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321 ♥Aug. 10th, 2015 // 04:21 pm♥ [Tags | garden, house, jodie the dog, weather ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/1095345.html ] 1) Today started off pleasantly overcast, if a bit muggy. While I was mid-walk with the pooch, it turned into blazing sunshine: oops. Fortunately, I'd driven her up to the woods, so at least she didn't have to walk in the open, but she's now rather a hot dog. And she got her first proper burr of the year: yay. At least at this stage they're relatively easy to remove. In a few months, they'll disintegrate into little bits when I try to pull them off her. She's also a stinky dog: there's way too much badger activity in the summer pasture for my liking. 2) We had the Aga serviced this morning, so that's all ready for the winter. 3) Mike's been busy trimming hedges. I've been busy spraying that bloody wasp nest.... Link Who loves you?

Three things ♥Aug. 7th, 2015 // 02:10 pm♥ [Tags | garden, house, jodie the dog ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/1094546.html ] 1) The scaffolding has been taken down, and we now have solar panels on the garage roof. Mike is checking the power output approximately ten times an hour, and excitedly reported to me that boiling the kettle used a little bit of grid electricity as well: apparently, it's a bit hazy today, so we're only getting 3.4 thingies, instead of 3.8. 2) Jodie's chamois leather coat really does seem to work. Admittedly we drove up the hill, so that she could stay in the shade, but she had no problems at all on her walk today, even though it's hot outside. 3) Mrs Next Door came over for dinner, followed a bit later by The New Bloke. Nice evening, and TNB is (I'm afraid to say) already much better with Baby Toddler Next Door than Mr Next Door ever was. TND continued his campaign to get into Jodie's paddling pool, but was repeatedly foiled. GB is back to his usual charming self this evening, to the extent that he came charging across the stableyard after the ducks when I was putting them to bed! Oh, and we found a random hydrangea, whilst taking a break from pruning the wisteria (urgh, pigeon nest on my head). No idea where it came from: it would be a really stupid place to plant one, and it's so small that it can't have been left by the previous owners anyway! Huh: that seems to be five things. And there was me, thinking that stealing G's five things was a good idea but overly ambitious! Link Who loves you?

Things ♥Feb. 27th, 2015 // 05:10 pm♥ [Tags | busy, family, garden, horses, house, visitors ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/1073021.html ] It's been a tiring few days, and lo: I am tired. And when I'm tired I get even worse about updating LJ, answering emails, and replying to text messages. We've had various visitors, including my parents, which was nice (but tiring). On the plus side, my father did lots of DIY, which was helpful: Bugs now has a rack for his rugs, so they're not in a heap on the floor of the tack room. Bugs seems to be settling in, although it was unhelpful of the weather to dump masses of rain on us just when it did: they couldn't go in the field on Friday or Saturday last week, so we had to have them all in the stableyard together, slightly earlier than I'd planned on letting them socialise as a group. There were a few scuffles, but nothing too bad: GB landed a few bites on Bugs, and Bugs landed a few kicks on GB, but no actual injuries. It dried out slightly, so they had three days in the top part of the field, which is now horribly churned up due to a combination of scrapping, Bugs still having shoes on his front feet, and GB being utterly determined to always stay between Bugs and the Baby (he seems to have slackened this policy now, thankfully). Then they had another two days in the stableyard, and transformed it into a good recreation of the Somme, so they just had to stay in their stables or be tied up all day today. They did get a bit of excitement in the form of a visit from the Back Lady, though. She pronounced them all fine, once she'd done a little bit of tweaking of Bugs. We had a power cut in the early hours of Thursday morning, which Mike discovered was because the breaker had gone on the fish pond circuit and blown the whole thing. Fortunately, Fish Pond Guy was coming on Thursday anyway, to take out the old fountain and put the attachment on the pump to make it make a pretty jet of water. He declared the pump to be bust, which was annoying as it's less than a year old: Mike will be complaining, and then Fish Pond Guy will be back to fit the replacement. We've got a new pond cover as well, but it needs a little fettling to make it work properly: I suspect that we're going to end up removing a strip of grass around the pond and putting pebbles down, to make it possible for Mike to mow the lawn without having to move the cover each time. Our bins didn't get emptied last Friday, which was annoying: the official reason is because there was -- shock -- a pair of traffic cones on either side of the gate when they arrived. Not blocking it, or anything, just, y'know, existing. The fact that it was raining may also have had something to do with it. There has followed a week of comedy and delight, including a reprise of the old favourite "But you don't have a wheely bin, you have purple sacks", some Twitter action from the local councillor, at least three failed "within two days" and, apparently, they will be emptied tomorrow. Honest. (The cones, by the by, were put there by the road mending people, and thus the bin lorry would never have got to the reason for them. They've resurfaced a couple of meters of the road, and done the outside two thirds on a fair bit more. There are, of course, still places that need doing but that was the worst stretch. My current theory is that, back in October, the Amazing Vanishing Road Crew were supposed to put patches on all the problems and then these guys were booked to come and do the worst bits properly. Even though the AVRC vanished in an amazing fashion before doing their bit, the second booking still happened. I suppose that we'd better report it all again to see if the same thing happens next winter: there are now some nasty potholes on the flat part of the road as well.) Project Grow Your Own is moving along, although the next stage is somewhat hampered by the fact that two of the planks in the side of one of the big planters have swelled in the wet and pinged out: I've emailed the people we got them from to complain. We've got to the stage of planting some of the seedlings out in bigger pots to grow on before they go out, although I'm a little worried by the germination rate of the early tomatoes. There is an actual pod on one of the mange tout plants, as well as masses of flowers, which is very silly. And I am very tired and achy and brainless and tired. Now. Text messages, then at least some of my emails before I give up. Link Who loves you?

Gosh ♥Feb. 19th, 2015 // 02:38 pm♥ [Tags | angelo, bugsy, horses, house ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/1072372.html ] While I was riding this morning, a big lorry with various bits sticking out and towed behind went very slowly and carefully past the school. "Cor," I thought (whilst appreciating the care they were taking not to spook the horses), "I bet they regret having come down the hill!" Only then they (equally carefully) went back again the other way about half an hour later. And, half an hour after that, I was mucking out when Mike reported that they were coming back down the hill with our Tesco delivery following after. When they got down the hill that time they just stopped and asked the Tesco guy where he was going next (reply: not back up the hill), before heading back up the hill. Tesco guy later told Mike that they were, wait for it, actually fixing the road! I deliberately went that way with Jo later, and they had indeed started work on the road. I couldn't actually see any bits that they'd fixed, but it was reassuring to see that they'd actually stripped the top layer off the whole width of the road at the place where they were currently working, rather than just patching it by sticking some tarmac in the holes ready to wash down the hill the next time it rains. We shall see! Speaking of riding, this morning I took GB and Bugs in the school. I foolishly gave Mike the ok to take the Baby up to the field before I was actually sitting on GB's back, which meant that we had five minutes of screaming, foot stamping, dragging me around the yard, and so on before we managed to wrestle him into his bridle and get him to the mounting block. Once I was on him, he was fine other than a bit of a tendency to run down the road past the house so that he could see the Baby again. As soon as that happened, and we went in the school (so he knew he wasn't being Taken Away), he was all sweetness and light again. Well, other than a bit of face pulling when Mike brought Bugs over and tied him up next to the school ready for me to ride after GB. Bugs was a bit stiff in the back end at first, but this may be just because he had his first hack with us yesterday (Mike rode the Baby, GB stood in the field and shouted his little head off the whole time we were away), and thus had to go up and down some hills: they're not very well stocked with hills on Thanet, so I wasn't surprised that he struggled a bit. He'll get used to it. I just hope that GB does. Link Who loves you?

Horses ♥Feb. 6th, 2015 // 04:20 pm♥ [Tags | horses, house, jodie the dog ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/1069136.html ] The man's fixing the Aga! Yay! It took him a while, but he managed to replace the connection between the burner and the pipe with a new one. Soon it won't be freezing cold in the kitchen any more.... This morning, we went to see a couple of horses. I was not terribly bothered to get a text saying that the dealer couldn't be there and a groom would see to us, but I was a bit annoyed when she mentioned that she wasn't the usual groom and had never actually met either horse before.... That meant that she couldn't say whether the first one was always visibly lame or if it was just a special occasion. The second one was quite nice, although he's very tall. Jo's been hunting wabbits and then, getting sick of carrying them around the woods with her, scoffing them whole. I'm sure it's good for her, or something.... Link Who loves you?

Sunshine! ♥Feb. 4th, 2015 // 01:22 pm♥ [Tags | garden, house, pictures ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/1069016.html ] We've (mostly) had a lovely sunny day, here. Still a lot of snow about (we've cancelled this afternoon's riding lesson, sigh), but it's been nice and bright. This is just as well, as we've also moved the first of the seedlings out of the propagator and onto the kitchen windowsill top of the microwave. I'm astonished that any of them germinated, given that Mike has been lifting the lid off five times a day to check for progress. At least he wasn't digging them up to check. So far, we've got some chilli peppers and one of the varieties of sweet peppers, but I'm sure that the others will make themselves known soon. Just hope that they're warm enough overnight in the kitchen: the Aga's still out of action, as the part is proving tricky to source. Slightly less cheerfully, the glass plate fell off the side of the house the other day. It was glued to the wall of the house, on either side of a repaired crack, the idea being that if the crack widens the glass will break and you can see that there's a problem. However, we're not *too* worried about it: firstly, when we had the roofing guy in a few weeks ago he looked at it and made the perfectly sensible comment that, unless we went up on a ladder and poked it, we didn't actually know that (eg) the glue hadn't perished and it was just balanced up there on the supporting nails and secondly it happened the day after we'd had the windows and gutters cleaned, so the roofer was probably right (and, now that I think if it, thirdly there wasn't any glue on the glass, it's still stuck on the wall). We do now need to decided if we should get a new plate put on, though. Link Who loves you?

