Two Turkeys More But Down One Duck

The "Gang of Four" (Guinea Fowl) check out the new arrivals

We are offered by good friends Sue and Rob, a couple of spare young turkeys who survived the Christmas 'Matanza' because they were too small and scrawny to be worth the preparation. "Would you like them for growing on for Easter?" Of course we would and arrangements were made for Sue to catch our pair and bring them over on a visit where she could enjoy some tea and cake. Elizabeth and Sue have a bit of a quiet, friendly 'bake off' going on between the 2 kitchens and Rob and I are the happy beneficiaries.

The turkeys go out free range on Day 2

But then the most amazing thing happened. As they were getting ready to leave, their 3 dogs suddenly kicked off alarmingly, barking, growling and racing about, clearly disturbed by something. Rob looked out of the Sitting Room window gazing across to the sheep field over the heads of a huge flock of chickens and Guinea fowl, wondering if there might be a fox lurking among the tufts of tall rushes that grow there, 50 yards from the house.

They are good boots from the local farmers' co-op but they
don't last for ever. 

Only when he re-adjusted his vision, did he spot that among those chickens just outside the window on the lawn, was a big dog fox just standing there. The chickens for some reason had overcome their fear and were gathered round him full of curiosity. One of the Guineas was even taking a few exploratory pecks at his fur. Rob got over the shock and reached for the camera, calling Sue to come see too. The camera battery was flat, though and the fox seemed to spot Rob through the glass at that point and loped off, slinking into the cover of those rushes. I should have taken Rob's fox as an omen..... read on.

Shepherding ewe Lily and lamb Tigger round to the front lawn
each morning. 

Naturally, Sue and Rob are now on a rather nervous "fox-watch" for the next few days in case Brer Fox should return, and unwilling to leave the place unguarded. If I want my turkeys, I will have to go and collect them. Ah well. Sue's cake instead of the home stuff. It's flapjack this time. How we suffer. The turkeys turn out to be bigger than advertised, not "scrawny" at all. The little kitten-basket I show up with looks totally inadequate for the task, even for one bird. We fall back on that old safety net - we stuff them into woven feed sacks with cable ties sealing the top. Not ideal, but they are quiet enough and the journey home is only 20 minutes.

I land the turkeys in the big dog crate in our yard so that they can safely meet the home flock and get used to the sights, sounds and smells of their new home. This also lets my lot get a good look at them with no risk of anyone attacking the newcomers in the first 24 hours. They are let out next morning when it is nice and quiet, supervised, hoping they stay around till evening at least, when I can find them a bed for the night.

The snowdrops are looking good.

That plan works OK but wobbles a bit when the four Guineas decide to gang up together and charge the newcomers, sending them sprinting for cover by the caravan. I worry that they may even drive the new birds off site, into an unfamiliar corner from which they would not know the way home, only having been here 24 hours. The 'Gang of Four' though just seem to want to show the turkeys who is boss and, that done, they mainly leave them alone. By evening I grab a chance to shepherd them into the Tígín with the ewe and lamb, where they perch up on a straw bale and can sleep safe from Guinea harassment. The new pair seem to have no interest in our existing turkey (Gloria) and the feeling is mutual.

Then there were four? The 4 remaining ducks seem very quiet
and stay close to the sheds on Friday, here sleeping in the shade.

That evening (Thursday) I open the gate through to the (fenced) orchard and shepherd the geese home to their shed via the back door, and let the 5 ducks come through to the yard and garden for the last half hour or so before lock-up. It happens every night. It is never a problem. But tonight at lock up (about half past 5) there are suddenly only 4 ducks and the 4 who are left are very upset and anxious, quacking alarmingly for their lost sister and unwilling to go to bed without her.

The other three ewes have not yet lambed.
Are they even pregnant?

We fear the worst - maybe she has been snatched in a grab-and-run raid by the fox. If this is so, the fox most likely came in across the veg patch where I saw that one a couple of weeks back and nipped off the same way. Liz and I conduct an extensive search, sometimes with the other 4 ducks at heel (Find her Daddy, please find her!) as the dark descends. At one point I *think* I heard over the hubbub in the yard and shed, a single, distant, distressed quack, so maybe the last gasp of our duck as she was carried off, half a field away.

