One man and his favourite hen & a moment in Church

Looking rather dirty but happy at working outside all day (finally no rain all for 24 hours!!!) I have strimmed the orchard behind the cottage, cleared all the grass from beneath the electric fencing and strimmed most of the field grass. It is a bloody awful job but very satisfying. At three I sat in the coop with a cup of tea and was joined by my favourite hen, Mildred Pierce. She now makes a point of coming over to sat hello, and today climbed onto my knee for a stroke, which I was terrible moved by. I have decided that if I don't get outside to work at least every other day I have a tendency to get rather low! and if not low rather crabby .

This afternoon I managed to get into the Church for the very first time in 18 months. Carole was arranging the flowers for the altar, so I sneaked in to "get a feel" for the place, and the tiny church is very sweet and not at all austere, as many country churches can be.

Am working all day tomorrow and Saturday which is a bummer, Saturday night Chris and I have been invited to a salsa bar in of all places Denbigh ( for those English readers, Denbigh is a tiny one horse town in the middle of the Welsh coun tryside). Well it will be interesting.

Playing with Chris' phone

took this with Chris' phone this evening! Maddie is farting peacefully on my lap! still chuckling about the previous pic!

Very Funny

I found this on Chris' phone and I am not sure when it was taken, I suspect it was in a horse-drawn cab in New York( I refused to get in as I thought it was too cheesy! but I must admit I laughed like a drain when I found it! Scary! Like mother like son! that's all I can say

Cheshire Show

As it turned out, the Cheshire Show was a bit of a dog fest. The world and his wife seemed to own or have owned a Welsh terrier and we met a series of colourful characters ,( why do all dog breeders look as though they have been digging sewers?)

William was beautifully behaved (above) Meg less so, but they seemed to actually enjoy watching new things, which terriers seem to do with gusto.

We saw the pygmy goats which were lovely and I am determined to get a couple for the field, but was slightly disappointed that all the poultry had been judged yesterday, and all that was in the hen tent was guinea pigs!

As usual, the draught horses stole the show, and it was great to see some of the rarer breeds showing. (I thought it interesting that breeds such as the Suffolk punch, is rarer than the Siberian tiger!)

Big upset of the day: 5£ for a sausage sarni!!!

A Near miss

Today has been an uneventful kind of day, so a thunderstorm at 9.30 pm was rather exciting! To be honest it was the stuff of disaster films, aka The Day After Tomorrow (2004) with theatrical bursts of lightning overhead!. Worrying about the state of the chickens, I donned Chris' cowboy hat and tramped into the field. Most of the girls had legged it inside but a few hardy birds (Trinny, Suzannah and and Whoopie Goldberg) were larking about in the downpour. As I was holding the electric fence tester I realised how foolish I was standing in wet flip flops in the middle of a soaked field during an electric storm! and couldn't quite believe it when there was a huge flash in a field of a neighbouring farm. I have never been quite so close to a lightning strike before and galloped quick sticks back to the cottage. Almost being struck by a thunderbolt and being savaged by a Russian canine all in one week!= what will happen next? who can tell? that's the price you pay for having an exciting life!

It's raining 300 men

It has pissed down for much of the day! This video made me smile
enjoy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Garden compliments

The Garden recieved the ultimate compliment today, this time from the lady in the corner house from the village who has the most spectacular garden! She said my back garden was beautiful!

Pottering in the eye of the storm

Today is the only fine day we are going to have for a while, well that's according to the BBC weather web site, so it has been a lovely pottering sort of day of catching up with allotment jobs and walking in the sun. Chris and I got up early and walked the dogs on the beach, then I managed to clean out the somewhat musty coop and weeded the veg patch which is looking quite healthy.


I love listening to the radio, when working in the allotment, and today had a real treat as it was the omnibus of the The Archers, followed by an insightful episode of Desert Island Discs. The joy of radio listening is that you can actually give the words,conversations and comments your total attention, and it was a joy to hear the relationship between singer Christy Moore and host Kirsty Young blossom. Radio allows you to pick up on when an interviewer actually likes and respects their interviewee, and I was impressed by Kirsty Young's ability to phrase and ask interesting and insightful questions. I found it fascinating comparing this interview with the one I heard between Faith Brown and Jenny Eclair yesterday. Faith Brown sounded terribly desperate while Eclair was polite yet obviously bored with the whole "old pals act" thing.


The allotment has started to bear its fruit, the lettuce we ate at Ann's yesterday was ours as was the garlic. The sweat peas are wonderful, as are my white "ice cream" roses. Just had time for a 4 mile powerwalk and more William lead training before a sleep this afternoon before work later!
I am worried that next week will make me go a little stir crazy as the weather will be turning wet and wintery, here's hoping.
Today has been a nice day

William (left) looking rather smug