Stormy, stormy night!

So, did you have a good one?

Apart from me having a cold (I tried to deny I was getting a cold, but after two days of blowing my nose I had to admit defeat), we had a lovely Christmas.  After a bacon butty and present opening, we went for a nice walk, starting off in the rain and getting wet (probably not the best idea with a cold, but I survived), but then the sun came out and we were almost dry by the time we got home.  We walked up the Moelydd which is a hill near here with a stone on top showing the direction of Snowdon, the Long Mynd, etc.  On a clear day (and it was beautifully clear by the time we got to the top) you can see for miles across the Welsh hills which had snow on the tops, in one direction and across the Shropshire plains in the other.  It looked as though a good deal of Shropshire was under water as there were unexpected lakes shining in the sun.  We had a wonderful piece of steak (Chateaubriand) made into beef wellington in the evening - you hardly had to chew it it was so tender.  The leftovers made very posh sandwiches with homemade bread and sprout-coleslaw with horseradish the next day - yum!

This is my present from Bob made by a local Blacksmith.  It is
a copy of a medieval (I think) design for a three-way candlestick.
You can have it as it is with the candle in the top or you can jab the
spike on the left upright into something and put the candle into the
opposite hole or you can have it the other way up and hook it onto
something.  Clever, eh?

Laura has been busy and made us this felted picture of a moody
sunset over the hills with two little sheep.  It works really well against
the wiggly stones in the living room and the colours are just right.
We were wondering what we were going to put in that space!

I bought Bob a dart board for Christmas and that is now up in the workshop with an oche line drawn on the floor.  I had a go and I'm absolutely rubbish at it - we'll have to make sure there are no precious bits of wood stacked underneath it when I'm playing or they might end up looking as though they have woodworm!  I'll just have to practice I guess!  I also got him a Sony Walkman (not the old cassette ones we used to have but a new-fangled thingy where music magically gets onto it from the computer).  Being in the workshop all day, he gets a bit bored with the playlists on the radio so he can now listen to whatever he wants.  I can now just imagine him in the workshop, woodburner lit, polypin of beer at hand, music playing and darts in hand . . . . . we'll have to think of a name for this new pub!  The Chairmakers Arms perhaps or The Chair and Chicken.  

My goodness, it was windy last night.  We didn't hear the tree fall down just across the bridleway from our bedroom though.  Mind you, I think it might have just laid down gracefully rather than crashed down.  Its trunk has been split vertically for quite a while and it had kind of bent over rather than fallen down.  So our first job this morning was to clear that as it was blocking the bridleway completely.  Luckily it didn't take too long as the weather was still really horrible - the rain was really so wet!

Luckily, it wasn't a very big tree otherwise it may have reached the
lean-to.  As it was though, no damage was done and we haven't
found any more casualties.  I think we have had so many violent
storms in the last couple of years that most of the vulnerable trees
have already gone . . . lets hope so anyway!

Happy Christmas Everyone

Well, yes, it's nearly here.  I'm quite lucky this year because I had yesterday, today and tomorrow off work.  I'm in on Monday and Tuesday (6am start on Christmas Eve - oh my!) and then another three days off, so not too bad really.

Gathering our 'christmas tree'.  It's a couple of
Cherry saplings which we then bound together,
stuck in a heavy block of wood and decorated.

Ta dah!  It does look better in real life - you can't see the fairy
lights or presents underneath on this picture.  I quite
like this look, festive but different and it doesn't block the
light from the window.

Yesterday we had a bit of a neighbourhood party/get-together.  We see all our near neighbours individually, but never see them together and so we thought we'd have a go at remedying that. The weather was truly awful with howling wind and lashing rain, but quite a few people fought their way through.  I'm so glad they did - we thought no-one would turn up because of the weather.  We got a polypin of beer from the local micro-brewery which seemed quite a cool thing to do - nice just to be able to pull a pint whenever you want.  You do have to look after it though which Bob took very seriously.  We chose to have the beer with the yeast still in it (as opposed to 'bright' which is when they take the yeast out - that's my new bit of terminology for the week by the way) so you have to not move it around to let it settle and you have to keep it between 10 and 15 degrees.  So it was in the utility room which is the coolest room with a thermometer on top of it and we had to keep checking it wasn't getting too warm and opening/closing the window to regulate it!  We made pulled pork for in rolls which worked really well and is really very easy and mulled cider as a welcoming drink which also worked well once we'd completely changed the recipe.  We finally went to bed at 1.45am and so we have had a very lazy day today, bit of tidying up and a walk round the block and that concludes the activities for today!

Here are the knitted chickens I made for Laura's friend to sell -
they do have a look of the Chicken Run chickens.   They are filled
with rice so they can be used as paperweights to bring a
smile to the working day.

We do have some festive greenery (not just dead branches)
across the beams in the kitchen (top) and lounge (above) and
this has little fairy lights in amongst it which don't really show
up on the photos.

So, now I'm feeling Christmassey so:

I hope you all have a very merry, chilled and fun Christmas and a healthy and happy New Year.

Crafty things

This is Bob's latest chair made from Yew and
a very burry piece of Lime for the seat - it's
very strokeable!