A recipe from the Johnnie Mountain 'Pork' book. This is pork
and apricot tagine with pistachio cous-cous. "Lush" was one
comment. 

As dark fell, we had to give up the search. We were left clinging to the hope (against hope) that she'd just hunkered down somewhere to lay an egg and now that it was dark she'd stay there till morning. Maybe she would re-appear in the new day.

Lamb leg joint gets smeared with a mix of garlic, rosemary,
lemon zest and anchovy before being wrapped in foil for a long
slow roast. It does not need carving - a good shake and all the
meat falls off the bones. 

That is how we still are 36 hours later. The four ducks have settled down and I spent an hour and a half out there yesterday at the relevant time of evening keeping an eye; my own "fox watch" till I could shut all the doors and know that the fox had not come back for another bird to invite to dinner. Friends on the Internet have been nicely sympathetic and keep their hopes up, like us, that the missing duck might just be hunkered down on eggs, but hope is fading now. I find myself, when met by variations of the local 'condolences' (Sorry to hear about your duck.... ) etc, using another local expression "Ah well..... that's the way....."

Phil(omena) from the Red Cross leads a session on heart
 attacks, the defibrillator, CPR and strokes. 

Off the farm, I am increasingly involved in the local Mens' Shed charity group, our home-from-home for local menfolk who seek out a bit of company in a safe environment (no booze, no gambling, no smoking, no bullying).

Phil demo's the defribrillator. 

We do not have our actual shed yet (builders are still in there doing roof insulation etc) so we meet in a nearby Health Centre. The sessions are sometimes just chat, chess, cards and so on but sometimes the 'boss' (Pat) arranges experts to come in and do training.

"Nellie the Elephant packed her trunk". That's the rhythm you
need, by all accounts, for good CPR!

We've done a bit of an IT course and this week we had Phil(omena) from the local red cross showing us the defibrillator, CPR, and the symptoms and treatment of heart problems and strokes. I was amused by 2 surprising aspects of this compared to the old First Aid training from work days. By their very nature, some of these old boys have "been there" and done that with the heart attacks and strokes, so when Phil started to describe the symptoms as described to her, a group of our lads piped up with "Yes, when I had my first one, I felt I'd been smacked in the chest with a sledge hammer" and another replied - "It was like someone doing up a ratchet-strap round your chest!"

And then, because some of the lads are a bit tottery on their own legs, walking with sticks etc and unable to get down on their knees to kneel over the prone patient ("or if I did, I'd never get up again!"). One suggestion was that you might sit by the patient on a chair and do CPR with your heel. If you don't do anything, the man is going to die very soon anyway, so try anything rather than do nothing.

Ah well. That's the way.

Winter Waffle (A Sense of Solstice)

I quite like this shot of myself and 3 dogs, which Lizzie took in
the monochrome mode on her phone. 

The 21st December, the Winter Solstice is probably now my absolute favourite single day in the calendar. This is probably because in this life 'over here' we spend so much time out of doors and the weather, the day length and the dark evenings matter more - when I was in Kent I'd be up at just gone 04:00 but then work all day inside a huge chilled warehouse with air-con offices and it didn't matter a hoot what the weather was doing outside. You would only meet it when running from covered reception area to your car across the car-park top storey.

I am on Christmas cake duties this
year. Here the cake gets its marzipan.

Now the 21st is the day on which the days stop getting shorter and start to get longer, the evenings brighter and the Springtime 'officially' closer. It is a definite turn-around in fortunes when all manner of aspects of life stop getting 'worse' and start to improve. Lately I have made it the day by which I make sure all the killing, the livestock harvest is done so that mentally I can now think of the current members of the menagerie as our 'fighting weight' from which we will start to build again for the new season. There are one or two more animals to finish, including our June-born lamb Dylan but we will get well through this season before we look at him. I can do the 22nd, 23rd, 24th and 25th, and so on, on a rising, creative trajectory; we are cooking meals, creating food and preparing for Christmas, making things rather than ending lives and 'destroying' or finishing things. Just me being sentimental perhaps.

The  final turkey 'harvest' gets it in the neck. 