Heavy lifting ♥Jan. 30th, 2015 // 05:10 pm♥ [Tags | garden, house, pictures ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/1066616.html ] Or rather, pushing: this morning, we had a tonne of rock and two tonnes of pebbles delivered, ready for when we re-do a patch of the back garden. (It was a cheap batch that a company had in, and wouldn't be able to re-stock at the same price, so it made sense to get it now and keep it until spring.) The delivery driver (sigh) completely ignored the instructions in his notes, and came down the hill. I was slightly hopeful that he wouldn't be able to stop at the bottom* and might drive through and smash the fence around our stableyard (which needs replacing) but it was not to be. He did nearly get stuck, though. My cunning plan was to have him leave the pallets in the garage, as the drive is concrete and that would keep them out of the way. Unfortunately, I'd not quite realised how much of a slope there was.... All three of us pushing and pulling managed it, although we did have to unload some of the rocks before we could get it moving. * We had snow last night and this morning: We've also had the outside windows washed, and the gutters, window frames and weatherboards cleaned. We opted not to get the conservatory done, as it was a lot of money, and it now looks incredibly filthy in comparison, but there you go. Link Who loves you?

Aga ♥Jan. 29th, 2015 // 11:39 am♥ [Tags | ducks, house, weather ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/1066154.html ] Our Aga went out the other day. Mike relit it, and it was rather cold before going out again the next morning, after which he couldn't re-light it. This morning, the Aga man came to have a look and, after telling me off sternly because Mike left the oil on after the last re-lighting attempt, took it apart and reported that there was a dodgy thread that meant the pipe from the oil pipe to the burner was leaking (as well as the burner being full of carbon). Unfortunately, we have AncientFrankenAga, so the thread and pipe in question are not only imperial but also botched together out of bits of plumbing supplies. He's taken away the pipe and burner: if we're lucky, he'll be able to get a new nut-and-thread bit. If we're unlucky, he'll be able to change the connection on the burner to a metric one and get a new pipe made. If we're really unlucky, it'll be a new burner and pipe. He's a nice chap, though, and said he hoped to be back tomorrow or early next week. At least we have a service contract, now (complete no-brainer, as it's the same price as an annual service, which is pretty much what he did today while he was here anyway!) (He did leave the gate open, though, tsk. Before I took Jo out, I had to herd the ducks back from Next Door's field. They were most amusing as they crossed the puddle at the bottom of the drive: too deep to walk, not deep enough to swim, so they had to lie down and scoot themselves along!) I'm now checking out All The Weather Forecast Sites: I will probably try to bring the boys in before the rain starts, and I certainly want to have them in before it turns to snow. Mike's in London, so this could be fun.... (In other weather-related news that I forgot to mention, the every-seven-years river in the next valley over is merrily flowing again: third year in a row.) Link Who loves you?

Brrr ♥Jan. 19th, 2015 // 08:52 pm♥ [Tags | house ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/1063125.html ] Having waited for a cold night, we've finally got around to defrosting the freezer, at the expense of a certain amount of damage to my nails. Hopefully I'll now be able to open it without cringing at the noise of the ice scraping! Link Who loves you?

Alas, poor fishie ♥Jan. 18th, 2015 // 04:44 pm♥ [Tags | family, fish, garden, house ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/1062407.html ] (Yuck, new DW beta update page is hideous. They've increased the font size and added acres of white space, presumably to make it easier to use on a mobile, so you now have to scroll and scroll and scroll. In what universe does anyone need a 1000-pixel-wide dropdown to distinguish between the names of their icons? I've slightly improved it by manually changing the font size for the page, but it's still enormous in the text entry box and generally bleh. Anyway.) It appears that our last indoor fish is no more. I saw him a few days ago, but then my mother asked why we had an empty fish tank and I couldn't find him to show her, yesterday or today. Ah well, they had a good run. (The visit seemed to go well. No one died!) This afternoon, we've been pruning trees in the garden. This evening, as it's forecast to be below freezing until mid-morning, we're going to defrost the freezer. I heard today that our new vegetable planters are ready, and should be with us mid-week, and I had a small accident buying plants online.... It's exciting, out in the countryside! Link 2 kisses // Who loves you?

On the off chance.... ♥Jan. 15th, 2015 // 06:10 pm♥ [Tags | garden, horses, house, pilates, weather ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/1062388.html ] I recently read an article about a garden, which featured a lovely picture of a row of dogwoods, shading in colour from dark purple at one end through red, orange and yellow to green at the other. I'm pretty sure that it was in the garden of one of the Queen's houses, which (given the residence times) probably means Sandringham. It was almost certainly in Country Life. Annoyingly, I can't find it on the CL website, and there's a dogwood called rainbow. It seems deeply unlikely, but did anyone else see it? It looked really pretty, and I'm wondering if we could do it in our garden where we've taken the leylandii out. Last night, it was very wet and windy. We're not sure how wet, as this morning Mike reported a glitch in the weather station, which was claiming 6 inches. I discovered why when I dragged GB into the school for a bit of exercise: the cover had blown off the rain gauge, so it had been flapping around in the wind and over reporting. The boys have been in for three days now; I do hope that we can get them up to the top of the field tomorrow, but even that was still a bit squelchy at sunset when we checked it. All the time I was in the stableyard this morning (and waiting for the vet to come and give the boys their jabs), I kept thinking that I could hear a car coming down the hill, but it was just the sound of the stream gushing down the middle of the road. (GB managed a spectacular prat-fall yesterday. One minute he was standing on the concrete looking annoyed that the grass was so soggy, the next he was lying flat on his side flailing his legs as he tried to get up. I think he must have spooked and slipped. He's fine, thankfully!) This afternoon, for no obvious reason, Mike decided that he was going to change the batteries in the external sensors of the house alarm, so that we could use that as a doorbell instead of the plug-in one we have (which occasionally goes off for the fun of it). Looking through the notes that we'd been left, we decided that the code had been set to 1234. As soon as Mike unscrewed the covers on the sensors, the internal alarm went off with a tamper warning. I dashed to the kitchen and entered 1234... and then tried it again... and then went out to Mike to tell him to make it stop.... When I came back in, though, I realised that the sticky label on the alarm contains the name of the company, their phone number, and a different four-digit code, which thankfully worked. I'll gloss over the bit where Mike accidentally self-tested the external alarm, and just say that it still doesn't work but at least no longer has a row of flashing lights warning of battery failures. (We're mystified by the fact that there were four of them, as we can only think of two external sensors. This is the alarm that just does the property perimeter, not the actual house.) Oh, and we had the garage door fixed. Busy day! Tomorrow, we've got a man coming to quote for cleaning the windows and emptying the gutters, and my parents are coming to stay. Oh, and I have Pilates, where I am Getting Bored Again to the extent that I've found a place in Canterbury that does the right variety of matwork classes and will be hopefully starting there next week if they can squeeze me into the advanced class. Link Who loves you?

Roof things ♥Jan. 12th, 2015 // 03:27 pm♥ [Tags | house ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/1061916.html ] When we had the survey done on this house, the chap noted that there was Something Going On with the extension: our bedroom floor is noticeably bowed, which he hypothesised was because there's a brick wall between the bedroom and the bathroom / my dressing room, which isn't supported by anything underneath it. We had a structural engineer in, and he said it was actually that the roof beams didn't go all the way to the wall, so the weight of the roof was resting on the unsupported wall, which was causing the floor to bow. Today, we finally got around to having a roofer look at it. He poked around in the loft for a bit then came down and said, in the nicest possible way, "there nothing wrong with those beams, the structural engineer was talking rubbish", and thought that the best explanation for the floor was the unsupported wall but that it was all a bit odd and might just be that the extension was a bit cowboy-ish. And he thinks that the cracks in the walls up there are because of the old subsidence from when the extension was built. Which is all a bit odd. Options appear to be to get another structural engineer in ("Which company did you use? Just one bloke on his own. Well, that might be the problem....") or just decorate and see whether any new cracks appear. Hmm. And, while he was here, he had a look at the back store room, which has a slightly leaky roof: he recommends taking the tiles off and putting a flat rook in, as the pitch is too low for the current setup, and wants to shorten the unused chimney that's out there as well. Not urgent enough to be a winter job, though, so we'll think about it. Link Who loves you?

Bits ♥Nov. 27th, 2014 // 11:11 am♥ [Tags | ducks, horses, house, riding ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/1055150.html ] (That's annoying: Firefox just crashed, and I've now been logged out of *everything*. Even Amazon doesn't know who I am.) Yesterday, GB got into the garden: he nipped through the gate as the ducks were going the other way at bed time. He did just walk along the back of the garage and up the steps, before turning around and going back to the stableyard, but he has now seen All That Grass, which is a bit worrying: we'll have to be careful about keeping the gate closed when they're hanging around in there. (Esme, on the other hand, had just had to be removed from the garage and carried back to the garden: she knew it was bed time, and as the gate was blocking her from going the usual way she decided to improvise. I think we might have to put bird netting on that bit of the fence, as they can apparently just about get through the stock netting if they try hard enough.) The day before that, we went to see Smokey, who was way too forward. I should have realised it wasn't even worth getting on him when we saw how much the woman was holding him back when she rode. New rule: if the rider is obviously holding him back, ask to see all three paces on a long rein. Another one tomorrow, just around the corner as it happens. The day before *that*, I was coming back from walking Jo and -- wonder of wonders -- found that the stile was mid-repair. Have just sent a thank you email off to the council chap, who must have put a letter in the post the same day as my last email to him for it to have got sorted that quickly. And before that, we had a lovely visit from S&C&W, who was a bit scared of Jo but then Jo is probably twice her size so it's not so unusual. (Pedro, in the end, got approved by our instructor provided we didn't pay the full price but then sold (not sure for how much) to the person who was already booked in to come and see him the day after we did (as we didn't actually go with the intention of seeing that horse, it is absolutely right that the other people got priority).) Our field is in a horrible state, although we're slightly hopeful that we can get them out for a couple of houses this afternoon after we've ridden: a combination of rain and waiting for a Tesco delivery scuppered the chances of riding in the morning. We have had a couple of frosty nights and cold, sunny days, but mostly it's just been moist. Link 2 kisses // Who loves you?

Hurrah! ♥Nov. 10th, 2014 // 02:14 pm♥ [Tags | house ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/1052567.html ] The dishwasher is working again! Yesterday morning, Mike went out to fill the bird feeders and when he came back in he triumphantly declared that he'd filled twice as many with sunflower seeds, so as to avoid having to do them every day. His face was a picture when he went outside and saw twice as many empty feeders in the tree.... Link Who loves you?

