Seige machines and perfect eggs

Right, we're all back to normal now I think.  We took Ben back to Aberystwyth yesterday and took a look at the seafront while we were there.  It was high-tide and really quite dramatic with waves crashing up over the band stand and onto the promenade. Of course that was 'calm' compared to the last few days and I can't imagine what it was like at the weekend.   The road was covered quite thickly with shingle, block-paving bricks, stones and bollards.  There'll be quite a lot of re-building to do but, on the positive side, it is all clean debris - no sewage, mud or rubbish - and that has to be easier to deal with.  I think Ben was a bit disappointed not to have been there at the weekend with his camera, he is quite pleased that all the essay deadlines have been extended though!

Bob is back to work and getting on with more pub tables.  In his holidays he has done some stuff for us though.  We now have a new shelf in the kitchen for recipe books, CDs and one of the speakers.  That means that our new clock can go on the mantlepiece (just there, under the shelf).  It is made from a rusty old piece from the leaf-spring of a tractor which has quite a nice curve to it and has scrubbed up quite interestingly.  It is mounted on a piece of bog yew - similar to bog oak in that it has lain preserved in peat for probably thousands of years which gives it a beautiful rich colour and hardens it so that it polishes up beautifully.  It was pulled up from his fields by a farmer acquaintance in Lincolnshire and Bob made him a couple of chairs from it.

On just about the only nice day while Ben was here they built a retaining wall for the terracing in the garden.  I was at work so it was a really nice surprise when I got home - they got on very quickly with it, but unfortunately the weather's just been too horrible and wet to do any more to it, but it's a good start.  I thought I had taken a photo of it, but I can't find it and it's now dark so it'll have to wait.  Quite exciting to actually be doing something to the garden at last!  Bob has also built another step in the run up the side of the house so we are gradually, gradually getting there with that.  He has now hurt his back though so he'll have to take it easy for a while.

Our other project last weekend while I was off was to build a trebuchet!  A trebuchet is a medieval (I think?) seige machine which is like a giant catapault which is wound back so that, when it is released, it flings whatever is in the sling (rocks, dead cows or similar) over the wall of the castle you are laying seige to.  As we don't really need to attack a castle just at the moment, we made a little model one instead.  We were given the kit for Christmas before we moved and found it when we were unpacking a box a couple of months ago.  With the weather as it was it seemed like a good thing to do on a rainy afternoon.  Bob did despair a bit of the workmanship on the parts with holes not lining up properly, bent parts, etc, etc.  So he and Ben kept disappearing up to the workshop to do a bit of fine-tuning which I though was quite funny, but we eventually got it built.  This model has a wooden box to fill to act as a counterweight which we loaded up with rhubarb and custard sweets.  They aren't really ideal ballast material and we had to press down on the box to get any sort of fling.  So, there is the piece of red plasticine, provided with the kit instead of a dead cow, flying through the air down the hall.  We weren't really satisfied with the rhubarb and custard solution and so another rainy afternoon we went up to the workshop with it and filled the box up with scraps of lead - much better!  After much trial and error we found the ideal amunition to be a piece of blutak carefully shaped into a cylinder and with that setup we managed a record 20m fling out of the workshop door and down the path to the bridleway!  So, any unwanted visitors had better beware!  Once we got that sorted, we had a game of darts (round the clock, not proper darts - we can't do the maths quick enough!). . . what a way to spend an afternoon!

Yesterday, while we were at the sunny seaside, Lottie laid her first egg for us.  We suspected one was imminent as her comb, which had shrivelled up to almost nothing when she moulted, had come back and was nice and red which is usually a sign.  She is now a very samrt, very perfect-looking chicken and her egg was also very smart and very perfect-looking.  Smallish (but not as small as I thought it would be), very pale, very smooth and with not a speckle to be seen (it doesn't really look real!).  Let you know what it tastes like.  Maybe now the others will remember what they are supposed to be doing!