This re-start has, this year, added extra facets. This year we got into turkeys which are probably the epitome of harvesting at the Solstice. I killed our last poult this morning and we had her plucked and 'dressed' in time for Vendor Anna to collect her at lunchtime. This one was unusual in that Anna only wanted a 'crown' (the breasts, sternum and underlying ribs) so we have a rather unusual looking breastless carcass in the freezer which we may try to roast spine-uppermost on a bed of spuds, parsnips etc at some stage. Luckily we are both partial to the red meat.

Spatchcocked young Silver Brahma rooster. 

Those roosters I described in the last post turn out to be a breed called "Silver Brahma". One of them was more than a year old and seemed very tough so he went for stock, but one of the young ones got spatchcocked and roasted last night and, despite his 'scrawny' looks, turned out to be a revelation in terms of being meaty enough to feed 2 of us with left overs and having a flavour up there alongside the Hubbard meat birds we do each summer.

Liz coming to of a morning armed with Kindle,
 cat, onesie and the red flame of a fire in the
range

From my own point of view (I can only speak for myself here) I am also including the unexpectedly solid closure I got from the Theo funeral - my Theo era ended pre Solstice and I am now able to start the post-Theo synchronised with this turning point in the year. Down at the Sligo house-build we have also pretty much done with demolition, so the post-Sostice jobs are mainly going to be building and creating. We do actually have a chimney to pull down -  it was central to the old roof ridge but the new roof will sit back a couple of feet and be a tiny bit higher, so we need to create a new stack on that new line.

15 bales of straw for JD's cattle. 

We have been getting into this buildering with the new block-walls at the back of the house and, most recently, what is known as a 'ring beam'. I had not heard of this, but it is a continuously poured beam of concrete reinforced with steel bars (rebar) running all around the tops of your walls at roof height. You create wooden shuttering up from the outside and inside of the walls and heft buckets of wet concrete up ladders to pour into the channel you created. Loads of fun. Tiring, too!

A tree in the nick of time.

It has, though, been an unusually 'close to the wire' Christmas. It is the 21st today and we have a long list of things not yet done or only just done what with delays related to Liz now working, Liz heading for Silverwood land to child-mind while the adults headed for the UK, and the funeral. Things like buying the tree and decorating it, we like to do as a couple, so it was not as if I could have nipped off, bagged our tree and presented it to Liz on her return 'ta-daaaa!' So it was not till Sunday that we bought the thing and tonight we put it up. This was almost too close - Supervalue where we buy the tree had started with hundreds back in early December but by now they only had 4 left. We were lucky to find a decent one among them. Today, too, I have been marzipanning the cake and Liz has been doing Domestic Goddess. We have nipped out with the trailer for 15 bales of straw for some nearby cattle - they have the 'all is safely gathered in' feeling too. We may, between us all, actually be ready on the 25th to enjoy the day. I hope you are too. Now, where's that ruby port?

Calming Down

After a run of calm and frosty days we are back into (yellow) Weather Warnings over here, from tonight round to Thursday morning, mainly for the wind strength  as a 'dacent' Atlantic depression comes a-howling through. All the poultry is firmly shut away and there are rocks on the roofs of rabbit hutches (plus I may also do this to the bee hive, but it is quite sheltered over there). We are all safely gathered in tonight and enjoying the warmth of the range, which seems to like these SW winds and gets that extra bit of brightness going which self-cleans the mica-glass 'window'. The blog, I notice, is also creeping up on a milestone, that of 100,000 page-views; I don't think I can claim to be JK Rowling just yet, but my faithful 20-30 visits per post, mainly from friends and family, have kept me chugging along across the 8 years I have been posting. Thank you for that.

The range going well.

We are calming down here on the run in to Christmas which, for us, keeps changing shape. We were going to be going it alone, then we were to have a visitor, then we weren't and now we are again. with a different person. We are a good way through the gift buying and picked up a couple more bits at the local craft fair in Lisacul, our nearest village. We will be off down to the Silverwoods' a few days after Christmas but this will be a flying visit timed around our livestock needs.

Blue and Towser help their 'Dad' to a post-prandial
glass of red wine. Towser is on my knees. 

