At last, an update

Flippin' heck, I just looked when I last updated this and it's ages ago - sorry.  We've had Laura here for a week which has been nice.  We had a day out at Acton Scott Victorian Farm (the one where they filmed the BBC TV programme) - that's always an interesting day out and this time we watched the wheelwright demonstrating how to make a cartwheel and also learned how to make corn dollies (Bob was really enthralled by that!).  On the way home we pinched some corn stalks from a field and Laura and I had a go at making some.  I hope there weren't any crimes committed in that area that day which the police were asking for information about. Bob and I must've looked really suspicious dodging about the edge of a corn field looking shifty and anyone driving past would have thought we were doing something much more naughty than picking a few stray stalks of corn!

We also had a weekend in Peterborough at Carol and Graham's.  They had to go to a wedding on Saturday night so we had an evening in the garden with Sophie and Ellie, eating pizza and chocolate, listening to music, playing cards and burning pieces of paper with the candles (amazing how a bit of pyromania entertains) and then finally cutting out childish paper decorations to hang on the shed - all lots of silly fun and made so much better by the rare treat of the balmy weather allowing us to sit outside until gone midnight.  On Sunday we had a family get-together which included Mum and Dad and my brother and sister-in-law (who we haven't seen since before we moved, so about four years!) - just a shame that Ben was ill and couldn't come, my nephew was working and my niece was at a festival, so not quite the whole set, but nearly.  It was sooooooo HOT we spent the afternoon all trying to follow the little shady area around the garden!

Yesterday, Laura's last day here, we had the concrete delivered for the workshop foundations.  As promised, Mr P came round to help and Phil wheeled his barrow round too.  So we had them and Bob barrowing and Laura and I spreading it out and checking levels.  Apart from the fact that the concrete mixer was an hour and a half late, it all went smoothly and once we got going it didn't take long.  I took Laura to the station (about 5 miles away) after lunch and while we were waiting for the train it started to rain quite hard.  By the time I was driving home it was hammering down (wipers on full speed and I still couldn't see the car in front) and I had visions of Bob trying to cover the concrete with tarpaulin - not easy on your own in the wind.  So, I dashed straight home to help instead of going to Sainsburys as planned.  Luckily, and bizarrely, it wasn't raining at all when I got home.  We were right on the edge of it with blue sky in one direction and really dark clouds in the other.  We did have a fair bit of rain in the afternoon which wasn't ideal, but the concrete seems to have survived - phew!

Waiting for the concrete to arrive.  Dot made herself VERY
comfortable on Mr P's wellie . . . . and then stayed there
for ages dozing!






And, finally here we go!





A carefully choreographed wheelbarrow ballet!



Laura directing the concrete pouring and ready to level it
off.  It was quite strange to see her in jeans instead of her
red robes!

Me 'poddling' - it's a technical term you know!

Checking final levels with Phil

 

The chickens managed to survive cooped up by themselves while we were away without killing each other.  They still go around in two's, but Dot does nip in and grab food from the original two and they all peck around in fairly close proximity.  Horse is a bit more nervous and definitely has a similar personality to Elvis in her earlier days (flight not fight).  She made the dubious decision to moult not long after we got her, so she now looks more like an ex-battery chicken than she did when we got her!  Ooops.  Do you know, I dreamt about chickens moulting the other night, but in it they moulted their beaks too and had to make do with little pink lips until their new beaks grew - I do sometimes wonder about the turns my dreams take!  Egg production has not been too brilliant considering that we now have four chickens . . . . . and an average of just one egg a day.  That happened last time we introduced new chucks and the count soon increased so we'll see.  The other day someone laid a beautiful dark brown egg, but about a third of the normal size.  When we opened it, the yolk was about the size of a pea! 

 

 

This evening we are joining the rest of our Smallholder Group for a walk in the Ceriog Valley (well, I think it is actually up the side of the Ceriog Valley) followed by a pint and chips which should be good . . . . so long as the builder has finished in time for us to go that is.

 

 



We've been struck by lightning!

Well, OK, that is a bit of an exaggeration, but there was a thunderstorm right overhead on Sunday (along with torrential rain) we heard a crack overhead at the same time as lightning and simultaneous thunder (or as simultaneous as the differing speeds of light and sound allow).  In other words, the storm was right overhead.  We both dashed outside thinking a tree may have been hit, or the chimney or something, but no sign of anything exciting so we dashed inside again.  Later in the day, when I came to update this blog, the modem (or is it a router?  What's the difference I wonder) was completely dead and so we assume that it was that blowing that we heard.  It wasn't charred and smoking or anything, so we assume that the lightning hadn't actually snaked in through the rooflight and struck it, just the electricity in the air I guess.  Anyway, BT were really good and popped a new one in the post straight away and that arrived yesterday - quite impressive.

