One Sleep to Go

Hmm, the whole "We'll-Manage-Without-An-Oven-Until-We-Get-Back" thing didn't go well!

But it's only small, and it only cost £30 and I've been thinking of getting one for absolutely ages. And it did lovely baked chicken fillets with mushrooms, cheese and tomato last night, not to mention potato croquettes (made by me in the early autumn with our potatoes from the garden and kept in the freezer).  And it will keep the Housesitters happy while we're away.  It will take me a while to get used to it, though.  The recently deceased oven was a fan oven and this isn't.  You wouldn't expect it to be at £30 and a microwave size.  But I have got very used to having a fan oven in the seven and three quarter years I've had one!

So.  there's only one sleep to go before we head off.  We are unusually organised this time.  I've even done the packing - largely because we were trying on our party clothes and summer clothes to see what we should take with us, and it didn't seem worth while putting them back in the wardrobe or leaving them on the spare bed.  So I got out the suitcases and put the clothes in there instead.  And then  I figured I might just as well pack everything else that was going while I was at it.  This seriously confused the cat, who knows what the suitcases mean. But usually, of course, it means that we are going that day or, at a pinch, early the next.  This time, however, the suitcases have been sitting on the bed since Wednesday, and thus far The Builder and I haven't gone anywhere.  Or nowhere out of the ordinary!

And I have decided that I am going to have to give up foreign travel.  Last time it was a hurty eye on the morning that we left, followed by an infected foot in Singapore.  When we went to Japan, I got an infected ankle or two.  And this time?  This time I have an infected fingertip.  I assume I caused it when pruning the apple and pear trees last weekend.  It started to hurt a bit on Monday or Tuesday, on Wednesday I noticed that it was a bit swollen.  By yesterday it was swollen and red and sore ;-(  It still is.  It's my right hand middle finger - and it's amazing how much I use it.  I had never before noticed that I used it much.  But I do.

If it's not better by, oh Thursday or so, I shall give it to a doctor to have a look at :-D

RIP Udon

Goodness me, but we're getting through this batch of chooks!

Udon has been looking quite unhappy for some time.  We put it down to her unseasonable moult, making her cold, we and miserable.  Well, you would be miserable if you were outside during even a relatively mild January without proper clothes on.  But she was eating and pottering about and didn't look ill particularly.

Then she just more or less stopped, as chickens do.  Upped and died on us more or less overnight.

I'm beginning to wonder if it was the names. All of the dead chooks were called after Japanese food.  The two remaining ones are Curry (which could be from anywhere) and Dimsim (which is Australian).  It is true the ducks also have Japanese names, but we never use their names because we can't tell them apart. They're just called "The Ducks".

I think I'll call the next lot of chickens after fruit, or vegetables or something. Definitely not Japanese food, though!

Ovens

I suppose we should be very grateful that the oven didn't decide to up and die on us over Christmas.  Partly, of course, because it would have been quite difficult to have done all the Christmas food without it, but mostly because I think we would have felt that we needed to buy a new one quite promptly.

It was moderately inconvenient that it decided to die on us yesterday.  It had been working perfectly well on Saturday when I had made a huge platter of roasted veg for dinner.  It appeared to be working yesterday when I put more veg in to roast for our Sunday lunch.  It was only when I went in half an hour later to swizzle the veg around a bit that I discovered that the element wasn't heating :-S  No amount of cajoling would convince it to heat.  This was inconvenient because we had been to Marsh Green earlier in the day and bought a nice piece of topside for roasting. I had also bought other things that would have been best prepared in the oven. So I tipped the veg into the wok and more or less treated that as a makeshift oven.  I sliced off two "steaks" from the topside and did them on the griddle.  It all worked, after a fashion.  I put the piece of braising steak into my slow cooker.  Everything else will have to be re-thought as the week progresses - because I am not buying a new oven a mere 5 sleeps before we disappear off for a month. Housesitters will have to make do with the woks, the frying pans and, at a pinch, the barbecue.