Timings ♥Oct. 30th, 2014 // 04:22 pm♥ [Tags | horses, house, riding:jonny ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/1048369.html ] 45 minutes before the woman arrived to look at Baby, inevitably, the drain guy finally called to say he'd be with us in half an hour. Fifteen minutes later, the dishwasher guy called to ask if he was supposed to drive through the gate with the cows on the other side of it to get to us. Oh, and Mike realised that he had a work meeting half an hour after she was due. Dishwasher guy was first, and then drain guy. This was pretty good timing, as it turned out: some poking about by drain guy revealed a pipe with an opening for his pokey stick in the porch, but the first few times he tried it came out of the dishwasher drain rather than the sink. Still, he managed to get it sorted pretty quickly and headed on his way. While I was in the house seeing what was going on ("Is there a problem? Why did he leave so quickly?"), horse girl arrived, with an older friend, and we showed her Baby for a bit. Dishwasher guy decided that it was the circuit board, not the heater, and went away to order a new one: three to five days. We tacked Baby up and I tasked Mike with taking GB back up to the field, so that he could watch while we were riding. A few minutes later, Mike lead Baby out to the school while I caught GB and took him to the field. Baby obliged me with a lovely canter, first time, in the good direction, and a less good one the second time in the bad one. Embarrassingly for everyone, horse girl (who retrains difficult horses for a living) couldn't get him to canter for her. It was generally agreed that he's got a lovely nature and beautiful paces but was a bit green. We suggested that they bring her other half down to try it out (possibly with one of her horses as well, so that they could try a little hack), so we'll see what comes of it. Still, at least my sink works, now. And Mike knows how to fix it if it blocks up again (although he's also bought things that you stick down the plug holes to continuously release enzymes, which should help stop it from happening again). And Esme's hiccups have stopped. Link Who loves you?

Updates and new things ♥Oct. 30th, 2014 // 10:08 am♥ [Tags | angelo, ducks, horses, house, neighbours ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/1048275.html ] Esme came out of the duck house with what appeared to be hiccups this morning. She seems fine other than that and not having laid an egg. Most peculiar. This morning, while I was riding, Mike got some interesting news of a possible deal between Next Door and TWWOTV, which might mean we could buy a few more acres of land next to our field. This would be incredibly convenient, but I'm not holding my breath on either side actually going through with it; instead, I've been talking to Mrs Farmer, who rents a field from the people at the top of the hill that we could use relatively conveniently. GB seemed better a couple of days ago, and then a bit worse again today: I'm just playing that one by ear and keeping it very gentle for him. This woman's coming to look at Baby this afternoon, so I shall be riding him later for her to look at. I'm not greatly looking forward to that, as my shoulder and, now, back are still very sore, but we'll do what we can. Physio tomorrow. Waa. We've still not heard from the drain guy who's supposed to be coming out to sort out the kitchen sink, which I'm unimpressed with: I think it's partly him being crap and partly the office being crap; they're chasing him. At least, hopefully, the dishwasher will get fixed this afternoon. I'm not sleeping well, because of my back, so I'm knackered. At least the sun's come out today. Link Who loves you?

Plumbing ♥Oct. 27th, 2014 // 02:39 pm♥ [Tags | family, house ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/1047820.html ] We've had Mike's family staying this weekend (his mother is still here, but she's gone off to Canterbury for the day today): teenagers sleeping on every flat surface in the house, and so on. When I ran the dishwasher with the dinner plates in on Saturday night, they didn't get clean. Odd. I ran it again, and that time realised that it wasn't actually getting hot: it was doing a full cycle, but without heating the water. Not great timing, but there were at least plenty of people to help with the washing up! But then the kitchen sink stopped draining on one side... and then it stopped draining on the other as well. So washing up after dinner last night involved carrying bowls of used water off to tip down the loo instead. Plumber tomorrow, dishwasher repair man on Thursday.... Sigh. At least the dishwasher's from John Lewis, so it's under warranty still. (Lovely visit other than that, although Jo is a bit unsettled and tired from having to be on guard all the time and sleeping on our bedroom floor instead of her bed the sofa.) Link Who loves you?

N Things ♥Oct. 23rd, 2014 // 07:44 pm♥ [Tags | angelo, horses, house, hypermobility, ow, visitors ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/1047452.html ] - My shoulder really hurts. Waa. Physio tomorrow. - Mike's finger also hurts, after a scissor-related incident this afternoon in the kitchen. - GB hopefully doesn't hurt anywhere, after a week on the 'bute. Yesterday, he was Not Good when I rode him. Today, he was better but still Not Right. I phoned the Back Lady at home and left a piteous message with her husband. We'll see if she gets back to me. - Baby has a bit of a manky foot; we've been cleaning it out and the farrier will pop in tomorrow (as he's doing The Horse Next Door anyway). - The Road Guys still haven't reappeared, but have at least replaced the 'Road Closed' signs with ones saying that the road will be closed from the 30th for three days. - Which, I've just realised, might be a problem: our Riding Instructor happened to mention to another client that we were looking for a horse (actually, probably two: one for each of us, because Mike and Baby just aren't progressing like they should be), and this woman said she might be interested in Baby for her other half. And she phoned today and we arranged that she'd come down on Thursday. Hmm. Note to self: ride him as much as possible over the next week. - It also might be a problem on account of how the road is full of cows, and I really can't see the Road Guys agreeing to work with them around. In one of those mysterious coincidences, the cows were by the main road and Not Very Near Neighbour phoned Bad Farmer to say she was worried about one of the calves. The next morning, they were in the valley, out of sight. Spooky. - We had Alison and M staying at the start of the week. On Saturday, Mike's entire family, yea unto the third generation, is arriving for the weekend (and his mother is staying on afterwards). There has been much doing of laundry and making up of beds. Also, on Mike's part, baking. - We've had no mobile phone signal since early on Saturday afternoon (I mean, actually none, not just the very small amount that we usually get). This afternoon, Mike phoned Virgin to ask when the mast would be back in action, and was bizarrely told that, as they had no report of the mast being down, they needed him to try to make five phone calls in 24 hours, at least half an hour apart, and then email him the details of them. He did actually do it, but I can't honestly see any reason why he couldn't have just made it up. I think I'll ask Mrs Next Door to report it to ee, as it's their mast and she has a contract with them. - I've got a few possible horses that I'd like to look at. Need to wait until the family have departed, though. - We've started moving the boys across the field. They have already eaten the new bit bare.... They're nearly as bad as the ducks! Link Who loves you?

Bits and bobs ♥Oct. 18th, 2014 // 10:01 pm♥ [Tags | angelo, cooking, garden, house, pictures, riding ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/1046998.html ] Still no sign of the road guys. V surprised. The electricity guys, on the other hand, are working away: they were even around on Saturday. Must remember to expect power cuts tomorrow. Yesterday, we took the boys out for a hack. GB seemed to be doing ok until we had a canter along a flat but slightly slippery path: he skidded on his bad leg three times in a couple of hundred yards, so it's obviously not taking his weight properly. We took it very slowly after that, which did at least mean that we could have an enforced walk in the boys' favourite place for a blast. Well, we'll see how he does in tomorrow's lesson, after three days of 'bute. Still, it was very pretty and autumnal-looking (if not feeling: overnight low of 16, last night): (I've got the time lapse camera set up, taking a video down the valley. It's been there for a couple of months, watching the leaves turn: I should probably take it down soon and see how it looks!) After last year's not-terribly-successful marron glaces attempt, and seeing all the chestnuts lying around the woods, I started thinking bout having another go. As I looked around, though, I realised that all the recipes were variations on 'boil the chestnuts in sugar syrup for varying amounts of time, then put them in a low oven to dry out'. The recipe I followed last year, which involved bottling them in sugar syrup and then putting them in the aga avery day for a couple of weeks, is basically the same as the first part of that process.... There was still a jar left from last year, so I tried bunging them in the simmering over for a few hours and it worked! I then spent a week trying to find the recipe I'd used last year (I was convinced it was Mary Berry, but it was the other Aga book that we never use and that is mostly just lists of tips), partly to check if I'd missed a step or the recipe had (the latter, as it turned out) and partly to check the details of the instructions so that I could make some more! (I also used a TKC tip for peeling chestnuts: make a slit in them then microwave for ten seconds. Three seemed to be the optimal number to do at once. They're not only easier to peel than when you boil them but you don't have the un-peeled ones sitting in the water getting soggy as you do it.) A week or so ago, I chopped down some shrubby things by the side of the school, something that they'd obviously had done to them many times before. Yesterday, I sorted through the trimmings and now have a pile of different sizes of cane to use in the garden next year. I've also got a couple of sweet pea and a couple of mange tout seedlings poking their noses out of the soil, ready to use them, and yesterday I planted a second batch of seeds. I really wish that I could retire icons. I don't want to delete them, as I want them to still appear where I used them in the past, I just don't want to have to scroll through them to choose an icon for a post. This is why I so rarely use anything other than my default icon.... Link Who loves you?

