The highs and lows of winning.

Just recently I was reading a post from one of my favourite bloggers about an award she had been given. She then had to nominate 10 other blogs. As I read through the list my name was on it. My heart skipped a beat and if I’m honest I clicked the link to check it was my site that came up!

I started my blog quite a while ago. The only time I have ‘put it out there’ is when I did a link on Pinterest to a picture of a sparrowhawk in my garden. From that I got a couple of views and likes and it’s slowly building.

I love getting likes, I love passing spare time reading others blogs. I’ve used recipes and been inspired by crafts. I’ve left a few comments and even more excitingly had a few comments and likes back.

I’ve spent all week thinking of the 7 interesting things about me. I’ve written some of them down but forgotten others before I got to the notebook. It’s been interesting thinking about me from others perspectives. I’ve decided I’m just not that interesting as I can’t think of 7 things!!

So far I have the following….

1. I’m a jack of all trades but master of none. I start a hundred different crafts but never finish them. I redesign the garden every time I have new ideas, but never finish it.

2. I love baking but am not good at main meals. In fact I have to ask hubby how long it takes to boil an egg and I always manage to wander off, with a head full of nothing, and then burn baked beans.

3. I’m to sensible. This is proven by my honeymoon. Hubby wanted to go to Australia but I sensibly brought a business, had just a week off and had my niece and nephews to stay. I always tell people I went to Banham Zoo for my honeymoon!

4. I’m allergic to juniper. Which is why I used to fall off my chair or be violently sick when drinking gin as a teenager. I was not the lightweight they all thought I was with my very trendy G&T. I discovered this only recently after making sloe  gin and being violently sick on the first taste test. I was convinced I’d picked some poisonous berries and would have discarded it all until hubby declared it delicious. I then made sloe vodka and loved it.

5. I have a terrible memory. I once spent ages forcing my house keys over the lid of the milk bottle, as I always forgot the milk for a community event and thought it was a fall proof way to remember. I later spent ages searching for my keys and it was only as I rushed into the venue late, having left the back door unlocked that I remembered the milk. 

And now I’ve run out of ideas. I’ve had others. But never made a note of them quick enough. So I will finish here.

Thank-you so much to Mrs Crafty. She made my day. I’m only sorry I couldn’t work out how to insert the links.

Sorry to the 10 other blog sites who could have been nominated by me if I could have only decided who you were.

I shall carry on with my little diary, loving every minute, not making enough time for it but having fun. It’s just for me but I’m pleased if others like it too.

Bush crafts.

As home edders Miss C and I are used to travelling around the county for learning opportunities. When one of the other mums heard about a local site that offered bush craft classes and asked if anyone else was interested we were straight in.

Miss C loves hands on learning. It’s local and we both love being outdoors. It sounded the perfect event. So far it has not let us down.

We meet in a copse of trees under this great parachute style cover around a log fire. We have to park some distance away and walk through a touring park with pretty hedged pitches, off a quiet country lane. The sun has shone each time so far. Sounds idyllic? It really is.

This week the theme was shelter and fire. The kids were each asked to bring a cuddley toy and then shown how to make a shelter in small scale. This was Miss C’s design. I had been relegated to collecting the sticks by this time as I kept collapsing it whenever I touched it.

She covered it with rather a lot of leaves and thatch. Actually this is a good thing, as apparently the thicker it is the more likely to stay dry you are. I got a pre teens knowing look at this point as I had only minutes earlier urged caution on the amount being piled on top.

Here’s my teddy sitting in his partially built home. Miss C didn’t want to bring her own bear. A, it’s not cool to admit you still have teddies at her age apparently and B, she didn’t want to get hers dirty! I didn’t know I owned this one, I’ve no idea where it came from but she found it sitting in the charity pile of toys I want to give away and she won’t yet let me. He was small enough to make den building a bit easier and cool enough to make Miss C smile.

All of the other dens were just as good and all their owners were pleased for me to show them off.

This one was my friends sons. He comes with us each time and is a dab hand at it all. He made it across the ditch which wouldn’t be good from a survival point but had all the little boys very impressed. I couldn’t even get them out for a picture!!