That storm wasn't the only extreme weather we had over the weekend.  On Saturday afternoon I was at work and about to go on my break when the heavens opened as they say.  Well, let me tell you, the seal on God's washing machine must have broken because water just tipped from the sky - it wasn't so much big drops as bucket loads.  Just across a side road from M&S is the town's main carpark and I couldn't see it at all from the door because of the volume of water pouring down.  It then got mixed with great big hailstones and the road turned into a fast flowing river full of icebergs.  This lasted for about half an hour - a long time for that sort of rain.  By the time I got back from my break, the shop was shut because the water had poured in the back door down the disabled ramp and had flooded almost half way across the shop!  Everyone grabbed mops or brushes to try to stop it going further and I started scooping with a dustpan which was surprisingly effective and I managed to scoop up about 10 buckets of water.  Luckily, the cleaner turned up and used his mopping machine to suck up the rest of the water and we used long handled mops to get the water from under the shelves and were back open again about an hour later.

Bob had had quite a time of it here too and was seriously worried that the water was going to come into the hall as it came right up the step and he had to wade out to try to divert it.  The problem is that the extension is in a dug out hollow and all the water runs down the lane and tips into the hollow.  We really could do with the council sorting the road out so the camber goes the other way or even putting in some drains, but they don't even sweep down here so they're unlikely to spend money sorting it out.  Later when we've built our little wall around the dug out bit it shouldn't be so bad and we'll just have to make sure we build the top of the steps a bit higher than the road.  On Friday we had the man with a digger (Mr P) to dig out the footings for the workshop and that included a trench down the drive for the water pipe.  Bob said he looked out of the window at one point and there was water just gushing down that trench, across the drive and down to the path round the extension - it was like a tidal wave!  Anyway, we survived without anything major happening - three cottages in the village flooded and had to have the fire brigade out, so we weren't the worst off.

Yeah, so, on Friday we had the man with the digger here to dig out the footings for the workshop.  First he had to scrape off quite a bit to get some sort of level area.

and here's the spoil, completely blocking the bridleway
that goes around our garden.  This corner is always really
muddy and wet, being the lowest point so we thought we'd
kill two birds with one stone and get rid of the spoil and raise
the level a bit.  He did spread this out before he went home so
walkers and horses don't have to climb a mountain!

Pulling out the last bits of the wriggly barn - the railway
track posts and the concrete they were set in.

Here's the outline of the workshop - it looks really small on
here with a digger in the middle, but buildings then seem to
get bigger as they are built . . . we hope!

When the surface was being scraped off, we found the outline of a stone building under the tin barn.  Bob had been feeling a bit guilty about taking down the old tin barn, but this made him feel better about it all.  We're just adding the next layer to the history of the buildings here.  Hitting bedrock, big stones and the sheer amount of spoil to remove meant that the job took a full day of hard work.  We finished at about 7.30pm and then Mr P came in for a beer and to catch up on the day's olympic action (he was going down to London this week to watch the triathalon so was quite keen on what was going on) and then I think he got a bit comfy and so it was about 8.45pm before we even started making tea.  Aaah, he's a really nice bloke so we didn't mind and he's offered to come and help us barrow the concrete, so definitely a nice bloke!

While the digging was going on, I decided to paint one of the
walls in the bat loft bright red!   Wow, it'll make it really den-like in
there.  It made me laugh when I came down to see a dribble of
blood red seeping down the wall in the lounge - like I'd murdered
someone up there!

Last week we had my nieces, Sophie and Ellie, here for a couple of days (visiting on their own for the first time) and we had a nice girly time doing cake making and decorating and making jewellery. They didn't even seem too bothered by having no mobile signal!

The new chickens are settling in quite well.  Bonny's turned into a bit of an unnecessary bully, but does respond quite well to being shouted at!  Nothing's too out of hand though and they'll no doubt sort it out.  Laura's here next week, so she can do some intensive training with them.  When Elvis was so timid and bullied by the rest we spent a whole afternoon with all of them together giving bits of corn to all of them and making sure they all knew they could have some, using a water squirter when the older chickens looked as though they were going to bully Elvis and generally getting them to all 'play' together and it worked really well.  Until the others had all died, Elvis was always at the bottom of the pecking order, but that's just how it was and they all knew their place without any nastiness, so we'll give that a go with these.  In general though they are doing really well and have found their way around well and spent the whole day 'out' today.  They now have some colour in their combs and around their eyes so they don't look so anaemic anymore and their feathers have a nice sheen on them.  The non-Horse chicken now has a name - Dot or Dotty.  We also need to get them to come when they're called.  Even if the others are away in the woods across the lane, they will come running if we call (mainly because they think they'll get some tasty titbit).  Horse and Dot haven't quite got the hang of that yet.

Just thought I'd show you the sweet peas round our kitchen door - they look better in real life and smell lovely when the door's open.  The roses are growing well in there too, but aren't quite big enough for an impressive display yet, so the sweet peas are helping them out this year.