Sweetcorn & News

Chris is finally back tonight which is nice. The house and bed feels dreadfully empty without him cluttering up the place. Re seeded more of the field's bald spots today and potted up all my sweetcorn seeds; so many in fact, the kitchen now resembles a market garden.

Set the ducks up with a new larger and deeper bath ( which flummoxed them completely-ducks cannot cope with any change at all)

Delivered a load of eggs and took some flowers down to Peter and Tracie's house in celebration of the birth of their son Louis (a 9 pounder!!!!!!!!!!!).

apart for that I have spent the day in the allotment.

Teachers have the right Idea

I wasn't surprised to hear that the NUT's ballot has 3 to 1 voted in support of a strike on the 24th of April. General secretary Steve Sinnott said: "I call on the government to think again and ensure that salaries at least keep pay in line with inflation and that there is a recognition of the continuing workload pressures on teachers." , but I think that the strike (the first in 20 years) is less a reaction of money and inflation, but an indication of how low morale has sunk to in the education system.I never thought I would agree with public sector strikes, but I support the teachers' actions wholeheartedly. I hope that their action and I suspect the public support that it will generate, will galvanise nurses into similar statements of dissatisfaction. The NMC (Nurse and Midwifery Council) and the RCN (Royal College of Nurses) are terribly impotent and old fashioned organisations and are in desperate need of a shake up. Nursing has been dumbed down for far too long. Morale is low, standards are dropping and nurses like the teachers need to "draw a line in the sand"- to say enough is enough. so when the time comes,( and I hope it will very very soon), for nurses to be balloted in order to take industrial action, I for one will be voting to strike!!!!!!!!

30 hens and a potential new Great Nephew

Collecting three new hens with four dogs in the boot and Jess (left) sat on the dash board was perhaps NOT a good idea.After seeing a "free to good home" advertisement at the Farm warehouse, I rang up an elderly lady living in the hills somewhere behind Abergele, to arrange to take some unwanted point of lay hens off her hands.
It turned out that the lady in question was a full time carer for her husband who had recently suffered a succession of strokes,so looking after poultry and a selection of other animals had become too much a burden. After coffee ( and a ton of scones) I piled three of her lovely amber rockets ( actually they are almost pure white) into the back of the car and I was very good at resisting the rest of her "unwanted" hens AND an elderly sheepdog that was also being re homed,(Bless , she was very tearful when telling me all this)... but I must admit It was pretty hard as I am a sucker for a sob story.
Anyhow on the A55 and almost home, Jess suddenly "got wind" that there were birds somewhere in the car, and literally went berserk.Thank god I had taken the precaution of tying her to the seat belt, if I hadn't it would have been "thank you and good night" for the three new girls who I have named Margo ,Karen and Eve. Anyhow got them home and set up in Stanley's coop in one piece... but only just.

Ann rang this afternoon to tell me that Nephew Pete has taken his wife Tracie into hospital this morning for the birth of their second child..which is great news..Bugger only knows what we will get the baby....Buying for little ones is not a strong point of mine.

Back to some sort of normality tomorrow, Chris is home..

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?????)