I had been intending to bake some bread, a cake and some biscuits to see us through the week.  That plan has had to be abandoned too :-(  Fortunately we can buy bread and I guess it won't hurt us to do without cake and biscuits for a week.

We shall save up and buy the double oven that I have been hankering after, when we get back. I'm not sure, though, whether to put it at the top of the list of things to do or leave it languishing at the bottom.

My brother Matt's suggestion that we should have taken ourselves to the pub for Sunday lunch was a very good suggestion indeed.  Alas, by the time I realised that the oven really wasn't going to work, it was a bit late to go out.  We'll go to the pub for a pre-flight dinner on Friday instead

A proper winter frost

My goodness but it was cold yesterday morning. Properly, properly cold.  The thermometer said it was 1.5d. It was certainly very frosty! It was the first truly cold day of winter. We've had a few frosts but nothing quite as substantial as this:

So we took the opportunity, given that it was beautiful morning, to go down and prune the apple trees and the pear trees. We've been meaning to do it for ages - the Under Gardener has had a great deal of trouble mowing in the orchard because of low hanging branches.  So we've removed those and tidied the trees up a bit. The Bramley apple no longer hangs quite so spectacularly over into next door's garden and we can move around in there a bit better.  We need to sort out the blackberry canes and definitely do something about the nettles.  They don't seem to worry the birds - but the nettles in particular don't seem to like me very much!

We can't do anything in the garden without an audience!  What are you doing?  Why are you doing it? Is there anything in it for me?

Chickens and ducks

A week or so ago, Dim Sim discovered that if she stood on the roof of the duck or the chook house, she could fly over the fence into the rest of the garden. This is not absolutely convenient, if only because the orchard is as fox and dog proof as we can make it and the rest of the garden is not.  So The Under Gardener raised the height along the back part of the fence.

Yesterday morning I was stood outside, chatting over the fence to Debby, when I looked down towards the orchard and thought: "Good heavens.  There's a chook in the cherry tree."  At which point Dim Sim flew from the middle of the cherry tree, over the fence and into the rest of the garden.  Accompanied, it must be said, by some very grumpy quacking from the ducks who can't fly, can't climb in the trees and therefore can't escape!  We have run out of fence wire so the Under Gardener is going to put some netting up to see if we can stop her escaping.  We don't want Steve and Debby to be having to chase around after her while we are gadding about in Australia!

And if she goes over the fence the other way, into the garden of the new bungalow - then she's on her own!  She may lay regular, pretty, very tasty eggs, but we are not chasing around all over Tupton looking for a chook!

We have been giving a bit of thought to getting a pond or a bath or something for the ducks to play in.  They don't seem keen to get into the fish pond and we can't work out whether it's because it's winter, or because the fish pond is covered with pond weed or whether they just don't like it. But in any case, they aren't able to wander around in the garden all of the time and although they have a baby bath in the orchard, it's a bit small now that they are full grown.  So we've been looking into getting something a bit bigger for them.  Then someone put a bath out by their wall on Ward Street a week or so ago, with a note on it saying that it was free to a good home.  Someone else took the fittings, but we didn't want those.  The bath, on the other hand, was just the thing.  So we brought it home and the Under Gardener has dug a hole and sunk it into the ground by the pear tree.

The ducks don't like this either, as you can see from the pure, clean water.  But they'll get use to it!!

Sunday morning

Sunrise

Looking down Bridge Street towards the railway line and the bridge

Looking up Queen Victoria Road

Ankerbold Road

Our snug and cosy lounge room

It's not snug and cosy out there! (Looking from the bathroom up towards Grassmoor)

From our bedroom

And again, looking towards Chesterfield

Back to normal. For now!