[insert muttering along the lines of 'and this is what we pay our taxes and/or bills for?'] ♥Oct. 17th, 2014 // 03:12 pm♥ [Tags | horses, house, hypermobility, jodie the dog, ow ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/1046332.html ] So, having not shown up at all on Tuesday, the road guys came on Wednesday, hung around chatting / doing some cash-in-hand work for TWWOTV, and then did a half-arsed job of clearing the gravel from the road before vanishing at about 2pm. They haven't been seen since, although at some point they took away their steamroller (which can't actually be called that any more, can it?).... roadworks.org now lists the end date as Monday, rather than Wednesday, so presumably they are still going to do two days of work, just Not Yet. I'm somewhat irritated that they've just left the 'road closed' signs at either end of the road, and wonder how many delivery drivers have decided not to risk it. Fortunately, the vet did risk it yesterday (doubly fortunate, as neither the message that she should go the long way around nor the message that they hadn't turned up so she was ok to come down the hill had actually been passed on to her by the office staff), so GB has had another blood sample taken (predictable response; no actual injury to me, which was a win) and Baby had a couple of little lumps and bumps pronounced 'just keep an eye on it' level of interest. Last time we had a riding lesson, our instructor suggested just putting him on 'bute (horse ibuprofen), to see if it fixed his leg and generally made his life easier. I'm a bit twitchy about the idea, as it's not something they're meant to take long-term, but given his age 'long-term' isn't such a great length of time as it would be for, say Baby. When I raised it as a vague idea to the vet, she whipped out her metaphorical prescription pad before I was half way through the suggestion. Unfortunately, she'd been giving out a lot of the stuff already that day, so I said I'd go into the surgery today and pick up a box. This morning, knowing what they're like, I allowed fifteen minutes for the process of walking into the surgery, being given the box of 'bute, paying and leaving. Stupidly, I forgot to leave another ten minutes for the failing to find the prescription, the finding of another vet who knows GB, the conversation with that vet about why I wanted it (actually, that was about thirty seconds: "He's getting a bit stiff, is he?" "Well, he's got a problem in his nearside hind that-" "Yeah, sure, I'll sign it."), the faffing, the sorting out the error on my invoice for last month*, the figuring out just why there was a £110 credit on my account from January**, the explaining that actually I was going to get the discounted price for the vet's visit*** on account of their credit card machine wasn't working when I tried to pay for it yesterday and, of course, the waiting for the person coming the other way through the gate to figure out that he had to press the button to open it (after which he drove to the car park entrance and parked in not-actually-a-space, so that I had to reverse half way around the stableyard so that the person behind him could actually get into the carpark; the person behind and I exchanged bemused looks as he went into the surgery, oblivious). * which I phoned them about weeks ago and never got a reply to; we figured out that I'd phoned to pay***, told them it was for w, x and y, but only w and y got put on my account when they did the recording for the day, followed later by z, so there was just a random amount of z-x to pay, to which, naturally, I said 'what is this? that number appears nowhere on my charges'. ** looks like the vet never actually logged the visit in which she took blood, sent it off for testing, and gave them their jabs. Again, I'd phoned to pay on the day*** and just told them what I was paying for. *** if you pay on the day, it's £10 for the call-out fee (on the day when they're in your area anyway). If you don't, it's £26. (If you want a vet on when it's not their day to be in your area or to do a job that takes longer than about half an hour, it's More). Unfortunately, this means that people are paying before the vet has handed in her list of what she's done that day, so you just have to guess. Previous Horse Vets had a 'pay within seven days for the discount' rule, and that was a lot less hassle. The actual vets there are good, but their admin team leaves something to be desired (see above re: not actually telling the vet that the road was closed / open). And then I Pilated, which was actually a bit painful: I've been waking up with a sore shoulder (not the one I hurt) for a month or so, and it's been taking longer and longer to stop hurting each day, but today it actually hurt during Pilates. Mike, having had enough of the increasing whinging each morning, had already told me to see what Pilates Girl said, and what she said was 'Hmm, that's worrying, you should go and see Downstairs about it', so I have a session booked with one of the physios for after Pilates next week. Jo has had her first shower of the season, having done a really impressive job of coating her head and back in badger poo followed by lying down on her belly in a patch of mud that she felt qualified as a puddle. Poor Jo. Link Who loves you?

Roadworks ♥Oct. 15th, 2014 // 11:17 am♥ [Tags | house ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/1046158.html ] Yesterday, there was no sign of anyone working on the road. Today, though, they turned up at about 9:30, just as the farrier was leaving (just, in fact, as I was moaning to him about them not having turned up yesterday!). They were pleased to see me, mostly because they couldn't figure out if they were in the right place or not, and said that they'd just wait for the man with the can of spray paint to come and show them where the holes were and then they'd get on it it. About half an hour ago, when I came in from poo picking, they were still waiting for him.... On the other hand, they were making themselves useful: there's a water leak under the stableyard next door (that explains why our water pressure's been so crap for the last couple of days), and when they saw Bad Farmer using a hammer to try to get to it, they drove their digger over and used the road smashing thing on the front of it. No sign of the electricity people yet, either, although we did get a note through the door warning of power cuts next Monday, as they swap us to a generator and then later onto the new line. Link Who loves you?

Bits and bobs ♥Oct. 10th, 2014 // 04:22 pm♥ [Tags | cooking, horses, house, jodie the dog, pilates ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/1045228.html ] Yesterday, I had a go at Jo's pheasant with a sharp knife and a carrier bag for the feathers. Didn't go too badly, I think, and there's now a bag of meat in the freezer and a pot of stock made up. Also, both Apple and Apple & Sloe jelly has been committed. This morning, I went to Pilates for the first time in a couple of weeks: the instructor is still poorly, but they'd got someone in to cover for her. I'm pleased to say that she mostly just left me to it (I think she was pleased to be able to, as she didn't know what anyone usually did so was taking longer than normal to get people sorted out). She did have me do two new exercises, but they were pretty good once I got into them, so that was ok. (Much hilarity from the others, though: I don't normally like more than one new thing ever month or two!) We took Next Door's dogs out with Jo this afternoon, which was tiring: given how little they listen to Next Door, I didn't want to have them off the lead, and they really do pull. Quite a short walk for Jo, then, but she seemed happy enough to be going at all: we were late, because the boys were having their backs checked. Having been completely unable to get hold of the usual Lovely Back Lady, I eventually gave up and got someone local (recommended by my side saddle instructor and, as it happens, she was also here yesterday doing Next Door's horse). She was competent enough, but I wasn't terribly impressed. No particular suggestions for GB's bad leg; he's due a blood test soon anyway, so I think I'll have the vet next week and see what she says. Distant Next Door Neighbour reports that the Hunt will be around tomorrow morning: something to keep an eye on, but the boys seem to be fine with it and it's not when we'll be walking anyway. (Come to think of it, though, we probably would have been hacking up in the woods at about that time if Mrs Next Door hadn't declared that she was giving Mike a lunge lesson, so it is good to know!) I've also learnt that ISIHAC is coming to Canterbury. Tickets on sale next Thursday; we can't decide if website or in person will be the better way to go, having only tried for London venues before. Hmm. Anyone bought non-London tickets and have an opinion on how quickly they shift? And, finally, Mike learnt via Twitter that they're resurfacing our road on Tuesday and Wednesday next week. Well, I say via Twitter: the tweet said that our road (calling it by name, which not even the Post Office does) will be closed between Road A (which no one calls by that name) and Road B (which doesn't meet out road). But we think that we know what they mean. It would have been nice if they'd told us. Presumably, they're going to do it in two, or even three, sections so that people don't get trapped in their houses.... Two would be most logical (do the flat bit at the bottom, then do the hill and the flat bit at the top, so that there's space outside Next Door for people to turn around and so on) but the people at the top of the hill are unlikely to approve that, and he really can't walk very far up (or down) the hill right now. It will be good if they do a proper job of it, as it really does need it. Link Who loves you?

Aga...? ♥Oct. 2nd, 2014 // 08:25 pm♥ [Tags | house ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/1043143.html ] The Aga man came today, and diagnosed a bad filter on the oil tank (as well as servicing the Aga). It's turned back on, and seems to be heating up, so fingers crossed for muffins this weekend.... Link Who loves you?

Getting ready for winter ♥Oct. 1st, 2014 // 04:28 pm♥ [Tags | house, pictures, sewing ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/1042821.html ] Today, we've been shifting things over to winter mode: the bird feeders are filled, the parasol and clothes line are put away, the conservatory's been tidied and rearranged so that it can be used if we have a sunny day. This despite the fact that it is still stupidly warm: GB's having to wear his hat in the field, and I've been walking the dog in just a thin t-shirt! We also had a bonfire: we went out to take a few more leylandii down, but then I realised that the wind was (finally!) just right, so we also burnt the previously chopped stuff. We've already started the new pile, at least partly because when we went to throw some of the old pile onto the fire we realised that some of it was too heavy and will have to be moved into place when the ash has cooled down. The forecast looks favourable to have another fire on Saturday, so I might see if Next Door want to stick anything on while we're at it. Mike made a video, which I apparently can't embed because DW keeps changing the code that Vine gave me into something else that doesn't work. Link. I seem not to have posted for a few days, not sure why. I've mostly been sewing: (Esme is sewn, but not yet on a cushion. She was much fiddlier, on account of having more curves.) Also vague Christmas plotting (and making of cards), and a bit of a breakthrough last time I was on the Baby: he's finally figured out that the bit is for playing with, so he's starting to work through his back; very pleased with that, although I'll have to remember to keep it to short bursts until he muscles up. Link Who loves you?

Here, have some pictures of plants ♥Jun. 25th, 2014 // 07:20 pm♥ [Tags | garden, house, pictures, riding ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/1021117.html ] Lately, I have been Far Too Busy with Worldcon stuff. And we painted all the bits of the outsides of the stables that don't require drastic sanding and re-rendering. This morning, we took the boys out for a hack, for the first time in ages. GB was a spooky little bugger, culminating in breaking into a canter on the road when I made him go past some cows. Sigh. Note to self: must take Baby out for a good long hack and blow some cobwebs off him. The hop is continuing to 'not show much growth in the first year', although it does keep trying to make a break for freedom and head up vertically, instead of going along the top of the window: Mike has to keep getting up there on the ladder and pushing it back into place. Odd, because I thought that that was how they grow them commercially: up a vertical and then along. Possibly it needs to be higher before it's happy with the concept of 'along', or possibly the wall is fooling it into thinking that there's something there for it to grow up. (The sunflower's doing pretty well, too.) Tomatillos are, it turns out, self fertile: we did have two, but I went to water them one day and found that something had apparently eaten through the base of the stem of one of them. The internet give conflicting advice, but there are at least three fruits on it, and lots more flowers still to come: Up in the woods, on the other hand, some of the Willow Herb is now taller than I am: Link Who loves you?

