The Circle of life (perhaps Disney would make an allotment film?????)

Finally the rain has come, and although fine weather has been forecast for today, a light drizzle has quenched the thirst of all 5 of my vegetable beds, which had been dry, dusty and lacking that deep, deep green of early summer.

I let all of the hens out into the wet this morning and counted all of them out into the field. As I was dragging the broody buffs off their eggs in an effort to make them drink and eat, I caught sight of Albert standing over a small body in the grass.

He looked at me as if to say "I didn't do anything", and I walked over to fine one of my original hens, (one of the last Andrew's sisters) collapsed on the ground.

It is a sad but inevitable fact that the hybrids are well past their sell by dates now and all of them will be shuffling off this mortal coil very soon. but at least I have provided them a huge,green and generally peaceful environment in which to live out their days....

The mist and rain feeding the allotment this morning

Feeling safe

I like routine I always have,I guess this fits in with my tendency to OCD and my need to cross off the lines of mental and written lists I make for myself daily.
The animals all have their own (natural and imposed) routines and I kind of enjoy how they tend to dovetail into my life.
Every morning Albert appears from his sleeping hideaway to catch me (and this is not too savoury a fact!!) on the loo! Without fail he will saunter up and wrap his paws around my hand and standing on his back legs he will rub his face against mine. I would enter a photo of the event here but taste and decency prevents me.
It shouldn't surprise anyone that the two groups of runners, being totally neurotic and constantly hysterical, have a fundamental need to adhere to routines. When they are faced with anything (and I mean anything) different from the norm they fly into tantrums of Bonnie Langford-esque proportions. Last night was a case in point. As usual they were lining up to return to their duck house, but because I was working until 8pm and didn't get on the field until 8.45 ( three quarters of an hour late!) a low grade anxiety and hysteria had started to build.
All their heads were up and the nervous quacking has commenced and the" let's run around in tight circles and panic" mode kicked in full force, as they spied that I had left a small trowel (yes TROWEL!!!!!) on top of the duck house. Only when I removed the offending article did they enter their house, muttering loudly to themselves as they did so! I could quite happily slap each and every one of them!

(above is the nearly full grown ducklings-still neurotic and screaming!)

This evening we are off to the Crown (Which has re opened recently) for an early dinner. I have promised to dress smartly.....Chris' stress levels couldn't take me looking my normal scruffy self

The 12 chicks in their run

Blanche and the rapidly growing Haleh in their run

Not being arsed........well almost

Somethings you just can't be arsed with, others you just have to be arsed with!

After a twelve hour shift, it was a blessing to get onto the field for some feeding, watering and locking up therapy then it was grand to collapse onto the couch (covered with the obligatory carpet of dogs and cat) to veg with a pepperoni pizza (No mushy peas to be seen Cassie!!!) whilst watching Jurassic Park III .JP III is a much much better film than Jurassic Park 2 but does suffer from the most unsympathetic female lead in modern movie history..... in the guise of the terribly brittle Téa Leoni! Mind you it redeems itself with the very tasty Alessandro Nivola (pic) and the Mother Theresa faced William H. Macy

The three fat buffs sat on their eggs in the hen house today, have smashed all but one of their eggs as they battle for nest supremacy....it is a pity as they have sat on their eggs for 9 days.....I will have to check for day old chicks locally for them to adopt!.....yes the circle of life continues

Fish and Chips on the beach

The local council could do a great deal more with Prestatyn Beach. Presently there are no classy facilities to enjoy....no restaurant, no little tea room, no bandstand and no pier; ok we do have a very scenic promenade, but apart from that and an over expensive car park, we have little else.
The famous Offa's Dyke ends at Prestatyn Beach (for those that don't know Offa's Dyke is an ancient earthwork constructed in the 8th Century to separate the Welsh kingdom of Powys from the Anglican Kingdom of Mercia. Apart from the above sculpture and a bog standard cafe, this important national feature is hardly celebrated locally.

Anyhow Chris has been working in Cardiff today, so instead of a preparing tea late, we had fish, chips and mushy peas on the promenade,which was a huge treat. It was a treat for the dogs too, as the four of them sat stock still in the back of the berlingo waiting for scraps! It is the only time they are beautifully behaved!

Chris reminded me of the time a good few years ago now, when I used to drive over to Prestatyn from Sheffield in his red nissan micra to take my mother for an outing from the nursing home she was in. One afternoon I took her to the beach to have some fish and chips, and as she was tucking into a portion of mushy peas she had a coughing fit ( she was a chronic bronchitic so coughed long and often)

Being quite frail, she couldn't quite open the window quick enough to provide a safe exit and a cough turned into a sneeze, and suddenly the whole of the car was filled with a ton of half chewed peas!!

we were finding them weeks later!