At long, long last it feels as if Bob's furniture business is starting to become a reality - somehow the scaffold board furniture he has been making doesn't seem to count.  At the weekend we had a stall at a craft fair in an art gallery in Oswestry.  This forced us to get on and design some leaflets and business cards, polish and wax all the old stock and get our heads back into selling mode which is all good.  The Willow Gallery is quite a nice venue with a cafe and little shop and it was fairly busy most of the day and everyone was very complimentary.  Quite a few people seemed genuinely taken with the chairs and lots of people took leaflets.  We had some smaller stuff to pad the stall out  and we sold some of that - some cards I'd made with pictures drawn on slivers of oak and yew, the same but mounted on slate as a picture to hang on the wall, a peg board made out of an old oak fence post and some garden dibbers.  So, we made a profit on the day and came home feeling as though we'd had a pat on the back which is a nice feeling.  The girl who runs the gallery also asked us to leave some bits and pieces for them to sell in the shop (I had to make some more oak cards for them as there was only one left).  They have a craft fair each season and I think it'd be worth going a few times, so people get to know you.  Next one should be around Easter.

The week before Laura was manning a stall at village Christmas Fayre where the monastery is.  She was raising money for ROKPA, the charity she works for up there.  I had made a lots of cards and comedy knitted chickens for her to put on the stall (in addition to their other stuff) and my things  brought in about £130 for them, so that was worth doing.  Someone has even asked for some more of the knitted chickens so they can sell them where they work/live (still in aid of ROKPA) and so I am knitting away like mad again!

This weekend Carol and Graham (sister and brother-in-law) are coming so Graham can have a go at furniture making.  Over the next year or so he is going to make a rocking chair under Bob's guidance - he can just do a bit to it whenever they come to visit.  Actually, Bob has never made a rocking chair before (he knows the theory), so he'll be learning too.  Luckily, we went to the local woodyard earlier in the week and they had unearthed three big planks of Elm which we were able to buy for seats.  We have had real trouble trying to find anywhere round here that sells interesting wood, so it was quite a relief.  We never had this trouble where we used to live and were quite spoiled for good woodyards.  We even phoned one of them up thinking we might have to go all the way back to Northamptonshire to get the wood for Graham's chair!  That would have been ridiculous wouldn't it?

I guess after Carol and Graham's visit we'll have to start thinking about Christmas.  Working at M&S does put you off it all a bit - mince pies were in at the end of August!  It's all just so . . . . so . . . I don't quite know the word?  False?  Forced?  Not sure really.  I actually like Christmas and gathering greenery to decorate the beams in the kitchen, getting in touch with people, making cakes, etc, but just not all the commercialism and one-upmanship.  I must just be getting old!

Hedge-laying

Well, we've had a busy and productive weekend off - none of this lazing around malarky!  We decided to try our hand at hedge-laying.  All along the field (which we are still in the process of buying one end of) is a very neglected and overgrown hedge.  We have photos from the 50s of a very well kept thick hedge, but it hasn't been touched for 30 years or more and so is now made up of very leggy trees.  We have done a little bit of hedge-laying and know the theory, but have never tackled anything quite as unkempt as this.  The theory of laying a hedge is that you cut almost all the way through a trunk - ideally about as thick as your your forearm and about eight feet tall.  This doesn't kill the tree as long as the bark is continuous and it then shoots from the cut base and all along the trunk which you lay down at an angle of about 30 degrees.  So, you then have a good thick hedge as each subsequent trunk is laid down on top of the previous one.  This needs to be done in the Winter and it will all shoot back into life in the Spring.  As you can see from this picture, our 'hedge' doesn't meet any of the ideal measurements!  On closer inspection it appears that something (probably sheep or rabbits) has been nibbling the bark in years gone by.  The bark is the means of getting water and nutrients to the rest of the tree and the easiest way to kill a tree is to cut a small ring of bark away all around the trunk.  Just a small amount of continuous bark will keep it alive though and so you can still lay it.  Trouble is, most of these had been barked on the wrong side and we found ourselves trying to twist them gently after cutting them on the wrong ide to keep the bark. 
Now that would actually work and be quite easy on a tree that was only eight feet tall, but these were about thirty and so not so easy to control!  Quite a few just snapped off as we were gently trying to cajole them into place . . . . well, that's more firewood I guess! So, the finished thing looks a bit sparse (it always looks very drastic when a hedge is first laid), but each stump will sprout loads of new shoots even without an attached trunk and we found some baby hazel and holly growing around and have put them in the gaps.  Just have to wait now until the Spring to see what happens.  We only dropped one tree on the workshop by the way which I don't think was too bad going!  Our method was to tie a rope as high up as possible and then Bob did the chainsawing while I hauled on the rope to persuade the tree to fall the way we wanted.  That worked well most of the time, but this particular one was a bit on the big side and as Bob cut I could feel it falling away from me and there was nothing at all I could do except pull like mad to one side to try to stop it falling straight on to the ridge of the shed.  It fell to one side with the heavy bit between the shed and the retaining wall behind and so didn't do any damage except to pop the stop end off the gutter (and that just clipped back into place), so I think we got off lightly! 

It took a while to cut it up and get it out of the gap between wall and shed though.  As you can imagine, there is quite a lot of twiggy rubbish at the top of the trees . . . . actually, there's a wole lot more than you would imagine!  So today we thought we'd have a bonfire to get rid of it all.  I guess it was all just a bit too fresh and green and it just didn't really get going and so we had to abandon that plan.  Maybe  we'll try again in a couple of weeks - unless it rains incessantly of course.

 

So, instead of a bonfire day, we got on and redesigned our composting arrangements.  We now have a two bin system - one we keep filling and then when that's full we move onto bin two.  As you can guess, we have made it from stuff we have lying around - namely wriggly tin from the old barn we took down to build the workshop.