Really, though, I can never get too excited about all this 25th December malarkey which is now really just a spending spree and a short break for over-eating. When I was working this was especially true, as the supermarkets (who paid my salary) went completely ga-ga busy at Christmas and 'up-steam' on the supply chain we found ourselves working right up to mid afternoon on Christmas Eve and then back in at 06:00 on Boxing Day to get lorries ready with re-stock commodities (often, Cadbury's creme eggs; a cause of much hollow laughter and gallows humour to the exhausted crews). I used to hear of people who got the fortnight off or a long break by only having to take a few days out of their annual holiday (this sometimes included Liz if the dates fell right) and thought I might be in the wrong industry. I appreciated, of course, that there were plenty 'worse off' than me - the Emergency Services, Nurses and the like who had to work right through including the night shifts. It definitely knocked all the pre-Christmas excitement out of a bloke, anyway.

Those modeling paints, little 14 ml tins.  

In my head, I am more excited about 2 other dates in December. First comes the 13th, this Saturday, being the first date I can collect our sheep. The 14th is the date for the Ministry sheep census, so we may be able to report some ewes. 2nd, comes the 21st, the Winter Solstice. Don't worry - I am not going all Druidic and 'weird' on you, but the 21st is the shortest day, so by the 22nd  I am mentally into increasing day length and signs of Spring. I feel like I have got the worst part of winter over by then and even if it snows and blows a gale, in my head it will soon be over, it 'can't last' and we can look forward to daffodils, crocuses, blossom and so on.

Testing the cured pork leg.

On this, a conversation with neighbouring farmer, Michael McG stopped me in my tracks just by striking me with a different point of view, which I wasn't expecting, but which I quite liked and may adopt. We were chatting about the weather and the possible wind and rain to come when he said "....ah but it can only now be a short winter". He was saying that we had already done September, October, November and some of December with only mild and calm weather, effectively putting half the possible months to bed with no damage. Impressively philosophical.

Sniffing the crochet hook you just stabbed into the meat.

On an unrelated subject, our pork curing efforts seem to be progressing OK. The thick chunks of leg meat came through their 28 days of being rubbed and sprinkled with the salt, sugar, herbs and spices mix and are now air-drying in the coolest, driest place we can find - hanging from the loft hatch in the spare room with the radiator turned off in that room. Our instructions are to wait a week and then to test the meat by stabbing it with a needle, which you then withdraw and sniff. If you can smell any off smells then you have a problem. You should only be able to smell salt, sugar and a 'ham' smell reminiscent of Parma, Serrano or Pancetta type meat which is the area we are aiming for. We were fine and the meat now goes back up to hang and dry some more - you want it firm and 'stiff' but not rock-hard (we read) so this is likely to mean 8-10 weeks drying. That brings us to the start of February. I am looking forward to it.

The Shortest Day

A thin Winter Solstice sun rises behind the trees

The Winter Solstice. Now there's an event worth celebrating. Never mind all this commercialized, Santa and sleigh bells, possible birth date (?) of the Infant Jesus malarkey. The shortest day, the turn of the year, the official beginning of winter. From now it is onward and upward into spring, days getting longer, sap rising and summer beckoning frantically. It's pretty much forgotten now of course; most 'townies' do not know what it is, do not know its date and would not be able to tell you its significance. They would care less, too, in the rush to Christmas, wrapping paper and mince pie cookery.

Winter Iris breaks surface

We are starting to see some signs of spring already - pictured is a good sized clump of Winter Iris emerging in one of our big tubs in the yard. These were bulbs generously given to me by Pud Lady when I was over in September. In the 'Rose Walk' a good show of new daffodil shoots reminds us of the net of mixed bulbs which came to us from the Steak Lady; both the 'Mums' have made their mark on this garden. Thank you Mums.

Some early bud expansion is also making an impression - in this case currant bushes in the Jam and Jerusalem hedge and on a flowering currant (Ribes) in the raised flower bed. Ribes are probably the easiest and earliest way of getting food to the bees in spring, so we will be planting plenty and then trying to strike cuttings from these bushes, all part of our wildlife gardening push. We are both enormously looking forward to how the pond, in particular, will fare. Will we get frogs and newts? Will the aquatic plants which we had mail order from the UK and which have mainly died back in autumn, leap back into action with spring?