Gay Therapy

I still feel a little "out of sorts" today and it is rare for a black mood to stick with me more than 24 hours!....so I have had to resort to the "big guns" to pick me up a little.....first was a long gossip with Nu (she was on her lunchbreak at work) and the second was a blitz of cleaning and furniture re arranging!-I know, I know it is such a gay stereotype...to be polishing and moving tables, then backing up to see if the rearranged item looks "just right"....but it DOES work when moods have to be lifted.
As I type this I can feel that the bleach I used to clean the kitchen floor, has removed most of my finger prints!

I called down to see my sister's allotment today.She has a co-operative venture with 8 or so other middle aged despots down in Prestatyn, and all of her vegetables look leaps ahead of my produce (except for my HUGE cabbages), I took some duck eggs down as a payment for a score of runner beans they donated to me last week, and managed to wangle more nasturtium plants from them to inter plant between my veg rows.One of her partners, Janet, has kindly volunteered to help Chris and Sister Janet in the tea tent when I open my allotment on the 5th July.

All About Eve (almost)

I have been slightly pissed off today, in fact I think my face must resemble Margo's from the above photo from All About Eve. Now generally I am a fairly upbeat kind of person, so being a bit low bores me , so I was very much looking forward in seeing the only showing of the Bette Davis classic at Prestatyn's Scala this evening.
Anyhow it wasn't to be as Hazel's babysitter let her down at the last minute!
Bummer! That just about capped the day
As Bette once said
""There comes a time in every woman's life when the only thing that helps is a glass of champagne."

last choice George

The Berlingo has suffered another chip to the windscreen so I arranged for it to be repaired this morning. Because of space I parked the car on the field and as usual as the 2 workmen worked on the screen, they slowly became surrounded by a host of dogs,hens, ducks and cat!
One of the workers was tickled pink when George was chased out of the main hen enclosure with a very irate and dishevelled Mildred Pierce pecking at his bottom.
I always feel a little sorry for George.
Despite a brief power struggle with William a year or so ago, George has firmly and consistently been placed on the lowest hierarchical rung of all of the animal populations. Now this is easily accepted with the dogs (as he is the smallest and the youngest) , but it is also actually correct with Albert and dare I say most of the chicken flock.
Oh the shame!...poor George is even lower than the most bedraggled and sad looking chicken!
Yesterday I noticed Albert greeting the dogs after their walk. Each dog will receive a head rub and cheerful purr, but Albert cannot quite stop himself giving George a playful face box or paw slap! It is as though he does so, just because he can!....it's a bit like a good natured bully, giving a fellow schoolboy a slightly painful but benign slap on the bonce---

Clover leaves, St Trinians Pullets and a backward wave

Clover leaves for pastures new today, he has been adopted by a chap who bought Duncan last year and will have a small group of females to watch over. The pullets from the shed are now happily sorted in the old buff house (above with Clover in the foreground)
They remind me of a bunch of St Trinian school girls, as they are constantly noisy and constantly in motion, Both Poppy and Clover have found all the excitement totally baffling and have stood outside their run for hours watching the hysteria.
I have taken an inventory of the field population this morning as I was watering the vegetable beds. The numbers of birds have fluctuated with a few older birds dying off recently so now I have 23 old birds, the original 7 dog attack survivors in the top run, Bunny,Mary and Roger the bullied bantams,Blanche and Haleh in their own little run,the 5 runner ducklings which are almost full grown now,the 9 original runners,Scotty, Poppy and the 5 female buffs, and the 12 new st Trinians hooligans make up 74 birds (Including Boris and Gloria of course oh....and the two unknown chicks in the shed)
I found a pretty neat Laura Ashley carrier bag tied to the garden gate this morning. In it was an egg order and a little package of cooked penne pasta all wrapped up nicely. It was a gift from a neighbour who heard that Susan the run down hen was having special "pasta" dinners to build her up. People can be very sweet can't they?
Chris is happy to be home and I am happy that he has returned after a week away. As he left for work this morning (he takes his moped to the local station down in Pretatyn), he gave me a small backward wave as I was walking back from the allotment.
It was a small gesture, but it moved me greatly.
After nearly a decade together, it is so easy to take each other for granted. It is also easy to let yourselves get lost in the every day life of bill paying, work pressures,home routines and family .
Sometimes a little moment like this morning's wave of goodbye can reinforce the bonds that tie you together, and because of that, is a small but vital lesson to realise!