Uncovering the Past

Look what I found yesterday. We are getting close to making a start on our house soon. This was described as a 'cloakroom' in the house details, but when we had a viewing, it was much as we guessed it would be, toiletless! Our house was built in 1928 and has some wonderful windows remaining and an oak handrail up the stairs, plus some lovely skirting and all the original doors and doorknobs. Anyway, the 'cloakroom' would have been used for keeping things cool and would have had a big thick marble slab sat in there. I thought I would do some investigating as we are going to have a toilet put in there at the beginning of February. After some heaving up of the carpet AND vinyl, I found the original quarry tiles. I'm going to order something called Pro Clean to give them a lovely deep clean. I was planning on having a nice grey slate floor in there and follow it through to the kitchen and conservatory, but Robert thinks we'd be mad to cover it up. I agree, but it looks like I'll be deciding decor around the floor! Never mind!

Hugs, Sarah x

New Year, New Bear

Happy New Year! Where did Christmas go and can I have it back please? Did it actually happen?

As usual I am missing Christmas. I have a little momento of the front of the Radio Times stuck on my noticeboard with Wallace and Gromit staring back at me! I'm hoping a little of Nick Park's creative genius will rub off on me!

At long last I have managed to post a photo of my new bear, aptly called 'Winter' (brrrrrr). He's available for adoption and I'm hoping to add him to my website after leaving Blogland and going to Dreamweaver land. White bears are notoriously hard to photograph as are black bears. I would love to be all set up with a mini photo studio, but alas, I have to wait for good light levels outside.

This year we will be busy updating our house. We haven't been here a year yet, which is my excuse for still having the smallest bedroom stacked high with boxes! We are having our back boiler removed and our very unsightly electric fire (circa 1980 ish) removed also. It's utilitarian to say the least and we haven't even got a hearth! We will work our way through the house steadily and I can't wait to have my workroom set out and organised. It doesn't tend to do the creative mind much good when you don't know where things are and you can't fully unpack because everything will be leaving the room for heating engineers to get to radiators and install a boiler! Ah and the artex on the ceiling removed. Hoorah!

Well I must now head out and make sure all the chickens have tucked themselves up in bed. Wellies and warm coat and hat, here I come.............

Hugs, Sarah x

Have a very Merry Christmas!

Love from me Sarah, my partner Robert, the cats - Alfie, Harvey, Ellie, Monty, Poppy and Sadie, the hens - Dotty, Dolly, Sybil, Gracie and Lettuce and last but not least, Guinea pigs, Lola and Hattie.

xxx

This and That

Christmas day will soon be upon us! Wheeeeee! Now I just have a few more presents to wrap I'm looking forward to it. Christmas always gives me a feeling of hope and new beginnings. Plus everything is twinkly and pretty!

We had a bit of stress with the chicknes the last few days. I was watching them tuck into their afternoon treats when I noticed a fairly big bloody patch on Sybil (our white hen). I actually took a sharp audible intake of breath when I saw it. I thought people only did that in films! To cut a long story short, Lettuce had plucked out several of Sybils feathers. Ouchie. I just wanted to scoop her up and bring her into the house. Obviously that wasn't practical, so I set her up her own space inside the shed right next to their coop, to let her heal (chickens can get to like the taste of blood!). The next day I checked on her to find a scene that looked like a massacre. It looked like her area had been burgled and there were spots of blood here and there! She had gone crazy in the night not being able to be with the other girls, trashed the place and injured her comb, which was bleeding. So I cleaned her up and put her back in with the others. I'd hung a cabbage in the run to distract Lettuce and they all loved it! What was the first thing Sybil did, when her legs hit the run floor? She shot off into the nest box and laid an egg. She'd hated her 'sick room' so much she'd refused to lay her egg there.

Beary news! I have actually finished a bear! Just have some beading to add to his collar and he's all done. Will post pictures when I get time and the right lighting.

Festive hugs, Sarah x

First Eggs!

Two of our chooks laid their first egg today!

Above is Dotty's, which strangely has come out dotty! Sybil sadly squished hers. Considering Sybil is a rather scatty hen, I shouldn't have expected any other.

I was rather in awe of Dotty's egg. Also rather proud (?). Hopefully there will be another two tomorrow and Sybil will be a bit more careful!

Hugs, Sarah x

Chilly Chooks

This is a rather belated 'Snow Post'! Those of you in the UK will know that the snow has been and gone! It has been rather icy this week though. Eeek! I think I practically broke all the bones in Robert's hand on our walk into work. Although I wear flat boots, I might as well have had a sheet of glass for soles. If I'd tried running, I'd have gone nowhere and would have just been spinning legs on the spot.

I' d have liked to have seen what the chickens thought to the snow, when their eyes first alighted on it. As I am nowhere near being a morning person, it's usually (ok, it's always) Robert who lets them out into their run.

Do you see the feet marks going around the run? Thats our resident racing pigeon. I think he thinks he's a chicken now. They'll be clucking and he'll be cooing. Bless him. Really must ring the man who lives nearby, as it's most likely one of his.

Anyway, must go. Housework to do (yawn). Plus.........there's a bear in creation!!!

Yes, I heard the thud as you hit the floor........

Hugs, Sarah x

Cluck, cluck

We are now the proud owner of chickens! Five to be exact. All various hybrids. Love them very much. They all have different personalities.

Dolly and Dotty (the brown hens) are Light Sussex and Rhode Island Red crosses. Dotty is very curious about everything and likes to climb on my lap. Dolly likes to come and see what I'm doing when I'm cleaning out their coop.

Sybil (white hen) is a Leghorn cross and will lay white eggs (eventually!). She's very scatty, but incredibly comical! She loves pecking at my clothes and tugging at my jeans and takes the liberty of wiping her beak on me when she feels it needs it.

Gracie (grey hen) is a Maran cross and will lay eggs with a plum blush. She's a big hen with lovely hazel eyes. If a bird flies over she practically spins on the spot with panic! She's usually the first to go to bed.

Lettuce is the last, but not least of the hens. She loves a cuddle! She's the youngest of them all but is the boss! She loves to study my face and nibble my hair. I'm wary of too much curiosity, as last week she pecked out one of my contact lenses!! For a moment I thought she'd damaged my eye and turned my head to look at her and there she sat on my lap with my contact lense sticking out of her beak! Suffice to say, I grabbed it back as quickly as possible. Keeping hens is certainly not uneventful.

Well, fingers crossed for eggs. I sometimes forget they will at some point be laying them. The camera will be out when the first one appears!