliveries, visitors and school pupils on trips. I love my life, and I’m so proud of what we’ve created, but it’s important for me to come away on my own and walk across the fields. Every day after the school run I take our five border collies and one springer spaniel out and give myself some headspace before I start the day’s jobs. We’ve got 200 acres, so I won’t bump into anybody else. At the moment the fields are awash with wildflowers, insects and birdlife: red clover, butterflies, cuckoos, curlews and swallows are all around. I can just breathe the fresh air and get absorbed in an audiobook without anyone asking anything of me. My husband [James Rebanks] and I have lived here for 13 years, and both come from farming families in the area that go back generations. I feel very lucky to have the conveniences that our ancestors didn’t have. We’re not having to muck sheds out or milk the cows. We’re not ploughing and tilling a hard landscape. Kitchen equipment makes cooking from scratch much easier. Having said that, a working farm comes with a lot of administration. Paying bills, cows’ passports, vet tests: all onerous stuff that stops you living. But then you can just open the door to the outside, and there is all of life.

The Farmer’s Wife is at Theatre by the Lake from 18 September to 10 October