Beach! ♥May. 18th, 2014 // 04:43 pm♥ [Tags | house, jodie the dog, pictures, rodents ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/1006884.html ] As we were riding this morning, and thinking that it was already really quite hot, we decided that it might be worth taking Jodie to the beach. When we got back inside, Mike checked the tide times and it was only a bit after low tide so we set off. The beach was somewhat busy, but fortunately most of the people who'd gone there couldn't be bothered to move more than fifty yards from the car park, so the dog-friendly end of the sand was fairly empty. She had a lovely time running around, although she scared herself (and us) rather at one point: we sent her into the sea to chase some gulls, who all flew away leaving two ducks behind. The ducks failed to fly away, so she went a bit deeper than planned: There were also lots of mysterious tracks on the sand, where some sort of vehicle had been going backwards and forwards. The only thing that we could think of was that it was something to do with bait collecting, but if so then it was a lot more organised and mechanised than we'd seen previously. By the time we got to the other end of the beach and turned around to go back to the car, there was noticeably less beach than there had been. We may have laughed mockingly at the two men carrying lighted disposable barbecues away to higher ground. This afternoon, I've been staining more furniture: two of the big chairs are done, and the table (although that might need another coat, having been out all winter). Getting there! Then it's onto painting the stables, and staining the school fence.... Two new mouse traps arrived yesterday, so last night I left them near the bird food. They were both full this morning, and one of them got another while we were at the beach. Link Who loves you?

Updatey ♥May. 15th, 2014 // 03:19 pm♥ [Tags | garden, glasses, house, jodie the dog, lj, pictures, poorly ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/1004256.html ] Today has been somewhat frantic. I woke up still feeling crap, but GB had to be ridden so I dashed around doing that (I'm afraid I mostly just cantered him around in circles, lacking the effort to do anything proper with him) and mucking out before taking Jo off to the vet. She's back in on Monday for the op: there's more of it under the skin, but it's not attatched to the muscle underneath. "It might even be benign," the vet said, which sounded reassuring until I thought about it. Then I came home, had some lunch, completely failed to raid Mike's pockets for change to top up the parking money in the car and, late, headed off to Canterbury. I got to the car park five minutes before my optician appointment, a ten minute walk away, and then spent what felt like ages feeding 5p coins into the parking machine. Still, I wasn't too late to have my eyes tested (all fine, my prescription's a bit worse than it was but not enough that they recommend new glasses), and I even fluttered my eyelashes at the chap on the till and got him to melt my sunglasses back into shape (this is about the third time I've had to do so: I once left them in the glove compartment on a very hot day, and they always seem to creep back into the wonky position that they melted into). I was surprised that I made it to my waxing appointment on time, but I did. Unfortunately, I had to cut off part of the girl's to-do list, and scrap the other errands that needed running, because I needed to get back to the car park.... Hey ho! TWWOTV's new set of drain rods arrived yesterday, so after I got back Mike connected them onto the end of her old set and had another go at the drain. No sign of any blockage, which was odd. He had me run up and flush the loo, and it drained away no problem. The thing that worries me slightly is that we couldn't then see the water flowing out of what we *thought* was the other end of the pipe and into the septic tank.... Well, fingers crossed. A couple of weeks ago, Mike expressed a desire for shelves in the shed, and it is true that the pile of gardening stuff on the floor was awkward. As they worked well in the store room, I thought I'd get him more of the metal Ikea shelves. And, as I was placing an order anyway, I thought I'd get myself some for the conservatory, instead of using the old dining table for plants: Much better, and they'll get more sun on that side of the conservatory as well. (I predict that there will be many people having problems with the new LJ. Astonishingly, given that istr that I'm still using S1, everything is working fine for me. The work around if you can't see comments on entries is apparently to find the 'View comment pages in my own style' option or, as a temporary fix, append &style=mine tot he end of the URL.) Link Who loves you?

♥May. 12th, 2014 // 03:11 pm♥ [Tags | house, jodie the dog, pictures ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/1002609.html ] Ok, not quite all of the bluebells are over: Strangely, all of the ones that are out in the open are running a bit later than the ones under the trees, when I'd have though that it would be the other way around. No idea: One of the places where Jodie likes to lie is under the horse chestnut in the front garden. Normally, this isn't a problem in any way, but lately she keeps bringing sticky bits of leaf bud in on her coat, and then they get stuck to the carpet, and then I walk on them and get sticky patches on my feet.... Yuck. Oddly, even though the trees outside our valley have been covered in candles for weeks, it's showing no signs of coming into flower; we'd have thought that it would have a good year, as it's next to where the big leylandii used to be. (Our wisteria is also showing no signs of flowers, but it appears that this may because it didn't get pruned last summer. At least, we didn't prune it. Shame, but we'll know for next year.) We had the windows cleaned, today: TWWOTV said she was getting hers done, and it would only be another £30 to have ours done as well. They needed doing, but we'd assumed it would be a lot more than that! The conservatory looks a look brighter, now. Unfortunately, it has rather shown up where the insides of the windows are dirty. Link Who loves you?

Park Gate Down ♥May. 9th, 2014 // 05:52 pm♥ [Tags | garden, house, orchids, pictures ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/1000244.html ] This afternoon, we took Jo over to Park Gate Down, for a run around some different woods. In the grassland, they had many, *many* cowslips: Also lots of early purple orchids, but they are pretty much over by now. We also spotted some salad burnet, which was very pretty-looking: The man with the giant vacuum cleaner came this morning while I was pilating, and the problem was not the septic tank. On the 'plus' side, Mike now knows where the other end of the pipe is, so tomorrow we're going to try poking things in it from the other end. It's a good job we've got other bathrooms.... This afternoon, taking advantage of a better than forecast day, I (guess what) did some more weeding. It must be getting better, because today I got as far as the back garden. Have ordered shelves from Ikea, some for the shed and some for the conservatory, which is getting over-run with trays of salad and other misc seedlings. Life is so exciting out here in the countryside. I've been reading a book about chickens, too. Link Who loves you?

Productive? ♥May. 8th, 2014 // 06:49 pm♥ [Tags | craft, house, jodie the dog ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/999809.html ] It's mostly been raining, so we've been stuck inside other than a quick dash through the woods with Jodie. So, I've finished off a few things for the worldcon art show, and I've made a start on a newsletter for next month, but I don't really feel as though I've done very much. On the drain front, we gave up and called the professionals. They hypothesis that it's actually a problem with the septic tank, not a blockage, and that it's hopefully just filled up a lot faster than we thought that it would. So, they're coming to empty it tomorrow and we shall cross our fingers that that fixes things. And it's been far too grey for photos, so no pictures unless you'd like one of Jodie with the toy that she found in the woods yesterday. It was tremendously fun, because even after she broke it I obliged by throwing it for her a few times. It turns out that she can play fetch when sufficiently interested in the object being thrown, although I must admit that it got a bit manky after a few goes around. And I doubt that you do, really. At least the forecast for tomorrow has improved drastically! Link Who loves you?

I have very little to say about today. ♥May. 7th, 2014 // 04:41 pm♥ [Tags | house, pictures ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/999438.html ] I suspect that Mike has even less to add. Link Who loves you?

Drip. Drip. Drip. ♥May. 1st, 2014 // 06:16 pm♥ [Tags | cooking, garden, house, jodie the dog, pictures, shopping, weather ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/997781.html ] (That's the noise that the ponies are making. I think we'd better go and let them in a bit earlier than usual!) Why doesn't our lawn look like this...? Mike's obviously not trying hard enough. And not using a tractor. We went on a small excursion today, as we needed three things: - vegetable stock, or celery to make same (bizarrely, the Marigold that we use has lactose as an actual ingredient, not as a part of an ingredient. The low salt Marigold doesn't, nor does the vegan one, just the regular variety. This is odd and stupid) - a dried flower arrangement (having decided that it's now warm enough that we're not going to need a fire, I tidied up the fireplace today and wanted something to pretty it up. My apologies for the inevitable upcoming cold snap) - to pop to the vet and check what the pooch weighs (I came back from Eastercon, having not seen her for a few days, and thought she was looking a bit tubby. As it turns out, she's bang on where she was last time - 35.5kg - so that's good) In a one of those lovely coincidences, we managed all three things in a single stop: Jodie's vet is in a farm courtyard that also has a somewhat odd farm shop (big on cake decorating, runs courses in it; also sells incredibly fancy food) and a rather expensive florist that specialises in hops and dried flowers (as they grow it all on the farm). Handy! In the florist, I was wavering between three different arrangements (actually, there was one that I *really* liked but I know Mike wouldn't let me spend £50 on dried flowers!). I asked Mike which he preferred: the one with the blue flowers, the one that was just wheat or the one made from different shades of grasses. He was much keener on the blue one, as the others were all too beige, until I suggested that he look at the prices. "Ok, the beige one is growing on me...." We also picked up a Hops plant, as an experiment. We'll need to rig up a wire on the front wall of the house for it to climb up. I'd never really considered it, but I hadn't realised that hops is a perennial: we're apparently not to expect much from it this year. Made macarons, in what I'm sure was exactly the same way as last time. They didn't go splat and look like they should, though I've not yet assembled and eaten one. God knows. Link Who loves you?

Conversations with my husband ♥Apr. 28th, 2014 // 11:23 am♥ [Tags | house ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/995030.html ] "If I start using the drill, will you fret?" "No, I don't think so. Why do you need a drill?" "Because we haven't got any corks, and the internet says that I need either a drill or a cork to get nails into the wall." "Oh.... You want to use the drill on the wall?" "Yes...." "Ok, that might make me fret." I have to wonder what the non-fretful, non-wall-related use of a drill was. Trepanning the horses? (Most of our walls either are or used to be external, so it's hard work hammering anything into them. When we moved in, we made a couple of attempts to put a new picture hook up (result: bent nail) or to take down an existing one (result: lump of plaster falls off wall), so we just gave up and put things on the hooks that were already there. Now that we've had the hall decorated, though, we need to put things back up on the wall. Well, *I* need to. Mike is blessedly unconcerned and keeps muttering about getting around to it at some point.) Link 5 kisses // Who loves you?

