Growing pains

I've decided to grow some food in my garden again this year. I always start full of enthusiasm but somehow I can never keep it up. OH and I fall into the "stick it in a pot and if it grows it grows and if it doesn't, oh well" school of gardening, which is fine for shrubby type things because you cn pretty much stick them in a pot and they grow without requireing too much attention. However, tomatoes and French Beans, which are this years' chosen plants, require a little more care and attention. I am determined to see it through this year and reap the rewards of a bountiful crop of both.

Time will tell.

Chicken Little

Well, whatever was wrong with the chicken won't be bothering it any more. To borrow a phrase, it's now an ex-chicken. Owners have been informed and the response was "what colour chicken was it?". As you do.

And it appears to have stopped raining.

Holeedayz

On holiday I might be but today is one of those days for curling up on the sofa with a good book...or as we have Sky here, curling up on the sofa watching Star Trek! It is absolutely persisting down here and it's in for the day so seemed as good a time as any to catch up on the blogging.

We're house sitting for some friends who have a small-holding so we have horses, rabbits, chickens and sheep to look after as well. We would have a cat but The Lurchers seem to have scared her off and she hasn't been seen since Monday, which is starting to worry me a bit now. But cats are resourceful creatures so with any luck she's holed up in the hay barn.

My days are pretty much the same, get up and get dressed. Put on wellies and go out and let the chickens out, feed them and collect the eggs. Prepare a little feed for two of the horses and go out to the paddock to feed them, give cuddles and make sure rugs are all on straight. Count the sheep in the next paddock. Come back, grabbing a handful of grass and leaves on the way, and go see to the rabbits. Lunchtime, go check on the horses and go see if there are any more eggs to collect. Evening, feed chickens, check on horses, count the sheep, then at dusk, put the chickens away. In between, walk the Lurchers, either round the "grounds" or somewhere local for a change, then laze about reading the paper, doping the crossword or reading.

Sounds idyllic? Oh it is! Most of the time. The weather so far has been pretty foul, with bouts of nice sunshine in between although I don't think we'll see any sunshine today. It gets a little less idyllic when you have to worry about a cantakerous old mare that won't let you put a rug on her when it's peeing down and today, we have a poorly chicken. Cantakerous old mare finally let herself be rugged, but I'm not sure what's wrong with the chicken. She sort of stood up and then sank slowly back down again with a bit of a slant to the right. FIngers crossed it's nothing serious - maybe she's just a bit dazed from falling off a perch or something....hopefully.

I'm off!

Off on my hols to deepest Gloucestershire for 10 days. Catch you later!

All over for another year

With the stressful build-up we had to the Greyhound Gap Annual Dog Show this year, it was quite a relief to reach the end of the day with everyone and everything in one piece. Things like half the rosettes not turning up, mounts for our special prints not turning up, programmes being printed with missing info and then, on the morning of the show, getting a phonecall from Lisa, Gap's Founder, to say that a circus had moved in where we were supposed to be and no-one had a clue what was going on. A few sharp words from Nettie, one of our Trustees and several other volunteers on site, had the poor man from the Counil quaking in his boots but get it sorted he did. In fact the site, despite being a long way from the loos, was much better.

Getting to the show necessitated an early start for us...I had no idea there were two 5 o'clocks on a Sunday. Left home at 7 with the aim of getting there for about 9.30am. We were on track until I took a wrong road and ended up on the M6 Toll Road and having to go miles out of our way before getting off and finding our way back into Walsall.

But come to an end it did and the show was a huge success, raising over £2,000, and lots of people either meeting for the first time having "chatted" forever on the Forum or old friends meeting up again. Considering how many hounds were in attendance, we had very few problems and all the hounds behaved impeccably!

Time to start planning next year's now.........