It looks a bit rustic doesn't it?  But it'll do the job for sure.  We transferred the stuff from the top of our old bin to the right-hand side and the stuff from the bottom which is ready to use, to the left.  Must say, the ready-to-use stuff looks luvverly . . . . delicious!  Very friable I think is the term, but that always seems a little odd to me as I can't think why you'd want to fry it, but that's what they say.  I guess we end up with quite a good mix with chicken bedding and poo, green garden waste and kitchen scraps - I think most people end up with too many grass clippings and then just get slime.  Without a lawn, we don't have that problem!

Other things we've done in the last couple of weeks are:
Very nice dinner at Phil and Ann's
See a comic poet at a pub in  a nearby village - very funny, in fact the young lady behind us had to dash out in the middle because she was closer to wettting herself laughing than she'd ever been before
Mystery guest - turned out to be male
Work at M&S
Proper shopping trip to Shrewsbury - even bought clothes and everything!
Make scaffold board furniture
Bought a new microwave
Pub
Sainsbury's
Knitting
Yawn
yawn
yawn!

All one happy family

The chickens appear to have stopped fighting (thank goodness) and Lottie now follows Horse around all day.  If you were to put it into human terms, I get the feeling that Horse views her as a pesky, annoying little sister.  Lottie still thinks she's in charge, but as she doesn't know her way around it doesn't really work very well as once she's bustled up to the others in a bossy way, she then has to wait for them to show her what to do.  Quite funny really.  A few days ago, when the others were still very wary of her, Bob went up to check that they were all tucked up in bed.  They were, with Horse and Peggy squashed at one end of the perch and Lottie at the other, but surprisingly Dot was down Lotties end looking sleepy.  She woke up when Bob opened the door and looked horrified to find herself on her own at Lottie's end and very quickly shuffled to the other end.  They are funny.  Anyway, they all tolerate each other now and Lottie is learning the ropes and seems to be quite enjoying her new home and friends.  It has been quite hard to get a photo of her because she is quite well camouflaged against the mud and fallen leaves, but here she is with her giant friends:

Finally, finally, finally after asking for ever, I have had an extra day added to my contract at M&S which is good . . . . . isn't it . . . . . extra money, always useful . . . . no, honestly, I am pleased . . . . really!  So, I will now work four days a week which I really need to do, but to be honest I wish I didn't.  At least I won't have to rely on the very unreliable extra hours at their whim and I should be able to just do my contracted days and know where I am, so it is good really - I just can't get that excited about it. 

We have a mystery guest visiting this weekend.  My friend from a million years ago is coming for the weekend - we had our first babies the same night and made friends in hospital, so not actually a million years, but 27 which is nearly as long!  It will be lovely to see her and catch up on all the news of the last few years and she is bringing a 'friend', but we don't know a name, boy/girl or any other details, just that they eat anything, so that's the important thing.

Bob has a stall at a craft fair at the local art gallery at the end of November which is exciting.  We have been hunting all around to find all the bits and pieces of stock we have stored ready to sell.  We have found enough to make a good display along with the new chairs he's made and I have made some greetings cards, so it should look OK.  The stall only costs £20 so you don't have to sell too much to cover costs and it's a good first step to getting his name known and a chance to give out some business cards (so long as we get around to making some!).

Meet Lottie

So this is Lottie.  I hadn't quite twigged that she'd be so tiny (bantam?), but she is about one third the size of our others - they look huge next to her.  Apparently, a couple of weeks ago she started moulting - maybe she knew something was afoot to disrupt her happy life!  So she's looking a little threadbare but her feathers are starting to grow back which means she has a 5 o'clock shadow in places.  She has lovely big brown eyes and I think she'll be a very pretty chuck in a few weeks.  It seems her eyes and feet are the same size as a normal chicken it's just everything else that's smaller.  Although she's small and not at her best, she's quite fiesty and the other three are scared of her - it wouldn't surprise me if she ends up top of the pecking order.  There have been a few feathers flying.  For the last two days the others have been shut out of the run and she's been shut in.  They all get shut in together at night of course.  We did entice her out this morning for a few minutes, but she went back in of her own accord after a few minutes.  Maybe she's a bit shy of her appearance in front of new people!  I don't like this part of getting new chickens - it's easy when they all get on with each other, know the routine and come when they're called.  I guess she'll pick it all up before too long.

We survived the massive storm yesterday without any problems . . . . in fact, without much wind at all. Lots of rain, but that's about all. I did toy with the idea of ringing work yesterday and saying that it said on the news not to travel unless absolutely necessary, but I didn't think they'd be too impressed as it was actually a reasonably nice day. Hope you all got away without any problems.

Do you know, we've now lived here for five years - it seems like a lifetime ago but at the same time no time at all (does that make any sense).  We don't usually bother much with anniversarys of things, but decided to celebrate our five years with steak and a beer . . . . on a Monday!  How lavish!  We were sitting down sipping our beer reminiscing about what we were doing exactly five years ago and decided to check my notes on this blog to see when we actually did things and, much to our dismay, found out that Sunday was the actual anniversary and we'd missed it!  We were both sure it was 28th, but checking back on the calendar confirms that the Monday in 2008 was 27th.  Ooops, were not very good at this . . . . . . we still managed to enjoy our fraudulent steak supper on a Monday though!

Our first night in the caravan.  Funny, in all the chaos and with
no fridge, we still managed to make sure we had cold beer and
a couple of bottles of red wine to hand!  Have to get your
priorities right.

We're getting a posh chicken!

