A mouse 'tail'

Last night, I had to give Papa O some devastating news, I knew it would shock and upset him in equal measure but it had to be done.  I phoned him (because I was too much of a baby to tell him to his face) asked him if he was sat down (he wasnt, he was in fact, getting ready to go out for a curry) and broke it to him as gently as I could:

"Look right, there's no easy way to say this, and it turns out you were indeed right, but Wayne (aptly named by Boo) the shed mouse has eaten your Guinness hat"

To add further insult to injury, he has also used it as a bed....... Dad has two loves in life Guinness and North End (I'm sure his wife and kids rank somewhere too!)

Now, the 'Wayne Saga' started maybe a month or two ago, I went to dads all excited about our resident mouse, after all, I'd never had one in the shed and it had made a little bed in the bureau, and dad started on about how it has to go, how it'll eat everything blah, blah, blah....  

I started on about, as far as I'm (was) concerned it wasn't going anywhere it wasn't doing any harm, and besides it was freezing whether outside and you wouldn't expect a dog to live out in it, how can you expect a tiny creature like a mouse.

Dad then started on about how he would lay mouse traps.....

Me:  ER NO!!!!!! Its a poor tiny creature and besides if you kill it, then god wont be happy (he's irish catholic, the god card often wins)

I pulled out the old animal rights card too and I think at one point he just got sick of listening to me and so, 

Wayne stayed...........until now.

Amongst some 'feckin eejits' I distinctly heard a few threats that have now been placed on the mouses head, threats of cheese and traps, so Wayne mate, you might be wise to keep your head down and find a new landlord.....

Of all the things to eat.......

Storm damage

I have to say there's nothing worse than that feeling getting up the day after the storms and hoping your chicken house hasn't been turned into match sticks!!

Well actually, to be fair there's probably a lot worse! I'm so very thankful I don't live where the worst of the flooding and storms are at the moment.

I've been thinking about what I can do to help being so far away and really there isn't a lot.

Thankfully, everything was still standing on thursday when I got to the allotment, the devil clearly looked after his own that night ;-). My small summerhouse however, that someone had given me had taken a good hit.  It was on its roof half hanging over the fencing. but to be honest I half expected that to go, there was nothing in it weighing it down.  I'm going to go tomorrow (if the weather is ok) and hopefully see what (if anything) can be salvaged from it.

On another note, I need to get into the habit of taking my camera where ever I go! As I'm sat here typing this, I realise yet again I have no pictures to show you - how rubbish is that! See what tends to happen in the winter months is, I park my car up, get my wellies and waterproofs on and take my keys, leaving my worldly possessions on the car including my phone, go do what I need to do then come home,because its absolutely freezing!

Anyway, I hope everyone is safe as they can be, 'til next time.

xx

impromptu allotment days

I love impromptu days on the plot. Yesterday, I decided that I would go to the plot and check for any storm damage. Though the storms haven't been bad here, I was sat at home getting more and more anxious about whether the chicken house was still standing (for the record it was!).

Once I got there I decided to do some digging, but that soon went out the window when common sense got the better off me. After a recent bout of M.E I'm learning when to listen to my body and my body did not want to dig!! Instead I dug up the sprout plants that got eaten by caterpillars over the summer and to be honest the last few weeks I was convinced because of the caterpillars they wouldn't be any use. How wrong could I be???

So I was sat there on the plot picking sprouts and eating my lunch with the chooks happily mulling round me:

When I got home I sorted then out ready for blanching and freezing, keeping the leaves for Arthur dragon and the ends for the rabbits:

Happy allotment days xx

the winter months

The problem with blogging about an allotment in the winter months is that nothing goes on! Well nothing goes on, on my allotment.  Is that a good for enough excuse for my absence? I didn't think so!

My life is so much more about the allotment so here's a little round up to get back on track.

Home: I'm currently working on getting more organised, you know the things like monthly car checks, daily/weekly financial checks, keep on top of paperwork, keeping the housework up to date (that last one will go to my grave with me, my house is NEVER tidy!!).  But the thing is when I start my new job soon I want to be a little bit better with householdy things.  I know it will last until the summer months when the only thing that will be remotely organised is my allotment shed and my car will be a disgraceful mess of mud and chickeny smells!!

I've also been trying to master making bread.  I've been watching 'the big bread experiment' in awe, I wish I could make good bread, I wish I could be one of those people who make bread everyday from scratch not having to buy it, but I'm not the best at it, and the fact I don't eat white bread only makes the situation worse because it smells divine!!!

This year if anything in our household I would like to be more frugal or at least more food, waste and money aware, because we are not.

The pets: we have a new addition to the house meet Arthur:

He is my stepsons Christmas present!! So as well as him, we also have the rabbits in the house at the moment too, because their run is too wet for them to be in, and its far too cold for them to be outside.  So we have a zoo living indoors at the moment!

The allotment: it has rained a ridiculous amount, not as much as down south mind.  The drainage system installed last winter has done its job and the plot isn't flooded, the path to the plot is, but not the plot!  I have been there letting the chickens out etc...but not much more.  One of the problems I had last year was the grass growing in between the beds. at the time I was convinced that I would be able to just strim in between the raised beds but honestly, doing that on a weekly basis was hard. So on the rare days where there is some sunshine I'm trying to move the beds so that I'm able to get a mower down the paths in the summer. It's a hard job to do the beds are 12x4 foot each and mostly filled.
I'm also in the process of deciding what to plant this year to get the most of the plot.

If I'm honest, I'm more than looking forward to getting back down there and getting stuck in - partly so I gave a good excuse to not do the housework!!

Xx