Another friend brings 4 adorable little girls in pink leggings. They each made a free standing home for their rather trendy dolls. The three year old seemed to have the same problems I had, every time she added a stick the whole thing collapsed. No none tutted at her and muttered ‘doh, just leave it alone and fetch sticks. You’re just to heavy for this’
Was it mean to wonder if the mushrooms are poisonous?!

Free as a bird.

Everything today seems to come back to birds.

Hubby spent most of the day building the hens a new coop. We used an old kitchen cupboard so that’s novel. I forgot to take a picture though so maybe tomorrow!

Later we realised the Gert who had been with us all day, getting in the way and generally being a pest, had vanished. Now last week I wouldn’t have worried as I thought the garden was secure. This week I know different.

Soon after letting the girls out early the other morning Miss C came downstairs saying she had heard our neighbour shouting my name over the fence. Turns out Gert had managed to get into his garden and had been caught by his dog. Fearing the worse he opened his car boot and I extracted a very frightened hen from amongst the paraphernalia. Seems the dog, a rather quiet Labrador had carried the hen to him very happily and he had put it in the nearest place. Gert was none the worse for the experience, her heart was pounding and she was a bit sucked looking but putting her down in front of the cats biscuit bowl soon cheered her up!

Anyway back to this afternoon and my missing Gert. I turned detective and basically followed the poo trail through the veggie beds.

Damaged tomatoes in the poly tunnel door…

Digging in the poly tunnel beds.

Chicken having a dust bath amongst the tomatoes. It was around 5.30 and the noise in the back ground is the start of the hundreds of sparrows coming in to roost in my Laurel hedge. Its bedlam in the garden at dusk each evening.

She’s right near the melons. ( Sorry I’m a bit proud of the melons and just had to show off AGAIN)

Lucky I had well watered the peas and lettuce I’d just planted. Wet soil is obviously not so attractive.

I left her, I’m nice like that! She repaid me by appearing minutes later and stealing the cat food.

Chickens in the house. Not actually allowed… but do they listen!

Later we found a rather dim but very cute Ring Collared Dove nesting in the tree.

It is a tree but only just.

She’s just above the lower of next door’s two roofs. Can you see it? The nest is smaller than the bird, her bottom is hanging over the edge. There surely can’t be any eggs.

The most exciting part of the day came as Miss C and I closed up the chickens for the night. We have been hearing a strange bird call for a couple of weeks but tonight after patiently waiting we finally identified it as it flew out of a tree and across the vegetable garden.

A Little Owl. Roosting and hunting in our garden. What a thrill.

Autumn’s glories.

Autumn. Can you believe the year is going so quickly! It’s glorious here at the moment. The mornings are cool and fresh, the days are hot and sunny and the evenings are warm enough to sit outside long after the darkness falls. We played Rumikub by torchlight last night. Such fun!

This is the sun breaking through the clouds from my back doorstep this morning. I’ve been up with the lark, as I usually am, but it’s not often I pick 17lb of tomatoes before hubby has even left for work.

There’s a lot of tomatoes in my life at the minute.

I pick them, wash them, chop them and cook them and then start again.

The slow cooker has earned it’s keep cooking them down into sauce for the freezer. I borrowed a dehydrator to dry them (although that was a mouldy disaster!). I’ve pureed and sieved them to make then thicker. We’ve eaten salads until we are tired of them. But even for all that I’m still going to try to do it all again next year. Free food is just so satisfying.

Raspberries have been coming  thick and fast. If we don’t pick every day they go over on the bush.

There’s a solitary pumpkin hiding in the leaves.

The only butternut squash worth shouting about is romping across the patio. There are others but they are single person servings at the moment, it’s not looking good!

Sunflowers and cosmos continue to earn their keep.

Clematis have gone to lovely fluffy seed heads while the wonderful purple leaved malus, that looks so good with a bright pink perpetual sweet pea crawling through it, now looks tired and sickly as it’s leaves drop.

There’s still tomatoes in the poly tunnel

There’s cucumbers a plenty as well. These ones hit you on the side of the head. I know they are there, I try to avoid them, but at some point on one of my visits I manage to crack myself on the ear everyday. I could cut them but where’s the fun in that. And anyway, there are others bigger to eat first!