It was quite odd going back to work last Friday.  Not surprisingly, it had a distinct Monday feel to it.  On the other hand, the roads were empty, the station was practically deserted, the train had a surprising number of seats to choose from, the Learning Centre was devoid of students and almost as devoid of staff. It was all very peculiar!

What was even more peculiar, given that the day had a very Monday feel to it and I was definitely doing Monday things, was that I was also doing Friday things.  And then, when I woke up the next day - it wasn't Tuesday, but Saturday!!

Following the deep exhaustion cause by having to have a whole day back at work ( :-D ) we had a quiet and uneventful weekend, in which nothing in particular happened, we did nothing in particular and nothing in particular was noteworthy.

And now we are more or less back to normal.  Many of the students are back (although this week is a reading week, preparatory to the fortnight of exams and assessments which start on Monday, so lots of them are still at home). Pretty nearly all the staff are back. The schools are back, so the roads and trains are back to normal (fares went up again on the railways on January 2nd, but the punctuality hasn't improved all that much!!).  Workplace meetings have started up again. My Japanese classes haven't started yet but will next week. Nearly everything that we do on a weekly or regular basis is back in place.

For now.

There are only 9 sleeps to go before The Builder and I embark on our second bout of jumping around in the far distant time zones.  This one has snuck up on us rather.  I am nowhere near as ready as I was last time!!! But now that I have noticed how close it all is, I was thinking about pinching Freyja's idea of putting a countdown on Twitter with cute sleeping creatures counting the nights down. But she might have sued me for plagiarism, so I won't.  On the other hand, she and Simon have been having a mighty and merry time in Disneyland in California, so she might not have noticed. But the risk is too great  :-D

And greetings to 2014

2014 started with a bang!

Literally!!!

We had gone to bed nice and early because we needed to be up nice and early on New Year's Day.  I had remembered to set the alarms to ring nice and early.  I had got into bed and almost immediately fallen into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Until suddenly I was jolted awake by mortar attacks and explosions and goodness only knows what was making that VERYLOUDSCREECHINGNOISE. The Builder and Marlo were equally jolted awake

It turned out to be Phil and Sarah having a New Year Fireworks party.  Not unreasonably, at midnight!  I've just never heard fireworks make that particular noise before.  It really did sound like we were under attack.  But fortunately we weren't.  We settled down and went back to sleep.  Or I did.  The Builder reports that he was awake for the whole of the rest of the night.  I don't think he was, but he certainly didn't have a very good night.

This was a bit unfortunate as we had to be up at our usual week day waking time, and had got out of practice over the previous week.  Nevertheless, we were more or less ready to leave by 7:15 and took ourselves off in the calm, dry, windless darkness, heading south.

The rain started as the light began to dawn. By the time we had reached Birmingham it was light and raining steadily. The further south we went, the harder the rain got. By the time we got to Hampshire and Wiltshire it was raining very hard, the wind was very windy and the roads were very wet and in some places flooded.

Mercifully it was only drizzling by the time we got to Gwen's place and got her in the car. Even so, we still got quite damp.

We drove along the main roads to Waterlooville, avoiding the winding country roads we usually use. And it wasn't really raining at all by the time we got to Jeanette and Matthew's place so we didn't get particularly damp getting into their house.

Gathered for the New Year's luncheon party were us, Jeanette, Matthew, Rebecca and Evie, Gwen, Ian (The Builder's son), Pip (The Builder's first wife) and Tom, Mike and Rosie (Matthew's Mum and Dad).  We ate a delicious banquet and drank delicious wine. We made merry, and caught up, and chatted and had a good time. It rained, very hard, from time to time. The wind roared, and whispered, and roared again.  We didn't care much. We were all inside a nice, cosy house, with a nice cosy fire burning (and the central heating on for good measure :-) )

Then Matthew and The Builder took Gwen home in Matthew's range rover (better on flooded roads than The Vixen), and the rest of us played board games with Evie.  And then there was more food (a smorgasbord of party food), more wine, more merriment, more chat. Then everyone went home, except for The Builder and I who made our way up to the spare room.