We're getting a new chicken this weekend.  It's a sort of rescue-job, but not from a battery farm.  Someone e-mailed our smallholders group to ask if anyone could give a home to their one and only chicken as they are moving house and the new place isn't suitable.  As egg production from our three is pretty bad with only Horse pulling her weight another egg-layer would be welcome.  We're going up in the world with this one as it is a fairly rare Golden-necked Ardenner.  From Belgium (as you may work out from the name) but not common anywhere else.  They are very hardy and would happily survive in the wild and like roosting in trees.  How cool is that?  I had a friend who had a chicken who roosted in a tree and she used to just say goodnight to it as she walked past with the dog each evening.  This one is called Lottie (so at least we don't have to think of something to call her) and comes when you call her name apparently and she pecks on their window if they're late putting her to bed at night!  She also lays her eggs all over the place, so we'll have to ask Horse to show her the ropes here.  Should be interesting.  Hopefully, we'll pick her up on Sunday eveing - in the past we've found the best way to integrate the new one(s) is to wait til the others have gone to bed and then just put the new one on the perch with them and shut the door.  When it's dark they just go straight to sleep and they won't know anything about it until the next morning.  I expect there'll be a bit of squabbling until she's found her place in the pecking order, but that's what chickens do and they soon seem to sort themselves out.  I'll let you know how they get on and show you a picture of Lottie.

Here's another addition to our avian flock.  Laura made this
needle-felted woodpecker for my birthday card and, rather than
throw it away with the rest of my cards, I cut it out and glued it
onto the bare branch we have in a vase in the hall.  Looks pretty
good I think.

Double yolk

So, that huge egg that Peggy laid - I take back my comment about the yolk to white ratio in Horse's eggs.  This one was a double-yolker, so just the one egg was plenty for Bob's scrambled eggs - what a bargain!  That was the only double-yolker and Peggy's not back up to full production yet.  I think it is usually young hens who do the double yolk thing when they first start laying while they get their systems in order, so Peggy's obviously re-living her youth.

Our little holidy in a cottage in the country . . . . . mmmmm, sounds a bit like home-from-home . . . . was lovely.  The cottage was very nice, my only gripe was being charged extra for the electric and extra for heating and extra for towels.  It doesn't set you up well for your holiday I don't think and I'd rather they just sorted their price out so you don't have to think about those things.  The weather was better than I was expecting and everyone had said it was going to turn really cold and wintry.  We had lots of sun and were actually quite warm on our clifftop walks.  It was quite windy though which was brilliant because it made for good crashing waves.  I was really glad the wind was blowing in from the sea on some parts of our walks because they'd have been quite hairy if it was blowing the other way!  We had a real taste of the past one evening with a visit to Bessie's pub.  As many pubs used to be, it was just like a living room (still with its original 50s decor) and you knocked on the serving hatch to summon the landlady who poured your beer from a jug with a choice of one type.  The crisps were Golden Wonder - didn't know you could still get them (wish I'd checked the sell-by on them!) - and there was none of this fancy stuff like food.  The people all spoke Welsh, but not in any sort of 'keep the English out' sort of way and we enjoyed listening to them.  We actually understood a fair bit of it which I expect you are quite impressed by aren't you?  OK, I'll confess, the bits we understood were all the swear words - they seem to do that in English which is funny to listen to.  Another evening we went to a pub that could have been staight from the wild west with horses tethered outside.  It used to be a hotel which was thrown up quickly when the railway came to town and is made from red wriggly tin with sawdust on the floor and hams hanging from the ceiling.  It was really nice with a lovely atmoshpere and Bob had their specialty - faggots!

Yesterday, Ben came with one of his old school friends and we all went up to Liverpool to see another of their school friends play in a band.  It was really good (apart from the horrors of driving round a city which I'm just not used to anymore).  They played in a small club so no-one was far from the stage and, as they are just starting out, they had to sell their own merchandise at the end so we were able to ambush Adam and have a chat.  They get played on the radio a fair bit and seem to be doing quite well - Temples if anyone wants to check them out.  Funny to think he used to play in our paddling pool!

Look, I finished my chunky, snuggle jumper in
time for all the cold weather on holiday.  Didn't really
need it, but I'm quite pleased with it and it is
lovely and cosy.

This is our lastest 'crafting'.  We need some clocks but haven't
seen any we like without spending an absolute fortune.  So we
thought we'd do some 'upcycling'.  This is a piece of the old range
that was in the inglenook in our kitchen.  We have another part-made
which has a wooden stand and a hefty chunk of cast iron as the 'face'.
Trouble is we can't drill a hole in the iron to attach the hands to the mechanism
at the back so we'll have to ask a favour of our blacksmith friend next time
we see him.  I think, given the right outlet, these could sell quite well.
Mmmm, have to work on that one.

This'd make your eyes water!

Do you know, I sat down about a week ago to update this blog but ended up not doing because I really couldn't think of anything we'd done that was worth writing down and I thought it'd end up like I imagine (because I've never actually looked at either) tweets or Facebook entries would be.  Who wants to know what we're having for tea or what colour pants I've got on today?  No-one I'm sure . . . . . having said that though . . . . we're having our first meat and potato pie of the season which I'm really looking forward to because it is such a wet and miserable day . . . . . and my pants are red!  There, you wanted to know really!

