Will’s World: How Mrs Evans brings me out of my shell

As I write this, I’m sitting in my man-shed, shivering in about 17 layers of clothing.

The rain is falling even faster than Keir Starmer’s approval rating, and I am feeling well and truly fed up after a long day of trudging through the mud moving cattle to higher ground and getting soaked to the skin in the process.

At times like these, my natural inclination would be to retreat inside my own shell, put my head down and shut everyone out.

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I’m generally quite content with my own company and thoughts, anyway, and I often find it easier just to say nothing rather than try to clumsily explain how rubbish my day has been.

A common trait among farmers, I suspect.

I’m aware that isn’t a healthy thing to do, though, and fortunately for me, I rarely get the chance to do it anyway because I married a talker.

If I were writing a CV for the present Mrs Evans, I’d describe her as a “confident speaker and excellent communicator”, and it would be entirely accurate, and very much meant as a compliment.

Once, in the early days of our relationship, during a phone conversation between the two of us, I put the handset on top of the bread bin and made an entire cheese and ham sandwich from scratch.

When I picked it up again, she was still merrily talking away, completely oblivious to the fact that I hadn’t been listening for a full five minutes.

I can’t repeat what she said to me when I delightedly informed her of this, as this is a family publication. What a woman she is.

Anyway, it’s good for me. The sheer volume of spoken words, not to mention voice notes, that come in my direction daily require me to say a few back from time to time, which stops me from dwelling on things too much.

A problem shared is a problem halved, and all that.

The thing is, though, she’s managed to pass on this admirable trait to our numerous daughters.

This means the chances of me getting more than a minute’s peace in the Evans household for the foreseeable future are, regrettably, about as high as Wales’s chances of winning the next Six Nations Championship.

Still, I wouldn’t change it, and there’s nothing that can snap you out of a bad mood like one of your offspring innocently jabbering away to you about what they’ve been up to, or asking endless questions.

This happened again a few days ago when I went to pick up daughter number 3 from one of her after-school clubs.

She’s one of those children you encounter occasionally in life who was born old.

We have several photos of her when she was very small, holding a cup and saucer in one hand, a digestive biscuit in the other, and looking for all the world as if she’s about to chair a local Women’s Institute meeting.

But it’s the serious questions she’s always asked, whether about historical subjects, world events, her school homework, or farming, that never fail to make me smile.

“Daddy why do those sheep have coloured marks on their backs?” she asked as we drove past a neighbour’s field.

“Those are marks from the raddle that the tup’s wearing – it shows that they’ve been making babies,” I replied evasively.

She contemplated this for a few seconds before asking:

“Did you wear one of those when you and Mummy made us?”

I nearly crashed the truck laughing.