It was a lovely day, and began the New Year in good style.

Day 2 of 2014 dawned still and sunny and cloudless.  We made a leisurely start to the day. Everyone gradually appeared downstairs.  Matthew made us a mighty cooked brunch before we bade them all a fond farewell and came back up north. Apart from a detour around part of the M1 (which we had intended to join but which was at a standstill - we joined it a junction or so further up) we had a good run home. It was dry pretty much all the way and the roads were unflooded. We got home while it was still light.

Normal service has been restored today. I am back at work and it was dark, raining and windy when we left to head to the station. It's starting to clear now though.  I bet it's raining when I head home though. It's forecast for heavy showers on and off throughout the day.

Thank you to Jeanette and Matthew, Rebecca and Evie for a lovely start to the year.

Jeanette, The Builder and Ian

Evie giving us a post-lunch concert

The guitar is new. It was a Christmas present

Farewell to 2013

So, The Builder took Taffa, Gareth, Cally and Marryk back to Sheffield late morning on Boxing Day and was back almost within the hour. I heard someone coming in through the door and for a brief moment wondered if it was a burglar! While he had been gone I had sorted out the spare room, vaccuumed the house, tidied up a bit and generally sorted a few things out.

And thereafter we more or less fell into a post-Christmas torpor. We ate and drank and watched television. We pottered and mooched and dallied.  As far as possible we avoided the wind and the rain. I quite like the period between Christmas and New Year. The University is closed. I am not at work. And this year, at least, we were not away. Christmas Day and Boxing Day themselves seem to have an out-of-time quality; they don't really fit into the normal pattern of days and dates and times. Then, between Christmas and New Year, the days all blend into one another - not timeless as such but almost anonymous.  There is nothing urgent that needs to be done, nowhere in particular that we need to be, no urgency, no pressure, no impetus. If I don't mark the days off on the calendar, it becomes extremely difficult to remember what day it is.  I suppose it doesn't really matter what day it is!

But it matters today.  It is New Year's Eve. And we are celebrating by having lunch at The Nettle. We tried to have lunch there yesterday but it was closed.  Not unreasonable, I guess. They have been very busy through December and at the moment there are only Marcus and Sandford holding the fort.  I *suppose* it's fair that they should have one day off. Every now and then! But it was open today (as you would expect on New Year's Eve).

And there goes 2013. Not a bad year, all things considered, from a personal point of view. We've had lots of fun, lots of adventures, lots of good food and wine. No major catastrophes have befallen us. Can't complain at all.

Let's hope 2014 is as good a year. For every one.

(Mind you, I seem to have been remarkably taciturn on the blog this year. A mere 86 posts. I'm sure that more than 86 blog posts worth of adventures happened!)

The Nettle, being festive:

December

I didn't do the autumn cutback in the end.  But I've done most of it now.  I can see what I'm doing again!  And what I need to be doing is weeding. There are buttercups and grass growing everywhere, not to mention tenacious little alpine strawberry plants.

We've had quite a lot of stormy weather lately - but yesterday was glorious.  So we went to the allotment and pottered about in the garden.  It's stormy again now though

Click on the allotment to reach the album

 Poor Gyoza woke up dead on Saturday morning.  She had become progressively less and less mobile and spent most of her time sitting in her run watching the world go by. But she hadn't shown any sign of dropping off her perch. She was eating happily and pottering about.  Still, that's chooks for you.  Mind you, we haven't had much luck with this year's load of chooks.  That's three of six gone now. One of each type.  Curry and Dimsim are laying beautifully.  Udon, though, has gone into moult and stopped laying.  An unusual time of year for moulting and she's unusually young.

We'll get some more chicks and ducklings in the spring.  Maybe this time our ducklings will be girls!!  (It's just as well that the boys are very cute - they're not much use apart from that)