Anyway, enough of all that!  I just wanted to show you this: -

Having only had one egg a day for quite a while, Peggy has suddenly started laying again.  Horse has reliably laid her little brown eggs day in, day out while Peggy had a rest while she moults.  Peggy is now fairly bald and looks very untidy, but rather than concentrating on feather production she has outdone herself with oversized eggs.  The one on the left is a Horse egg and would be classed as large by supermarkets . . . . that one on the right weighs 99g!!!  Try weighing one of your supermarket eggs and you'll see how much bigger that is.  Fair makes your eyes water doesn't it?  Having said all that, size isn't everything and I actually prefer Horse's eggs as the yolk to white ratio is better in my opinion.

So, that's all our news really - exciting isn't it?  I have next week off work and Bob has booked time off from his scaffold board furniture production so we can have a lazy week - luvverly.  We have a few days away booked in a cottage on the Welsh coast - hope the weather bucks up!

And then there were three . . . .

Well, what a wet,grey and miserable day it is today - just not used to it after the lovely Summer we've had so mustn't complain too much.  There are plus sides to a day like today too, a good chance to catch up on paperwork, blogging and so on and it does make you look forward to the next season.  I wouldn't like to live somewhere that's hot (or cold) all the time, I love the changing seasons and each has its good points just so long as none of them outstay their welcome.  Woolley jumpers, chutney-making, meat and potato pie, see there's lots to look forward to!  

 A good day to sweep the chimney and clean out the Ironheart ready for firing up again.  Because there is an oven, hotplates and a backboiler, there are all sorts of nooks and crannys to clean out and bits to take off.  Although we have had the lounge woodburner going in the last week, we haven't lit this one yet this season.  Excuse Bob's pants by the way - he wasn't posing for this!

 

So, we've had quite a busy time with visitors again starting with my school work colleagues who drove all the way over from Northamptonshire for lunch and a couple of hours sat in the garden in the sun.  Then Mum and Dad were here for a few days at the same time as Laura and Ben came after they'd gone, but before Laura went.  In that time we also had two birthdays (Mum and Laura) and our wedding anniversary.  We seemed to have a busy time doing nothing much which was nice and it was lovely to see everyone as always.  Yesterday we went over to Northamptonshire to collect another carful of Ben's stuff ready for his return to uni in Aberystwyth.  He should be coming over with the last of it tomorrow and then sorting out what's being stored and what's going with him before going on to Aber on Tues/Wed.  That will then be the offspring settled for a while until Laura leaves Samye Ling next Easter.  She will have done three years as a Buddhist nun and has enjoyed every minute of it and learned so much, but she now feels it's time to move on.  She has plans in Scotland for what to do next - teaching Mindfulness and doing a play therapy course.  She has loads of contacts and friends up there so will be better placed to get on with things there than she would here.  I think she'll have a break here before she starts all the new stuff while her hair grows and she catches up with all the people she's not seen much of over the last few years.  Can you believe it, she had actually forgotten to tell me anything about the plans she's made and sounded quite surprised that I didn't know anything about them!

And then there were three . . . . . during our visitor time one of our chickens departed this mortal coil.  Bonny was one of the real chickens we bought almost two years ago (real as opposed to ex-battery).  She was always a bit of a sickly child with lots of breaks from egg-laying . . . . actually, it would be more accurate to say she had the odd break where she laid an egg!  So, she didn't exactly lead a hard life.  She had been looking peaky and wobbly on her feet for a few days, but still ran to peck at scraps and didn't seem distressed.  It was no surprise though when Bob went to get them up on Laura's birthday and found her in a rather stiff pose across the hen house doorway.  And so that is number six chicken grave in the garden!

While Ben was here with his muscles, he helped us move that huge stone that was too big for us to manoeuvre into place for the steps.  It has now been added to the patio and has just about doubled it's size.  Well, not really, but it is quite big! 

A few weeks ago, I wrote on this blog that we were going to get some little low-growing plants for in between the stones on the steps we re-built.  One evening we went for a walk around the 'block' and got chatting to Ray who suddenly remembered that he had something he had to give us.  Trisha had been reading the blog and had then gone and dug up some plants from their garden and put them in pots for us.  They were exactly the sort of thing we were looking for - isn't that kind of her?  We planted them as soon as we got home and they all seem to be doing well - lovely.

On Friday, we finally got around to looking at that guttering that got damaged by the snow - yes, I know that was months ago, but you can't rush these things!  I don't know about you, but I hate having to mend things you've not long made and that was the trouble we had with this.  It was hard to work up the enthusiasm for mending it when it doesn't seem two ticks since we put it up in the first place.  That and the fact that it is really awkward to get to as someone built an extension in the way!  Anyway, with pieces of insulation to support and spread the weight under the ladder and a sturdy spike knocked in the ground to stop the ladder slipping, Bob on the roof and me running round passing things and helping from the other ladder, we have about done it.  We just need to get another couple of brackets (some were more damaged than we first thought), but they go on the bit that can be reached from an ordinary ladder on the ground, so not so bad.

While Laura was here, she showed me how to do needle felting which is quite good fun and a bit addictive.  Basically, felt is made when wool fibres mat together and you can use a barbed needle to jab in and out of unworked wool to mat it together.  You have a thick bit of foam underneath and aim to keep your fingers out of the way while you're doing it.  Laura has been making cards in her spare time to sell in aid of the charity she works for at Samye Ling.  People make large quite intricate pictures and 3D things - here are my first efforts:



My felt chicken which I'm quite proud of.  The little chicks
started off as some corn on the floor, but were a little too
big for that so transmogrified into baby chicks!

 

A Herwick sheep and its lamb - the lamb actually looks
more like a large mouse or a piglet and Bob says the
sheep has the face of an Airedale dog, but its OK if
you fuzz your eyes up a bit, with the lights dimmed and
at a distance!

