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| 7yo and Snowy |
It is verging on bonkers here.
Thirty months ago we four, Hubby, the two sprogs and me, arrived
to The Larches, catless, sheepless, chickenless, penniless.... (oh hang on, the last one has happened since we've been here.)
Yesterday I had a few pals and their children over for coffee. The
Easter holidays have commenced and the sun was belting. According to Postie, as she
sat sorting my mail, (bills and junk mostly) it was registering 26° in the van, in March!
‘We’ll pay for this,’ she predicted. An ominous statement.
Bearing in mind that several parts of the country are already on hose pipe ban,
I think the monthly instalments have already begun....
In the walled garden the mothers’ meeting was called to
order over a slice of my coffee and several hunks of home-made Madeira cake...
Yes you did read that right, I never really know how much ground coffee to put
in the cafetiere. Still, it keeps you on your toes.
Although there were six, variously sized children in the
vicinity, they seemed to prefer the privacy of the den, (a straw filled animal shelter in the field near the stables,) rather than the designed order of my raised beds.
Now and again they popped back to display a wound, pilfer a cake or down a
glass of juice. Mothers took this opportunity to apply coconut smelling sun cream, heedless of yelps.
‘There’s a chicken in the house,’ the smallest girl child pointed out as she waited in line to be basted.
‘There’s a chicken in the house,’ the smallest girl child pointed out as she waited in line to be basted.
She was right. The young white bantam is fearless,
determined to seek out food where she isn’t welcome. Chickens are banned from
the walled garden and, of course, the house. We temporarily evicted her but out
of the corner of my eye I noticed Archie Archer, a black hen with attitude, had
flown up and over the wall at the far end of the garden. While we fussed over
the small bantam, she was checking out all the edible bits in the delphinium and
lupin nursery bed.
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| Archie |
Meanwhile the two lambs bombed up and down the pathways
between the raised beds, checking out everything with their soft nibbly mouths.
I was bemused to note that the children paid little heed to them while the
lambs felt sure they were included in some huge chasing game. The two cats watched the madness from the top of the Shropshire stone wall, bathing in the sun.
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| Naughty Nibblers |
Having just finished Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons, I found it all highly amusing.
*
The building work is progressing well. The old porch is
being replaced by another within the same footprint, though with marginally
less woodworm and damp. Finally we will have a front door and a door bell! No
longer will guests wander round and round the property, unsure of how to
penetrate the gothic fortress, powerless to alert us to their presence, (as
most mobile phones don’t work within 2 miles of the place.)
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| Old Porch |
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| New Entrance |
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| Coat and Welly Land...Yipeee! |
The mums were fairly pleased with the vista, (of the builders
I fear.) The smallest girl child was less keen and came to tell tales on the
three men working on the house.
‘Those builders have taken their shirts off.’ She said
looking stern.
We were restrained. We didn’t rush to look.
‘Come
back and tell us if they take their trousers off,’ I advised. She nodded and toddled
off.