Busy, busy ♥Mar. 24th, 2014 // 04:36 pm♥ [Tags | garden, house, pictures ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/982266.html ] I've had a productive day, today. With a little help from Mike before he went off for a meeting in Swindon, I finished raking the edges of the school (pulling down the sand that the horses kick out of the track line and up against the boards around the edge). Then I planted out a thyme and a random forced bulb that I'd had in the house. After a bit of spade-use-fail, I got a trowel and dug up some of the bigger clumps of snowdrops, then split and re-planted them. I fear that the trowel will never be the same again: A little while back, I found a pretty but rather battered old bench under some junk in a stable. I moved it out under the overhang of the barn, and it's a convenient place to sit down and have a rest while snuggling the pooch. Today, I used some of the left-over paint from the decorating to give it a bit of a face-lift, and now it's back in place looking (temporarily, I'm sure!) bright and clean. My skip arrived just after lunch, so I've been pottering around this afternoon putting things in it. All of the bits of old cupboard that we'd dumped on the lawn have gone in it, other than the old kitchen units (which Mr Next Door might want for his workshop: he's going to come and have a look to see if they're any use, but I fear that sitting outside in the rain might have been too much for them and he'll have to settle for the other old kitchen units that are in a stable), and I've made a start on the stables: all of the actual rubbish has now gone, other than a few big sheets of plywood that I need a hand with, and the most of the remaining stuff has been sorted into "wood ready to burn", "wood ready to burn after it's seasoned", "wood that needs to be chopped up for burning" and "wood made into things that can probably be smashed up and then burnt". Inevitably, now that the wainscoting in the hall has been done, I found a stack of unused tongue-and-groove boards (left over from the bathrooms, I presume). I say 'most of', as one of the stables contains lots of stuff left over from decorating projects in the house: the unopened boxes of tiles are worth keeping, but I'm not sure about the white stone flags; I'm not even entirely sure what they're left over *from*, as they don't look quite right for the shower room. Getting there, but I'm having a rest, now.... And the usual horse- and dog-related activities, of course. Pretty flowers in the woods: (Most of the bluebells aren't out, there are just occasional ones scattered around. Not sure why that little patch is early!) Someone's been making a den: Link Who loves you?

Walking in the woods ♥Mar. 10th, 2014 // 05:58 pm♥ [Tags | family, house, jodie the dog, pictures, video ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/975630.html ] Jodie has been terribly full of beans, today: not sure what's got into her! We took her out for a nice walk, in a wild flower reserve (lots of space for bounding around whilst keeping us in view) and then in the woods. We found a rather unfortunate bluebell: It's ok, though, as a) we rescued it after I took a picture and b) it was not alone: The wild flower reserve had some terribly clever not-stiles, very well suited (one stereotypes) for use by elderly ladies who want to look at the flowers but aren't quite up to clambering over the regular type of stile: Yesterday, mindful of complaints that previous videos showed the boys darting too quickly around the field, I shot one with the frame rate dialled right back. It was quite tedious to watch. Here's one that's a bit quicker than that, with special guest appearances from the two mares owned by TWWOTV, who like to stay close to the boys when they can. "Boys, and visiting girls" (Watch on YouTube) The chaps have, it appears, now entirely finished the kitchen, including unexpectedly patching up the missing bit of plaster in the dining room ceiling, by the front door, and have now moved onto the hallway. The wooden panelling is more than half done (and that's the tricky half, with the radiator to deal with), and the woodwork has had a first coat of white: already looks much lighter and brighter in there, which is good. Tomorrow, The Parents Arrive. This should be interesting (they are not staying here, but in a B&B nearby). I'm, in some ways, pleased that it coincides with the chaps causing mess and chaos, as it gives me an excuse! Father has Plans for our spherical pigeons, which reminds me that I must warn the Next Doors not to worry unduly if they hear gunshots coming from the house.... Link Who loves you?

I think I *do* like it! ♥Mar. 7th, 2014 // 07:59 pm♥ [Tags | house, pictures ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/975189.html ] Kitchen is pretty much done, now, other than a couple of spots (eg, where they had to put a skim of plaster up). Hall next week. And Parental Visitation, eek. (Actually, relatively good timing: "No, Mother, of course the house isn't tidy, I've got the builders in...".) Now we need some way to fix the kitchen roll to the wall, complicated by the fact that we usually buy it from Costco, where they're an inch or two longer than a normal roll.... Does it say more about the uncoolness of me or more about the passe-ness of South Park that the first I heard of the South Park RPG was on R4's Front Row this evening...? Link 6 kisses // Who loves you?

♥Mar. 6th, 2014 // 07:39 pm♥ [Tags | house, pictures, weaving ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/974815.html ] We took Jo to the beach this morning. She had a lovely time, as ever. At the beach, we watched the men with their little trolleys tied to their waists, collecting worms. The worms were much bigger than I thought that they would be. I do like those colours. I think that might be my next weaving project, having just finished a (somewhat autumnal) blanket: (I've, possibly foolishly, taken space in the L3 art show. Foolishness arises because now I need to fill it. There may be weaving involved: any thoughts on the relative merits of blankets and shawls...? Pricey, though, unless I use Lidl Sock Wool.) The kitchen is pretty much done. I'm not sure that I like it. Am reserving judgement, and photos, until we've put the clutter back: right now, it does look a bit clinical. The woodwork is paler than we thought it would be. I'm sure I'll get used to it! Some bugger at the staff weekend gave Mike a cold. I very much hope that he's not given it to me.... Link Who loves you?

Painty ♥Mar. 3rd, 2014 // 03:10 pm♥ [Tags | house, jodie the dog, rodents ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/973043.html ] Bought a rat trap, yesterday. No sign of any interest in it overnight, though. I'll try again tonight: I'm considering putting it in the bucket in the middle of the floor, with pony nuts in the bait cup, to see if that gets his attention.... Popped to the vet with Jodie, to make sure that she's not getting chubby since her op: all seemed to be ok, she'd put on a kilo or so, but then she was a bit off her food shortly before the op as well. Unexpectedly, we've got the decorators in. The chaps who came last week gave us a quote that Mike approved of, and they said that they could start today. They've made good progress, and half the kitchen is currently undercoat-grey. It already looks better. I'm quite tempted by the grey, in fact, but suspect Mike would veto me.... Will post some pictures, later. Link Who loves you?

Bright lights, big city, soggy trains ♥Feb. 22nd, 2014 // 11:04 pm♥ [Tags | @@, going out, house, pictures, trains ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/969213.html ] (Has anyone else been getting masses of spam over the past few days? I'm wondering if someone's having a go at one of my domain names. They're coming in waves of a few dozen of the same subject line, every six hours or so.) Yesterday, I headed up to the Big City for a convention. It wasn't Picocon, though, it was the @rchers @narchists, and it was (deja vu ishly) in the Melton Mowbray. Unfortunately, on Friday the train line from Canterbury to Ashford (and thence to London) flooded, as a result of the once-in-a-century occasional river: got to love ground water, still causing new chaos after an almost entirely dry week! It was only going to be a flying visit anyway, arriving twenty minutes before the 7pm start and leaving at about 9pm, but then my train was half an hour late getting in, so I had a good time but didn't really get to talk to people much. Still, it was fun. Coming home, I got the train before the one I'd planned, but then it left at the same time as the one I'd actually been going for. Poor Mike had to drive me too and from the station: if it'd been Canterbury, I probably would have got a taxi home. In retrospect, I possibly should have stayed in London: I had half a dozen offers of a bed as soon as I said how early I'd have to leave, but then I would have had to get up early this morning to get home.... (I had thought about popping into Picocon for a bit, as I was in town anyway, but Mike would have had to bring the boys in by himself, and they've been being Difficult lately. Plus, South Ken is so far away that it barely counts as London!) Today, Mike mowed the lawn, after we'd gone round and scooped up all the mole hills. Really must find a mole guy to come and sort them out. I dragged Mike to the woods that I like to walk in, too (he doesn't normally want to go that far). The bluebells are going to be really spectacular in a couple of months: there's no grass in this picture! Here's another shot of the house, from over the valley. You can see that the boys are steadily working their way across the field, and I'm quite pleased with how well it's coping given the weather. (They had new grass this morning, which they've been diligently munching away on. When we went to have a look at the field after they came in (nicely, hurrah!), there was just a little patch of it right at the top. We attribute this to the fact that GB is too lazy to walk all the way up the hill, so it only started to get eaten when the Baby got sick of being nagged and went off up there alone.) (Aww: Jodie's wuffling in her sleep. She must be chasing bunnies! Normally, she wakes up as soon as I move enough to try and video her, but she must have been very tired today, so I managed it. But it's apparently going to take an hour and a half to upload a minute of video, so maybe you'll get it later instead.) Link 2 kisses // Who loves you?

Guess what? ♥Feb. 14th, 2014 // 01:47 pm♥ [Tags | house, jodie the dog, neighbours, pictures ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/967033.html ] Still raining. Actually, it wasn't too bad yesterday, and we even managed to get a bit of sunshine: I also finally got Mike to make the new shelf for the DVDs in the living room, and moved the old one to the study, and thus managed to finish unpacking the books (yay!), with room to spare (wow!). (Why on earth is it not possible to have equally-spaced, DVD-height shelves with Billy? Very silly. I'm sure that we managed it with the old-width half-height ones that we used to use for the DVDs.) (We do need another shelf, but bohemiancoast is hopefully going to bring us one tomorrow. And, of course, we now have two spare shelves from the old one, so if anyone wants a couple of 60cm Birch Billy shelves then shout. We also have half a dozen spare 40cm shelves, because the height extensions inexplicably came with an extra shelf.) The only things that we now still need to unpack are the games, which just got dumped in the library: we have the shelves to put them on, but the old built-in wardrobe needs to come out to make room for them. Nearly there. Then we can think about decorating.... Today, I gave Mike a heart made out wool and twigs: He seemed to like it, once he stopped being bemused. I Pilated this morning, but am feeling a bit grotty. That, plus the weather, means that the pooch isn't getting a proper walk today. I just took her out in the hay field, with the Next Door dogs (as they're out for the day). She was very confused, as I put them on leads to walk along the road and she wasn't sure if she was supposed to come with us or not, but once she got out there they all had fun running around: I'm sure that Jodie got more exercise than she would have if they weren't there, so that was good. The boys did get an hour or so in the field, after yesterday's wind dried it out a bit, which was good: we went and put them out before they'd really finished their breakfast, and got them back in after mucking out, before we went off to Ashford and it started raining. Once the Baby realised what was going on (ie, when he was practically at the gate and had thus lulled Mike into a false sense of security) he Objected Strongly, and went charging around the field. GB joined in for a bit then came back over to me and went "oops, she caught me, guess I'll have to stop now". They've made a bloody mess out there, which we'll need to go and sort out at some point, but we're almost glad that they did actually have a run around and throw their legs up a bit after days stuck inside. In a little while, I'm going to have a second attempt at getting my hair cut. I'm a little suspicious, as the town the hairdresser is in has been quite moist (and they stopped people from parking on the main road, which is always full of cars), but when I phoned a little while ago she seemed to think that I'd be able to drive through it, and park, with no problems. We think that the closed road at this end is easily avoidable, too, but I'll be leaving plenty of time just in case. Link Who loves you?