Now then, talking of crafty things, how about this for more crafty than a crafty thing:

Yeah, OK its just a bit of knitting I hear you say, but it's not
just any old knitting.  The wool is mega chunky and for that you
need mega chunky needles (12mm, that's nearly half an inch thick!)
of which there were non in the shop.  So guess what?!
These are homemade knitting needles too, made by my good
friend Bob especially for me.  How darned cool is that?
This is going to be one of those snuggly woolley jumpers I've
been thinking about since the weather turned autumnal.

Tis the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness as someone
once said.  It has been quite windy as well as wet today and
the apple tree gave up some of its fruit a bit prematurely.  It seems
a shame to waste them though, so along with some of our blackberries
they went in a cake this afternoon.  The carrots have fattened up a bit
and the green beens are limping along (not too impressive this year).
We had curry last night with homemade garlic in it as well as
homemade chillies!

Furniture Maker to the Stars!

Well, I have to say that not much has happened here over the last few weeks which is why I haven't reported in for a while, that and probs with the blogger thingy not doing as it was told.

Well, not much has happened except . . . . Bob now has a new line of work and I think he enjoys it as much as I enjoy my job!  A while ago we went to the yard where we got the cast iron guttering for the cottage to get a couple of new brackets to repair the damage all that snow did in the Spring (yep, we still haven't got round to doing it and it'll soon be Winter again!).  Anyway, they stopped doing guttering a while ago to concentrate on the reclaimation side of things for selling down south which they've always dabbled in.  They get old theatre lights and polish them up, put them on a stand and sell them as standard lamps.  They had a massive old cast iron bandsaw which somehow or another they were going to turn into a table?!!!?  They were also doing a lot of things with old scaffold boards, cleaned up (a bit) and waxed - all very trendy apparently.  When we built our bookshelves from scaffold boards it was because it was free, we just didn't realise how 'on trend' we really are!  Anyway, we got chatting with the chap and I happened to mention that Bob makes furniture and he jumped straight onto that fact and asked if Bob could do a bit of machine work on these scaffold boards.  Originally it was just to cut a groove in the undercarriage to attach the top for some tables, then did he know where to get the brackets to attach the legs, then could he cut the legs, then could he glue up the tops . . . . . and so now he has an order to make 12 pub tables from scaff boards.  It is so different from what Bob really wants to do in so many ways.  They really have to just be knocked out as quickly and cheaply as possible for it to be worth doing, no fine finishing.  Six are now done with six more to do, but in the meantime he has an order for about 30 coat peg boards made from . . . . guess what . . . yep, scaffold boards.  That means hundreds of pegs to turn!  Next is mirrors with you've guessed what sort of frames.  Actually, since I typed the first half of this paragraph the peg board order has gone up to 100 and another order has come in for six benches (to be done by Monday teatime) for the Old Vic in London for use in a play with Vanessa Redgrave!  Furniture maker to the stars don'tya know . . . . trouble is, it's not likely to make them want to order lovely furniture from Bob is it?   Apparently, old scaffold boards are now getting scarce and they actually cost more than new ones - next someone will be in business distressing new boards to look as though they've been on a building site for 6 months.  I'm told that the Chinese are buying up everything they can get their hands on so I'm guessing that the market will soon be flooded with 'made in China' reclaimed scaffold furniture and that'll be the end for anything made in this country.  So anyway, that's keeping Bob busy at the moment and while it might not be exactly what he wants to do, it does provide a bit of money and he has to view it as his part-time job like my M&S one.

Elsewhere, this is what we've done:

We've cut slates to fit in the hole in that big old stone in
the patio and also stuck in a tiny horseshoe we found in one
of the barns - might actually be a donkey shoe, who knows?

We picked the rest of the blackcurrants and I made some
'ribena'.  This is it dripping through a jelly bag.  It is so thick
that you have to stir it in the glass to get it to mix with the water.

Here are the chickens in their 'naughty corner'.  They discovered
the blueberries and every time Bob caught them he put them up
here.  They did look quite indignant, but once three of them were in
the naughty corner, the good chicken felt left out and wanted to get
up there!

We have had to put a net over the blueberries now.  The day after we were telling Phil and Ann that we don't know what's happened to the blackbirds, they reappeared and set to with a vengence devouring any almost ripe blueberries.  The net does confuse the chickens because they can see the berries but can't get at them - ahh, how cruel!

Our very compact and bijou veg plot.  Fingers crossed,
everything is doing well so far.  We've had a few baby
carrots - actually very baby, very, very baby.  But how do
you know how big they are until you pull them up?  There are
tiny beans on the plants too and the tomatoes are turning red.
Last count, we had 25 scotch bonnet chillies on one plant!

Just look at this bizarre thing!  It is an artichoke flower and
is about a handspan across - very big and blousey!  We tried
eating the artichokes last year, but to be honest we couldn't
quite see what all the fuss is about - probably quite a sociable
starter with a group of friends all dipping the petal things in butter or
hollandaise and squirting the middle mush into mouths, but they are a real
fiddle and probably only as nice as whatever you're dipping them in!