My most amazing achievement is the melons. They were late in and I never expected much, but there are 6 fruit swelling at great speed. If I get one ripe juicy fruit my summer will be complete!

Did I mention the outdoor cherry tomatoes lined up in pots all along the top of the water butt? The fruit from them runs into three figures. I had a niece to stay last week who ate a bowl full every day and took lots home with her. She can come again!

I think tomatoes are my  summer success. The freezer is groaning but I’m off now to pick apples. My friend says she has hundreds and I can take my pick. The dehydrator will get a second chance. I never look a gift horse in the mouth!!

Bad news in chicken land.

We’ve has chicken problems again. Peggy Pecker has been off colour for a few days and once or twice we feared the worst only to come down in the morning to find her up and about again. Unfortunately not only did she succumb to old age yesterday but Flash also managed to die, totally unexpectedly,  this week as well.

The chickens are ex battery and we’ve had them for 14 months or so. They’ve given us eggs every day until the last few weeks when they have all had a full moult and succumbed to and beaten the dreaded chicken mites caught from the wild birds. Peggy and Flash have both struggled with laying recently, with Flash in particular being egg bound on a number of occasions, so I guess we knew their time was coming.

The remaining two are getting extra spoiling. Being allowed to come into the main garden where they dig up the gravel and poo everywhere. We’ve even been mixing extra vitamins into cat food for them, much to the cats disgust.

The question now is whether to get more now or wait until the Spring.  Rescue hens only seem to be available then so if we want to do our good deed that’s the answer. Miss C has her heart set on a couple of  black fluffy hens and I fancy some blue egg layers, so who knows!

The Village people

It was the village show this weekend. If you’ve never been to one you really should. Now I would think that every village in the country has its ‘click’ and ours is no different.

Our show is in aid of the playing field fund but held in the village hall. This is a totally different fund to the village hall fund. The playing field however doesn’t have a hall. The hall doesn’t have any more outside space than a car park. The people on the village hall committee are sometimes the same as the people on the playing field committee. Why they don’t form one committee is beyond me but they don’t and more than that they don’t even always get on, even with themselves!

Now every year, for quite a few, I have been the booking in steward for the exhibits. I take the money and check the entrants have chosen the correct category. I don’t enter the exhibits on the computer. That’s the job of the person who owns the computer and woe betide anyone else to touch the computer. I sometimes help put the exhibits on the tables but I don’t decide exactly where. That’s the job of the person who has always put the exhibits on the tables I just put them down and let them line them up neatly. Woe betide the person who dares to change the set up of the tables without total agreement from the other.

Now all this sounds quite difficult but actually I love it. I’ve lived here for some years now and these people are family. We all have our jobs, we get on with them and the event happens. I feel I’ve earned my place in this society.

This year I finally dared to enter some exhibits.

I put five of my cosmos flowers into the catergory ‘ flowers not in schedule – same variety’. I entered 5 chillies in their category and 10 raspberries in their category.

Now I would like to tell you there were hundreds of entries and in the flowers there were quite a few, but in the chillies I was the only one and only two entered the raspberries.
Therefore to get a first for my chillies and a second for my raspberries was not so unexpected. One year the only entry in the homemade sweet catergory got a third and nearly self exploded. Apparently it’s down to points not number of entries. Who would have guessed?

After the show you can take your entries home or they are auctioned off. The auction is the best fun we have in the village all year. Husband’s bid against wives. Neighbours outdo each other. People bid for their own things. Someone usually realises half way through that they didn’t mean to leave their exhibit for auction and there’s a mad dash to find it before the hammer strikes. Most fun of all is watching the proudest member of the community showing their wealth with huge bets on random things they didn’t want.

Miss C always bids on all the small flower exhibits and we bring home lots of loose heads for 20p a bunch. I bid on anything that’s a bit slow. Sometimes people outbid me for fun or even vindictiveness but that’s ok. I never want it anyway! This year I brought a 20p marrow ( one year I got about 4 so that’s an improvement) for the chickens. I also brought the smallest pumpkin for 20p.

And the largest pumpkin, the best in show exhibit, for 50p.

On a final note. Guess who’s cosmos came first?

These village shows are addictive, next year we should all enter.