Springtime

It has been a warm springlike day and I have spent most of it outside in a tee shirt.In fact I have been outside from 7am until 5pm and am writing this waiting for the water to heat up so that I can have a hot bath.
so what have I done all day?
I have:-
>Sown grass seeds on all the bald patches in the field.
>planted wild flower seeds (Californian poppies,welsh poppies,ox-eye daisies,field cornflowers and cowslips)
on the border of the allotment.
>aired the compost bins
>wormed the ducks
>potted up butternut squash,
>bathed maddie and George,
>planted early lettace,artichokes,main crop spuds,radish,and transplanted broad bean seedlings to the main beds.

>Planted out a new herb bed with French parsley,golden marjoram,mint,lemon balm,rosemary and sages
>put fox proof latches on the new ducking house.
>Gave Mike and Viv a load of chicken manure
>mown and edged the lawn
>sold Chris' saddle and delivered it.!!!!!!!!!! (I got half the price of the sale for organising it)
>Walked the dogs up the Gop ( William and George spent most of their time swinging from a kids' rope swing -pic)
>Picked Janet's Jess up and walked all the dogs on the beach.
>did 4 loads of washing,delivered some eggs and collected a ton of veg and fruit for the hens.

Off to Ann and Tims tonight for tea, which is great.Chris is back on Wednesday...it will be nice to have him home making the place untidy.


Sad Bastard

I felt as though I had to make the most of the sunny day today, and get all those jobs done which I failed to do properly yesterday due to the horrendous weather. No sleep,(what's new) I cleaned out the coops,cleared the enclosures of hen detritus and walked the dogs. Kirsty Young was interviewing the wonderfully gentle and Interesting Penelope Wilton on Desert Island Discs, so I drove to Sainsbury's in order to listen to the excellent interview.
It was here at the supermarket checkout that I was reminded just how much a "sad old git" I actually am!
The content of my shopping trolley was as follows:
2 x 27p cheap white loaves (a treat for the hens)
20 x 15p cans of basic sweetcorn (also for the hens)
4 pigs ears ( for the dogs)
1 small can of gin & tonic (diet) for me
1 bottle of bleach (to clean the Kitchen floor)
1 box of basic fishfingers (49p) for lunch.....I love fish fingers...
The twelve year old check out girl, raised an eyebrow and no more when she saw my goodies......and I felt as though I had to explain why I was purchasing what was on the conveyor belt. She smiled rather weakly when I explained away the sweetcorn, but I could tell she thought I was a pure "odd bod", especially as I was covered in mud and chicken poo from that mornings jobs.....
I felt absolutely knackered by mid afternoon, and cried off a kind invitation at Ann's for dinner as all I needed was to veg with Casino Royale (2006) on DVD. The azure eyed Daniel Craig would never be found dead buying pigs ears and fishfingers at Sainsbury's........

No Flower show,Nights and Nuovomondo


Days when I am working nights ( I think you understand what I mean) can be a little flat. Being up all day coupled with the fact that you know that you will be up all night, often leaves you with that Sunday night feeling you used to have before school when you were a child.
It has been raining all day, so after a 6 am walk,I have cleaned the house,changed the beds,scrubbed the kitchen clean, sorted the animals out then walked the dogs yet again, all before midday.
I phoned Sylvia the flower show secretary this morning after realising I had missed the last committee meeting in the week. As I suspected the show had been cancelled due to the prohibitive costs of staging the show at the school, which is a pity. If it was up to me, I would have given it a go, but I have to remember that costs are a consideration and most of the original committee members are more elderly and the upheaval of the show's relocation would have been a touch call for many of them.
The good news is that the memorial hall WILL be ready by November, so in principle it has been decided to stage a Christmas "show", with a craft section, cookery section and flowers. It will give the village a chance to get together and keep the impetus and sucess of last year's show going.
Settled down this afternoon to watch the Italian "epic" Nuovomondo (2006) (Golden Door-pic) but it was a dire story of Italian Immigrants fighting to get into the US at the turn of the Century. Hummmm not a bag of laughs....I don't often get the chance to watch a film in an afternoon, so seeing the great unwashed at Ellis Island was not the most restful of subjects. Turned on to sky and watched The African Queen (1951) instead.
Now that's proper matinee viewing

Radio 4 newsreader in giggle fit

I think this is lovely.......
made me smile all evening

Herbs , Sprouts and (Raining) Cats & Dogs


Torrential rain in Trelawnyd! And it has been like that off and on all day. It was so grotty that I went back to bed after early morning dog walks (6 am!) with a strong coffee and LBC on the radio. William sneaked onto the bed after Joan had already made herself comfortable and centimetre by centimetre he managed to crawl within touching distance of her. I am so glad that I always have the camera on hand, as I managed to snap him gently reaching out to touch her. Surprisingly the old gal let him and there they lay for several minutes, William with a hairy paw resting on hers.....
The weather cleared briefly in the afternoon, so I put in a long row of sprouts (you can just see their location under the closhes on the left of the photo)
I also planted out some French Parsley and Golden Thyme and Mint in my smallest plot (just out of frame on the far right of the photo), but the weather closed in so me and the dogs did a round robin and delivered a load of eggs before I set out a ton of Main crop spuds for chitting.Got a DVD for later-Goodbye Bafana (2007) starring Joseph Fiennes (whatever happened to him?????)

gay adverts

yeap it's pouring down with rain and I am surfing! very interesting how benign "gay" themes are helping to sell products albeit in a humourish way

Which one is me????

answers on a post card....

Average day

Chris is away in Broadstairs again to help Sorrel sort out her retirement, and is away for a week! So it is me, the dogs and the birds again. Been up since dawn this morning, as I have re positioned all the enclosures. Also after being fired up with Nigel's plans for a herb garden, I have dug a substantial square block (15 x 20 feet) in which to plant a selection of culinary herbs/ My shallots (right) are showing already, and (below) are my broad bean seedlings which are looking healthy and strong inside the cloches.




Meg looks the worst for wear this morning after a brief but hearty fight with Janet's Jess. I was to blame as I was playing with all the dogs and in their excitable state the two bitches became jealous of each other over my attentions. ( I have never had two females fight over me before!!!!!!!)
Usually dog fights remain a sort of Mexican standoff, with both animals performing but not actually hurting each other, and this altercation was no different until William ( excited and acting rather like the adolescent that he is) jumped onto the two girls and bit Jess on the smartly on the rump.
Galvanised into a rage ( and thinking that Meg had somehow done the biting) Jess relaunched her attack with gusto and it took a bit of hard work and some brute force separating the two of them. At one stage I was lifting Meg up by her harness and swinging her around in the air like a cheap fairground ride in order to separate them, with a victorious Jess in hot pursuit.
The whole thing settled down as quickly as it started , with Jess scratched but intact....Meg has two bloody bites one on her forehead (see pic ) and the other on her leg.....her first wounds in three years.......she has slept all afternoon!
Did all the other jobs this afternoon, such as house work and weeding the garden and have jusr spent an hour catching up with Nu on the phone, whcih was lovely. Early night tonight.....