On the social side, we went over to the far east last weekend.  We picked Ben up on Friday and went over to Mum and Dad's in Norfolk and had a nice time visiting a craft fair, picnicking by the sea, picking blueberries (on a slightly larger scale than we can from our two bushes) and then meeting up with Carol and Graham for Sunday lunch before dropping Ben off and coming home.  Then on Tuesday Bob's stepmum, Jan, brought her friend over for the day - that was quite a laugh all day and the sun shone which is always good.  Next Wednesday a couple of friends from my days working in a school (about 15 years ago now - blimey, is it really that long?!) are coming for lunch.  The last time they came we were still in the caravan and were in the middle of plastering, so they should see  few changes!  And then next weekend Mum and Dad are stopping for a few days on their way to the Lake District overlapping with Laura who is coming down from Scotland for about 10 days around her birthday.  We may also see Ben at some point during that time.  Busy, busy, busy!

We have been cat-sitting for our neighbours for the last few days.  They have two cats and a stray which they feed outside.  They said we could let them out of the house if we wanted and they'd come back if we rattled the little pot of treats they have.  Well, you can guess that that didn't go to plan!  They went out alright, but only one came back and we then had to try and keep that one in while we enticed the other one back.  It was all fun and games with the first one escaping out again and the reticent one coming back just as I'd shut the window and then running off again when I opened it all interspersed by their stray and two other cats coming in whenever we rattled the pot and tucking into the pet cat's dinner.  What a juggling act!  Well in the end one stayed in both nights and the other stayed out the whole time (hope it found something to eat somewhere!).  The neighbours are due back this evening and Bob greeted me in triumph when I got home from work because he had actually managed to get all the neighbourhood cats where they are supposed to be (including the reticent one back in the house).  Phew, I guess we could just keep quiet, but I expect we'll tell them what happened.

Living the dream!

Quick weather update . . . piddling down!  I've got socks and jeans on again for the first time in about a month and we've had to switch the immersion heater back on because I don't think the solar panels are going to do much today.  Still, won't have to water the plants tonight!

Having finished the steps and unearthed a patio for the chickens, we have now moved on to making a patio for ourselves although the chickens think it's just for them!   These are biggest of the old limestone pavers which we have collected from all over the garden and we have enough for just around the kitchen door.  We then have some smaller bits, but they don't go very far though and we'll have to use other things for the rest of the area and the paths going off it to the lean-to, log stores and off up the garden.  The possibilities are cobblestones which we saved from one of the
barn floors, bricks, some sort of gravel or a mixture of all which might actually be best.  A neighbour gave us some new paving which they were going to lay in front of their house, but as they have now split up and are planning to sell their house in its half finished state, she wants to get rid of as much of the junk that surrounds it as possible including these stones.  They were a bargain from the local builders merchants a few years ago and are cut to make a circle pattern.  Not really what we'd choose, but we can't argue as they are free.  With some corners knocked off they should be OK.  So here are some of them - not the square one with a hole in the middle though.  When we took the cooking range out of the inglenook in the kitchen this great big lump of stone was underneath and is a complete mystery to us.  I am sure that that wasn't its original place or use and that the people who put the range in re-used it from somewhere else.  It was a single piece of stone (although it is broken into three) and has a very precise rectangular hole in the middle with an equally precise groove around the edge of the hole.  The inside edge of one of the short ends of the hole is worn very smooth - maybe it was a little well cover and this is where the rope rubbed the stone smooth and the groove locates some sort of lid?  Whatever it was, it took an awful lot of work to chisel it to shape when it would have been easier to have several smaller stones.  Anyway, it is a talking point for in front of our bench.  A chicken fits perfectly in the hole and one did try to use it as a bath when the sand was dry.  We are going to cut some slates to fit and then pack them in on edge to fill the hole so no-one twists their ankle falling down it. 

We had another steam-bending session when I got home from work on Sunday.  Last time was really just a practice session doing some bits and pieces - very gentle bends with small pieces of wood.  This time it was the arm (5' long), back bow and crinolin (the curved bit between the chair legs) and some slightly curved sticks for one chair - yes we finally have the Ash from the farm woodyard in the hills.  All went well although Bob was a little worried that we might have forgotten something and was mightily relieved when we hadn't.  This picture illustrates the ancient steam-bending celebration I told you about a while ago and shows the newly bent pieces still clampend into their formers.  This was one of pictures we had in our minds all those years ago when we were planning our move and what we'd be doing after.