Rain, rain, go away... ♥Feb. 6th, 2014 // 04:40 pm♥ [Tags | angelo, house, jodie the dog, neighbours, pictures, riding:jonny, weather, weaving ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/962770.html ] ... please? It started raining at about 11am, and it's just not stopped since. Mike's Device Of Weather Measuring says that we've had 10mm. There's more than 10mm of water in the pond at the end of our drive (I just took floated the wheely bins out, and I had to hold the bottom of my coat up out of the water. Admittedly, it's a long coat, but still), but then there is a small stream running down the hill, again. It's spread out into the stableyard, again but bigger, and has now emerged in the front garden as well: lovely. The dining room roof is leaking again, to. I say 'again', but maybe it's 'still': it was only when Mike noticed the drips and mentioned it that I realised that, actually, the floor there has been a bit wet for a few days. I'm afraid I'd been mentally blaming it on the pooch. Must (get Mike to) chase up the roofing guy. At least it's a fairly slow leak, although I think it is getting worse. Edit: yup, it is. Sigh. Jodie and I went out for a soggy walk in the woods, although it is actually getting less muddy in places: there's been so much rain that the mud's been washed away, and dips that were muddy a few weeks ago not just have fairly clear puddles of water in them. We saw Mrs Farmer while we were out, which gave me a chance to find out the back-story to the somewhat incoherent email I had from The People Up The Hill this morning ("Some sheep got let out the night before last. The Police say to make sure that you keep everything locked up, so please shut the gate at the top of the hill." None of these statements leads to the other by any logical process...). There's a house up at the top of the hill that has just been bought by (as it happens) Jodie's vets, and they've been having lots of work done putting in a stableyard for their ponies and housing for their sheep. It looks as though someone was checking it out to see how easy it would be to nick (eg) the tack, and so drove into a convenient field to have a look over the fence. They didn't close the gate on their way out, so off the sheep wandered. (How easy would it be to nick the tack? Mrs Farmer rang the vet to let them know what had happened. "Oh, god," said Mrs Vet, "My tack isn't locked up!" Tsk.) Anyway, Jodie liked her run, and she ate her entire (belated: it was about 2pm) breakfast when she got back! Plus, she left Squeaky Ball in the field for the whole day. This is definitely an improvement, although we'll see how much dinner she manages this evening. The boys have, not surprisingly, been in again, much to the Baby's disgust (GB doesn't mind too much, although he's much happier when there's a nice steady supply of food for him to occupy himself with). We did manage to ride this morning, before the rain started: Mike's back is still bothering him, so I got evicted from the comfy horse after about five minutes and had to fight the Baby instead. I did get a couple of nice canters out of him, though, so it's not all bad. We're having a fire tonight, for the first time in a while: it's not that it's cold (the Aga's still off--Tuesday, we hope--so the heating's been on a lot more lately) but it's bloody dreary. We have a different brand of firelighters, and I was going to say "Why on earth would you put each firelighter in an individually sealed plastic bag?" until I opened it and realised how much they stink. I wish I could remember where we got those lovely compressed paper ones that we had when we first moved in: they didn't smell at all, and I think they were actually better than the chemical ones. They came in a red box, and that's about all I can remember. (Hmm. I did think "I'll try Google!" but all I'm getting is pages telling me how to make my own. Sigh.) Over the last week, I've been pootling away on a little project, which is now finished: (Hmm: poor light, but this lens cover is definitely on the way out, isn't it?) It was a bit experimental; learning points include that it's tricky to keep the spacing on the warp threads even when they're not held in place, and that I should have tied the frame properly together before I started, rather than half way through when I realised that the sticks were moving slightly and making tension on the warp threads go a bit funny. And the bunny might be a bit *too* well camouflaged. I think I'm quite pleased with it, though! Link Who loves you?

And.... ♥Jan. 24th, 2014 // 05:11 pm♥ [Tags | house ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/955615.html ] The Aga went out last night, and neither of us can get the wick to light. And the Aga guy can't come until Wednesday. (We do, fortunately, have an electric cooker as well, and the heating / hot water are separate. I just miss having my bum warmer in the kitchen!) It's a slightly bodged conversion of a 30s era coal one to gravity-fed oil. Does anyone know if we should be able to smell the oil when we open the compartment to light the wick? (I'm slightly suspicious because we just had the oil tank filled up, so I wonder if they Did Something To It.) Edit: Hurrah! Mike found another switch, and pressing it made the oil come through! Another Edit: But then it went out again. Boo! Link Who loves you?

Even more organisation ♥Jan. 22nd, 2014 // 05:23 pm♥ [Tags | email, house, jodie the dog ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/953663.html ] I spoke too soon about Thunderbird: it's not that I have to hit the 'Get Mail' button for it to tell me about unread messages outside the inbox, as that appears to now do absolutely nothing most of the time. I have to scroll through all the folders in the list, forcing it to briefly open them all. Except sometimes, when it randomly does tell me about some of the unread messages. Not ideal. It's been a foul day, here, so I spent most of it sorting out the store rooms. Ikea Omar shelves, which I didn't *just* buy for the name, are very easy to put together, which helped with getting it all done. Before: After: And there are several empty shelves, which is good. And now more space for beer in the laundry, which will please certain beer drinkers of our acquaintance. The carpet that I put down in there is the one that used to be in the space outside the shower room and not-a-loo, which I replaced with an Ikea rug because the carpet was a bit manky. I half never got around to throwing it away and half thought that it might be useful, and indeed it has been: it's a bit too short, and I chopped a bit off the width, but it will do the job in there. After I took it up from the old location, I just rolled it up and stashed it in the laundry, in the space where the old owners had their tumble drier. When I picked it up, I found this underneath it: A nice, neat pile of peanut skins, courtesy of the little monsters that have been helpfully opening the bags of bird nuts for me.... I'm hopeful that that little hole, which I guess used to be the drain for the drier, is how they've been getting in, so I've instructed Mike that this evening we are having a bottle of wine that comes with a cork, and we'll see how they like that! (I know that they'll get through it eventually if they want to, but at least it will hold them for a little while until I think of a better solution.) Of course, even if they *do* get in, they'll find things less to their liking, now: Ha! (Speaking of meeces, again, Jodie continues to spent hours at a time staring intently at the gap under the Ivar in the barn, which is the last place she saw a mouse. I suspect that it's long gone, and she's just not yet noticed. On the other hand, the bucket of water in which we store the boy's carrots is proving to be a surprisingly good mouser: it's managed to take out two in the last few days. Well, more accurately it's retained two, and I've been the one who's had to take them out, by the tail and distinctly no longer wiggling! I've no idea why it's so appealing to them, but I shan't complain.) The vet called today with the results of GB's latest blood test, and says that he's now almost entirely normal. I think she means for the Cushing's hormone, rather than in general, but it's good to hear. Of course, now he's going to be on the expensive and (slightly annoying, quantity-wise) pill-and-a-half a day for the rest of his life, but there we go. Link 2 kisses // Who loves you?

Organisation ♥Jan. 21st, 2014 // 04:39 pm♥ [Tags | email, house, pictures, riding:jonny ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/952258.html ] This morning, it was bright but misty. The house looked quite pretty, as we came back from our hack: We timed it well, as the Parcel Force guy came driving along just after I took that, so I told him we'd be there in a minute and he went on ahead and unloaded the Ikea delivery while we caught him up. I foolishly forgot that I was on the Baby, not GB, when I went to sign for the delivery: GB would have just stood there glaring at him, but the Baby stood still for long enough to establish that there were no treats available and then tried to walk off back to the stables. Sigh. As well as new shelves for the back store room, the order included a shelf unit that I'd bought to try and tidy my desk. When we moved in, we both just threw the contents of our desks into the study, and they've rather just sat there, acquiring new layers of stuff on top of the stuff we brought with us. I also appropriated the old Billy corner unit, and stacked that full of stuff as well: I had a nasty moment when I first tried to put the shelves on top of my desk and couldn't get them to fit (I did, I *did* measure the gap! Are the walls not square??), but then I realised that I'd put the little hanging hooks on the side, and they were making it *just* too wide for the gap. Everything's now all lovely and organised, and two spare shelves in the Billy for new junk Mike to use: I suppose that I've now got no excuse for not getting on and doing something more creative than making blankets.... In Thunderbird news, having left it entirely alone overnight to get everything downloaded it has now stopped freezing whenever I ask it to do anything. My only complaint is that it doesn't reliably tell me about unread email outside the inbox unless I manually tell it to Get Mail, which is a little annoying. That, and I can't figure out a way to get it to give me the unread count on folders other than the inbox. I used to have a lovely little jobbie called Mail Unread Menu, that gave me a count of selected folders in the menu bar. I'm sure that there is an add on to do it, but all the ones I've found are either Not Available For My Platform or say things like "Maintains a file in the profile root directory with counts for unread messages per account. Useful for display in generic status bar, e.g.: taffybar, xmobar, dzen2, etc", and I have no idea what to do with that. Link Who loves you?

