It's a man thing

I have been putting off cleaning the turkey house for most of the morning....it is not the nicest of jobs...as turkey poo seems to be more smelly and disgusting than any waste.

So I have cleaned the kitchen, prepared dinner and cleared the cottage paths before cleaning the bathroom floor of untidy piles of reading matter!

Now our bathroom is often filled with magazines, books and pamphlets...I think that generally that this is a man thing! Men generally read in the bathroom! (Chris whilst in the bath and me generally whilst sat on the loo!!) Our books are varied but generally in the bathroom the reading matter remains "lightish" in nature.....Homes and Antiques Magazines, Empire Film Magazines, an amusing collection of poems (by Pam Ayres- of all people), a history of the Sheffield cemetery (a wonderfully interesting little book!) oh and I have just found a history of the Indian Mutiny, a diary history written from the perspective of housewives during World War II and Patricia Cornwell's The Scarpetta Factor!.......oh and tucked behind the Period Homes magazines was an old copy of Hello!

yes all very cerebral

Field Update

Halleh (centre) my only drake (and the only non runner duck) is still too full of hormones. He has paired off with the black female but as yet I have not seen any real mating behaviours. Unfortunately the main object of his affections have remained two of the smaller hens, Belle,a marran cross and Ripley an amber rock, and both hens have been harried constantly all day, every day!
Belle, has been somewhat broody and has been cornered on her nest several times today, so I have set her up in a spare rabbit hutch on her own clutch of eggs and have moved it into a safe nursery run.....well away from rapist ducks!

This afternoon I have weeded a little more of the back garden which is just about to burst into its best May colours. Give it 2 weeks and the aquilegia , hipericum and alliums will be blooming and the whole place will look like a typical cottage garden once more

At least three cocks by the look of things! The chicks in the shed are now feathering up quite nicely and are already being dominated by the typical long legged strutting swagger of three white cockerel babies (obvious Jesus' sons by the look of things!)..... I am hoping beyond all hope that I have 7 hens!

This is Kitty, one of the three bourbon female turkeys. Every day she has been breaking out of her enclosure down in the corner of the field to hole up in the hawthorn hedge to lay another egg. Stupid girl! She hates nettles and is getting stung badly every time she sits down to lay! The shaded "nest" I constructed for her in her little paddock has thoughtfully been ignored

As Kitty laid her egg from her nettle stung bum Bingley the Stag (another hormone filled performance here) courted the other females Jane and Lizzy.......

sex is definitely in the air

2004th post!!!!

It's been a year and a half since Chris and I met up with Bev and mike and Maisie together and I have heard tonight that they are coming over to Wales for their first "family" visit which is such a treat!!

In this my 2004th blog entry! (can you believe that?----and I have only been blog counting since last April).......I will celebrate the fact that our oldest friends from Sheffield are jetting over the Pennines at last to see us!

We have not seen a great deal of old friends over here! Nigel is a regular visitor of course, Kathryn has called over and Nu and Nia have both made the effort (I know..... Jonney H you cannot stay given your allergy to all animals!!!)....but we have missed Mike and Bev......

Maisie will have the run of the field and will do what little girls from all over the world should do, and that is run amok with a dog in tow and a chicken under her arm....

it will be lovely to see them

Man som hatar kvinnor

I am not a fan of television murder mystery series......I have had to sit through that many midsommer murders, that just one more would make me literally hurl!

Man som hatar kvinnor (English title The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) has the feel of one of those murder tv shows with director Niels Oplev dragging out the no-so-convoluted twists and turns over 150 long and sometimes meandering minutes! Yet despite the mundane pace there is plenty to enjoy in this Swedish thriller that takes more than a sidewards glance at the physical and psychological abuse of women as it concentrates upon the sadism and murder within a rich Swedish family.
What makes the movie work is the refreshing way it portrays the two leads.
Journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) is a good natured hack that is brought into a 40 year old mystery disappearance of a young heiress. He is not typical Hollywood hero fodder, he is middle aged and rather shopworn with a paunch and a series of ill fitting jumpers......and his sidekick and object of his affection is not the usual willowy Nicole Kidman ish character but a psychologically damaged,goth, bisexual dyke with an attitude that could cut toast!!! and it is this reptilian performance by actress Noomi Rapace (above) that makes this average thriller just that little more interesting.
The unsmiling Rapace, spits out venom and pain throughout the film, and is balanced well by the benign and righteous Nyqvist; the pair make for an unlikely and compelling movie couple- a risk that the Danish studio took and won easily.
The plot I give 6/10
The cinematic partnership I give 8/10

Cow obsession and a first for Chris

Meg has a fascination for cows. Every time we take a walk down gypsy lane we come across a bouncy,inquisitive band of heifers and out of all four dogs, she alone seems to be completely obsessed with these huge benign and rather attractive animals.
Pulling at her lead, she edges excitedly towards them and nose to nose she allows the cattle to sniff and lick at her and seems intoxicated by the grassy burps they constantly emit.
I would love a cow!

Now the above photo is a rarity!
Chris, in a fit of "outdoor-ness" (I have never seen him with a hoe in his hand for all the years we have been together!), got stuck in with some gardening this afternoon ! We removed the dead fuchsia and an overgrown hebe from the front border and replanted a flowering currant, lavender,some antirrhinums, lupins, pinks, granny's bonnets and three fragrant Rose bushes. as well as some alpines which I squeezed into the spaces on top of the cottage garden wall.
I was impressed , he worked very hard.