And this is another - although I was wearing a flowery skirt in our imaginations I think . . . I might even have had a big floppy staw hat on too, but maybe that's just too 'Country Living'!
We have had loads of blackcurrants this year - plenty for the birds, the chickens and us.  So, I've made a batch of jam (probably one of my favourites), two jars of blackcurrant vodka (like sloe gin but . . . erm . . . with blackcurrants and vodka - you could probably have guessed that couldn't you?) and we have some just frozen as they are, some frozen having been lightly stewed with sugar and some in the fridge for mixing with yoghurt and there's still more on the bushes.  All this vitamin C!  Elsewhere around the estate we have lots of green bean plants which are up to the top of their poles and bushing out, neat rows of leeks, our two cut-and-come-again lettuces I showed you a while back and some newly planted rocket.  There is a tub of carrots and another of beetroot and some garlic growing in pots.  The blueberries are just starting to ripen, the herbs are all doing well especially the bay plant that we thought we'd lost when it completly froze.  The little apple trees have plenty of fruit on them, there are three pears on the pear tree, a few plums on the plum tree (makes sense doesn't it), about four damsons and about the same number of sloes.  So some things clearly didn't mind the bizarre weather we've had and others got buried in snow at just the wrong time.  Our two indoor chilli plants have suddenly sprung into action and we have lots of little green scotch bonnets which will hopefully get bigger and turn red.  We have already used some and chopped some into olive oil for future use.

~~~~~~~~~Living the dream!!~~~~~~~~



There's a hole in my bucket dear Liza, dear Liza . . . .

We forgot to re-fill this oak whiskey barrel after we moved it and
the staves dried out leaving gaps between them (you are supposed
to keep them wet so the wood stays swollen and tight).  So, each day
we've been filling it a bit more until the leaks outdo the hose pipe
filling it.  Each day we can fill it a bit more and we are now just about
up to the top and so can now leave it until we are ready to put it
into place as a water butt.

 

Wasps!

Quick weather update  . . . blimmen 'ot!!

 

We have now finished the steps (bit by bit in the cooler parts of the day).  It's quite funny to watch the chickens going up and down because, like us, they were quite used to the old layout and now they have to learn a new one. 

As the front of the steps are higher than they used to be to make them level, they are quite big for the chickens to negotiate - about as high as their legs are long which we'd certainly find awkward wouldn't we?  Next job with the steps will be to disguise the fact that they are cemented into place.  I have already planted some lemon thyme in a couple of nooks and I'll hunt around for some other little plants.  Other bits can be filled in with some of the lime dust we have from the quarry which sets quite hard when compacted and will certainly look more natural than the grey cement.  It should all soften up quite nicely in time.

 

The other day Bob and I were looking at the steps and contemplating the next bit to do when I noticed a wasp fly up under the eves at the back of the workshop . . . then another . . . and another.  Closer inspection revealed what we thought was the beginnings of a wasps nest about the size of your fist.  So, we found the longest stick we could find - actually a small tree stripped of its branches which was waiting to be chopped up.  Bob then stood at the top of the steps and managed to poke down the nest.

Gosh, those wasps weren't happy!  Loads of them suddenly appeared buzzing around the area.  Good time to go inside for a cuppa we thought.  We were quite surprised that there was no sign of them next time we looked (last time we had a nest - in the fold of a sunlounger mattress in the shed - the wasps kept coming back to the site for days after.  It appears though that the bit we could see was just their porch and assume that the main nest was between the soffit and the roof and so the wasps had got over their initial indignation and then gone back inside to get on with whatever wasps do.  The next day they had rebuilt the porch.  It really is all quite impressive and fascinating, but you don't really have a choice but to get rid of them.  We bought some spray foam from a little hardware store in town not really expecting it to work.  You have to wait until the wasps have gone to bed and then stand 2m away, be ready to run and spray.  Its quite impressive that it actually sprays 2m, but even more impressive that it worked!  My goodness the buzzing was really, really loud, but in the morning all was silent and no sign of any wasps.  I guess in the winter we'll take the piece of wood down and get rid of the debris.  It's funny because a couple of days earlier I saw a wasp and commented that it was the first I'd seen all summer!

 

Bob has now finished his first ever chair in the new workshop (it's actually number 63 in total).  Today he did the exciting part (in my opinion) which is oiling and waxing it.  It just transforms the wood, bringing out the colour and giving it a lovely lustre and just making you want to stroke it.  Now he can finish off the little stool that has been almost done for a while but has been waiting so that the chair can have the first number for the new workshop.  There is another chair kit almost complete but just waiting for the Ash for the arm bend.  Unfortunately, the woodyard at the farm in the hills that we discovered a few weeks ago has had major problems with its sawmill.  It is a fairly new state of the art German machine which has been plagued with problems and was already waiting for a new something or another to be delivered from Germany when something else went wrong.  They got the part for that but somehow that blew something else when it was wired in. . . . and so we wait patiently for it to be fixed.  Vorsprung durch Teknik!!

 

I now have a new job, still at M&S but doing something completely different.  The job title is A&A which stands for Accuracy and Availability and is basically making sure that the store has accurate stock levels by pulling off stock records and checking them against actual stock and make sure other people carry out accurate checks.  Now, you may think that that sounds extremely dry and boring . . . . and, to be honest, I think you're absolutely right.  I think I'm supposed to be flattered that all the managers keep saying I'm definitely the right person for the job, but I'm not so sure it's a compliment.  I was asked if I'd be interested in the job and said that it didn't really excite me and they should ask around to see if anyone else wanted to do it, but if no-one did and they were desparate I give it a go.  A few days later they asked if I would do it and so with some misgivings I said yes only to find out within hours that someone else really wanted to do it and had even taken the books home to find out what she'd have to do.  Now that was all really awkward and I felt pretty bad about it and, I have to say, a little cross.  Anyway, she is going to be trained to do the job too at a later date so that there will be three of us to do it.  I started it on Tuesday and could have cried when I got home as the training was quite chaotic and it all seemed so convoluted and illogical and not enough time to do it properly.  I did it again yesterday and it did seem a bit clearer doing it alongside the other person who usually does it, but next week I'm on my own as she's on holiday!!  I'll be crying again I think!  This means that instead of working until 7.30pm, I am now part of the morning team doing 7am - 3pm.  I think those hours will probably be better especially in the summer - ask me again in February if I mind getting up at 6am though.

 

Anyway, that's got all that off my chest and I now have five days off work.  It's my weekend off and I asked if I could swap Monday because Ben's here for the weekend and so I'm doing Wednesday instead which gives me a nice long break.  It's Ben's birthday on Sunday and he is coming tomorrow until Monday evening which will be nice.  We don't have much planned, just chilling (in both senses - relaxing and trying to keep cool).  Meal at the village pub tomorrow and a BBQ on Sunday and that's about as far as our plans go.

 

Have a good weekend.