Storage boxes ♥Jan. 20th, 2014 // 06:12 pm♥ [Tags | house, questions ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/951630.html ] I've finally convinced Mike to take the plunge and rip out the thirty-year-old repurposed kitchen cupboards in our back store room, which are in incredibly inefficient use of the space in such a small room, and replace them with open shelves, where hopefully we can store even more stuff in a much more organised way. As part of that, and spurred on by the small, nibbled-looking hole I found in the bottom of a bag of bird peanuts yesterday, I want to get the vast quantities of bird food out of plastic bags and into something that's tidier, more meece-proof and easier to take small amounts out of without it spilling on the floor. I was doing an Ikea order for shelves anyway, and I though that the stackable SORTERA Waste sorting bin with lid would be ideal, but annoyingly they're a Marketplace items, so not available to buy online. Our nearest Ikea is all the way over in Civilisation, on the other side of the Thames, and it's really not worth a drive up there to buy four boxes unless we also need a Costco trip, which we don't. Has anyone seen anything similar to these elsewhere? I had a look at Really Useful, but they only seem to have the ones where the whole, vertical front comes out, which would lead to an amusing but ultimately irritating avalanche of bird seed. (Speaking of meeces, I've been very productive over the last few days in the barn: sightings have been increasing, and we went in the other day to find the box of treats surrounded by little black blobs (lid is now firmly on the box), and Jodie's been increasingly interested in one particular corner of the barn, which she couldn't get to very well and which, ominously, contained the sacks of GB's food. I pulled everything out, and found that the bottom sack had been torn open and half the contents spread on the floor under the pallet. It's now all been swept up, and I'll keep an eye on it, but I'm wondering if we need to start using the metal feed bin left from when TWWOTV was here. I've not been doing as it's in the tack room (which was built around it: it won't come out), and thus less convenient, but we might have to. As I was sweeping, also found lots of little piles of bits of wood, next to small holes in the bottom of the barn sides: they've obviously been working away at making ways in, as they were in places that I swept before we moved the horses here. Not sure what the solution to that is, possibly creosote in the summer when the barn's mostly empty of hay.) Link 2 kisses // Who loves you?

Insulate! Insulate! ♥Jan. 16th, 2014 // 05:04 pm♥ [Tags | angelo, house, neighbours, pictures ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/949019.html ] This morning, as I was getting dressed, I saw an unmarked van drive down the lane. It slowed down at our house but then kept going, so I thought it was going Next Door. Then, as I was putting my boots on, I saw it drive back past our house and make a really poor attempt to reverse into our driveway: I popped out, and the driver said he was there to do our cavity wall insulation, which we'd completely forgotten about. Over the next hour or so, another van arrived, then went off to Dover to get a longer drill bit (flint walls!), and another came along and disgorged loft insulation as well. (I just left Mike to it and sorted out the boys, instead! They were a bit bemused by the strange noises, but otherwise didn't seem to fussed.) We did ride, just in the school to be close by in case of problems. The only problem was when the loft guy came out to get us to sign paperwork: he sidled up to the garden gate and hovered, confused, because he didn't want to call out and scare the (terrifying, we later found) horses. We may have previously mentioned that Jodie isn't the most observant of dogs: it was only at this point that she realised that there were strangers around the house, and what's more one of them was definitely *lurking* in a suspicious and fearful way. She'd be a great guard dog if she was consistent, and stopped when you told her to.... (We did eventually convince him that she wasn't going to attack him, and he brought the paperwork out for me to sign. As he handed it up to me from slightly further way than was strictly possible, we helpfully pointed at GB and said "If anything's going to bite you around here, it's this old thing," at which he practically fled without his paperwork, poor chap.) Naturally, as we've just had the house made toasty warm, I've been freezing cold all afternoon. To be fair, I think it's mostly because I didn't get my walk: we had the vet coming, to give the boys their 'flu jabs and to take a blood sample from GB. Mike, sensibly, flatly refused to have anything to do with the process of extracting blood from GB (today, as usual, it involved me hanging onto his head from one side, as he slammed me into the wall of his stable, and the vet desperately trying to a) get the needle in and b) stop it from falling out again and c) actually get the vial filled with blood), so he took the pooch out while I 'supervised' the cavity wall guys and waited for the vet to arrive. They appear to have had a good time without me, based on the amount of mud that Jodie acquired. ("Shower!" I told Mike when they got back, and off he took her. Five minutes later, the carpets were covered in watered-down mud and the shower room looked like a mud-wrestling competition had taken place. Sigh. If you want something doing, apparently....) The days are definitely getting longer: we didn't go out to get the boys in (admittedly, just from the stableyard) until after 4pm, and it was still light when we'd done that, put the temporary bit of fence back to keep them in the top half of the field tomorrow, and come back to the house! Further neighbourliness, just for guybles' amusement: after all the SMSes about the delivery yesterday, Mrs Next Door asked me for instructions on how I make apple juice (that being what she usually gets to drink when she comes around here, on account of the parasitic growth currently distending her abdomen). "With my fabulous steamer...." I replied, so she left a bag of apples on the counter for me to collect when we took her dogs out for a wee, and I'll be taking her a couple of bottles over later on. Mike seemed a little sad when he learnt that the apple juice wasn't for him, but he perked up when he tried it and realised that it had been made from those vastly inferior sorts of apples that normal people can eat without adding sugar. Hmm. Might try juicing the crab apples next year, now that we've figured out that that's what they are.... Link Who loves you?

You'll be pleased to know... ♥Jan. 5th, 2014 // 05:07 pm♥ [Tags | house, pictures ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/943162.html ] ... that today's video is so tediously dull that I'm not going to post it. It does show how little traffic there is on our road, though. It was impressively frosty, this morning (I set the video up in the hope of getting some nice shots of it melting as the sun hit it, but the sun never really did), and the gates were all frozen shut. It's barely rained all day, but that's going to change soon. Mike made beagles: They were tasty. GB did something rather less tasty in his water bucket: I can't decide if it's better or worse than when he carefully fills his feed bucket with poo. As we were about to do the boys this morning, the WWOTV came over for a natter, and then Mr Next Door came out, rootled around in his barn for a bit, and then came over with a big hammer to mend our fence, which was very good of him. So, he banged things around, Mike banged things around a bit less, I held bits of fence in place and the WWOTV supervised, much to the rollingness of Mr Next Door's eyes. It's a patch job, but it's one that should hold for long enough to see if the rest of the fence is going to go, so that's a relief. The boys had their pedicures, today. Mike's decided to take the rest of the Baby's shoes off, if only to stop him from tearing up the field so much. We'll see how he gets on without them! (I was going to video the farrier, but I forgot. Is there anything that people would like to see videos of?) (I really wish that DW would let me mark some of my icons as inactive, so that they still show on old posts but don't sit there cluttering up my list when I'm scrolling through vaguely looking for a change of icon!) Link Who loves you?

New year... ♥Jan. 4th, 2014 // 04:15 pm♥ [Tags | house, jodie the dog, pictures, weather ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/942601.html ] ... new lens cover! Making juice with fruit left over from the big Christmas veg box. NB to self that slightly squishy pears make the juice taste very watery and thus should be avoided. Things and observations: - Taking a slightly poorly dog that's been in a rescue for a month and gradually building up her stamina so that she goes from being exhausted after half-an-hour of walking to being a little weary after an hour-and-a-half is a a good thing except when it rains all the time. She's fine with a short walk one day, maybe even two, but this afternoon we got back and she kept wandering backwards and forwards in the living room until we let her out to go and wander in the garden, and when we went back out to get the boys in she seemed to think that actually it was time for the rest of her walk, now.... - The field continues to be sodden. We've had to move the temporary dividing fence a bit higher this evening, because they've churned up the bit nearest the yard where GB hangs out when he wants to come in out of the rain. OTOH, pleased to say that both boys have come in immaculately the last two evenings. - I de-sloed the sloe gin over new year. Everyone agreed that the gin was tastier than the shop-bought bottle the WWOTV bought us for dog-walking. The sloes proved to be impossibly tedious to de-stone, though, so I just steamed them for a bit and then mashed them through a colander with conveniently just-less-than-sloe-pit sized stones. That probably rescued half the pulp, which was added back to the results of the steaming and added to an apple crumble. - Some fans really are idiots, aren't they? I couldn't agree more. - Although in some ways it's the least pressing thing to be done, being a non-public area, I suspect that the first major job we're going to get done on the interior of the house is ripping out the old kitchen cupboards in the back store room and putting shelves in there. I could fit so much more stuff in if we did, and having just taken the tree down I realise that I need more space for Christmas stuff than I currently have. I seem to have acquired more, this year! Will probably start the death list spreadsheet tomorrow evening, so get your names in (see earlier post) if you want to play. Link Who loves you?

Country living... ♥Dec. 24th, 2013 // 04:50 pm♥ [Tags | house, pictures, weather ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/939854.html ] Yesterday, and particularly last night, was fairly grim here. GB found the most sheltered place he could, and stayed there: (Except for the brief excursion into the Baby's stable, where he had a roll and messed the bed up! Good job that that didn't happen the other way around, or there would have been ructions.) Today's been much better, and we're all ok: the leaking roof apparently *did* get fixed (the roofers couldn't find a crack, so they just put a layer of repair stuff on and said "pay us if it worked"), there wasn't any damage here (although my drive to Canterbury this morning was rather meandering as I dodged all the fallen trees), and we have had several power cuts but the longest was half an hour and most were only a few seconds. Unfortunately, the fields are sodden and the stableyard was full of standing water, so the boys have had to stand in all day: GB is used to it, but I'm not sure what the Baby will have thought. Oh, and our mobile phone mast appears to be either down or dead, so if you fail to get a reply to a text message... (iMessages are fine: the phone line, and internet, stayed on.) Today, as I said, I drove into Canterbury after we'd done the boys. I continue to have failed to find a new Des; today's girl was nice enough but rather *too* quick about it, so I have little blobs of wax left on my legs. When I got home, I washed up. After that, my trousers, clean on after doing the boys, looked like this: I have no idea, but I suspect that Dog may have something to do with it. Does anyone else think that the fireback in our stove (our stoveback? Possibly?) looks like a moose? Or possibly a triceratops? Link Who loves you?

Oops ♥Dec. 17th, 2013 // 08:38 am♥ [Tags | house, pictures ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/937393.html ] A down side of having a house is that it has a roof. More specifically, we suspect, it's the flat roof above the window. It's lucky that I noticed the dripping noise when I was getting undressed last night, and didn't go with my initial assumption that it was coming from outside. It's also lucky that it was in the dressing room, and not in, say, the similarly-windowed second spare bedroom, the door to which is often not opened from month to month: might have to have a weekly check of the rooms we don't use very much, in future. Link Who loves you?

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