This afternoon Chris went to Church when I completed the garden planting. He took with him several boxes of eggs, which I asked him to share amongst the congregation. With all the dry, warm weather and the arrival of the spring grass, the girls have been banging out their eggs with some gusto at the moment!
Perhaps a few freebees my increase my sales!

Jobs Worth

Ah yes, not having to sort out insurance or British telicom issues out recently....I had almost forgotten the "official-rule" speak of call centre micro managers,
so today a conversation with the sewerage department re enforced the kind of jobs worth attitude which is so typical of today's service industries.
The conversation went as follows

Me: I have been for a walk this morning and have seen an overflowing sewerage manhole cover outside your Trelawnyd water treatment plant and wanted to report it
Operator: What is your name?
Me: John Gray
Operator: what is your address and telephone number?
Me; well I will tell you but the leakage is not at my home address it is way down a country lane
Operator: can I have your address and telephone number and postcode
I complied
Operator: Is the leakage covering the pavement?
Me: No I have already explained the sewerage is overflowing on a country lane a long way from our house
Operator: Is it outside your property?
Me: No it is at least a quarter of a mile away from our house
Operator: How old is your property?
Me: (getting slightly exasperated) what has that got to do with anything? the overflow is not near my property and between it and ourselves are three other houses
Operator: can you repeat your postcode again?
Me:yes ( and did so)
Operator: I am trying to locate you
Me; The leak is not at my location, it is at YOUR water treatment works down the lane approximately a quarter of a mile away from this postcode, why do you keep asking for my details?
Operator: I am reading a script sir

I gave up!

This afternoon, Chris has rested his ear infection on the couch after I bullied him in getting some antibiotics from the GP drop in centre.
I have spent a long hot afternoon watering the seedlings (no rain in several weeks now) and have finished painting the 17 hen houses, and nesting boxes

Neighbour John laughed when he saw the uniform knot of little houses.....he agreed that it didn't quite look like the Ukrainian village that it used to

Postscript to this mornings post

This afternoon I have planted out sprouts, spinach, lettuce under cover , and more beetroot. I took a break to call over to my friends the Camerons to give Sandra the news of the next Flower Show meeting.

The Camerons have just had their first pigs butchered and although they found it a little difficult both celebrated the way that they had raised their pigs and looked after them over the past few months.

We talked about the importance of caring for your animals holistically ( which includes culling and butchering them where it was appropriate), and I found it all rather prophetic when I arrived home to find Rogo gasping in his coop.

I have never actually killed one of my chickens personally until today. Bob from the village has showed me how to do it humanely and with dignity, and although I watched him dispatch last year's cockerels and actively got stuck in with the butchering of the carcasses, I had never actually performed "the act" as it were.

This afternoon I had to. It was obvious and was the best thing to do. And in a couple of seconds it was all over. I had raised this lovely bird and I had the opportunity to see it humanely killed.

and you know what.....it felt perfectly fine

Up with the lark- Flower Show plans, painting and poor Rogo

It is amazing what a good sleep can do for a constitution! I went to bed at 9.30 pm and got up at 8am feeling rather washed out, but miles better than I did.

This morning I kicked myself up the arse and got on with jobs that needed doing.

All of the Flower Show committee members (me included) forgot to attend the last meeting so this morning I went around to auntie Gladys' (above at last year's show) to rearrange the next meeting for the 5th of May.

This year we have been donated 2 extra trophies so we have 14 cups to present as well as two new "Judge's Special" rosette prizes for best flower entry in show and best vegetable entry in show.

I have also been proactive in collating suggestions to where some of the Flower Show proceeds can be donated to this year. The Flower show historically has always supported village needs so at the next meeting we can discuss the proposed "good causes" and hopefully sort out donations accordingly.

Our Village Show has a wonderfully dynamic committee team. Sylvia our Show Secretary and Irene , the previous Show Treasurer have been instrumental in keeping the show going for many, many years and have done so without the recognition that is sometimes required . They, like the many "unsung heros" of such volunteer events past and present, sometimes never really get thanked for all their hard work....our village show would never have survived without their efforts as well as the contributions made by previous committee members that still live in the village but have now retired.

Anyhow enough of this back slapping

This morning I have started to paint all of the 13 hen houses a "traditional" green colour, which will satisfy my OCD tendencies and make the field look a little neater.
With the new chicken wire fences in place, escapees into the old churchyard have been minimal today!!! but after discussion with a few locals I have now decided to erect a larger chicken wire fence to screen the entire Church wall. It will take the summer to complete (money permitting) but then finally the "problem" of the odd wander lusting old hen walking on the Church grass will be finished

Rogo is still with us but remains dreadfully poorly. I gave him his last antibiotic this morning and syringed sugared water into him. Which he took without protest.

I took this photo of him as he sat on my knee (forgive the bad angle) and gave him a little cat food which he also took, afterwards.

I doubt he will survive overnight , and some of me feels as though I should have culled him today, but I will have him another day.

He has been a good protective Cockerel over the last few years. Always quick to stop any chicken fighting and always first to face any potential predators.......The cockerels' innate ability to protect their own, never ceases to impress and move me