Meanwhile we had to smile at this bizarre sleeping position by the boy-pup Towser. Wait till 'Daddy' puts his boots in front of the range, let them warm up a bit, then sink your nose down deep inside like a person drinking in the scent of a rose flower, and FALL ASLEEP. Daft beggar.

Happy Solstice!

First one at Feigh

On the 4th day of Christmas etc. Well, we came through our first Christmas at Feigh and survived it all, and we can both honestly say that it was an excellent time, thoroughly enjoyed by all present. What I promise NOT to do, though, is to go at great length; Christmas is a lovely personal time and nobody really wants to read about everybody else's, so here are one or two pictures and a quick riff through the days to give you a flavour.

If you've been reading this a while you'll know that this is our 2nd Christmas living in Ireland but as we'd not built this house yet and only had the caravan. last year we retreated to Silverwoods and enjoyed their hospitality instead. All previous Christmasses since we've been together, Liz and I have always been invited away for the day, either to Pud Lady's place in Hastings, or to the Silverwoods. Hence we were determined that now we finally have the place to do it, we would be host and hostess and return the favour to the Silverwoods. We had all 6 of them plus 2 dogs from Christmas Eve round to the 27th. The short story is that it went brilliantly.

In terms of food it was a triumph throughout, with Liz and Chef and me serving as Sous-chef and washing up assistant, with responsibility for a few meals and some bits of others. The Monday evening we did a mild, yogurt-y beef curry with a Madhur Jaffrey Okra dish and our own home made Naan bread. On the big day we had the big fry up breakfast and, of course the massive turkey feast with an enormous ham provided by the Silverwoods and Christmas pud to Pud Lady's recipe (with an amusing omission of which more later).

 "Boxing Day" (which in Ireland everyone calls "Stephen's Day") saw us on a left-overs lunch and a supper of half-leg of lamb (no questions where that came from please) and on the 27th I did a lunch called "Flaming Bastard Fish" which came out of the Indy Magazine in 2004 as part of their series of celebrity recipes; this one being from Tony Hadley of Spandau Ballet and featured stuffing and soaking a whole salmon in a mix of soya sauce, ginger, hot  fresh chillies and spring onions.

Naturally with the 4 children involved, Santa was very much in evidence and managed to deliver a nifty stocking to each bed-foot and a huge sack to the base of the tree for each child. The kids woke at 05:00 but were confined upstairs and not allowed to wake the grown ups till 06:00 earliest. They invaded us at 06:00 and 1 second with their excited cries of "Santa's been!" We all descend the stairs and fix the grown ups with a cup of tea before Liz let everyone through to the Living Room and tree in a ceremonial door-opening. There follows the expected massive 'feeding frenzy' of wrapping paper flying and delighted cries of children as they mentally check list what they got with what they'd put in their Santa lists as well as buzzing with all the unlisted extra stuff. Liz tried to keep up with a dustbin liner in hand, gathering discarded packaging before it overwhelmed us.

With the Santa gifts opened, assembled and a bit played with, we adjourn through to a major fried breakfast, before returning to the tree to open presents from friends and relatives. That's when it starts to slow down a bit and goes a bit quieter with children playing with new stuff, trying to work out their new "android" smart-phones and Mr S trying to get M's new 'tablet' computer set up, some reading new books. Poor Mrs Silverwood, still recovering from flu and now from her 06:00 rude awakening falls asleep at every lull and eventually gives in, wraps herself in a new 'Snuggy' fleece blanked and takes a nap surrounded by pups.

The big turkey dinner is ready for about 17:30 with M, who loves to get involved in the kitchen, having got involved in helping put together a salad of baby leaves, pomegranate seeds, goats cheese, pine nuts, peppers-in-oil and a dressing.

The pud was a story in itself, assembled from an old family recipe recited over the phone by Pud Lady, mixed, stirred up on Stir Up Sunday and then boiled way back in November AFTER WHICH, we found the voice message on my old English mobile phone saying Pud Lady was very sorry but she had forgotten to tell us about the 6 ounces bread crumbs we needed in the pud. Liz quickly consulted cookery-expert internet chums who re-assured us that it would probably be OK, and so it proved. It didn't come out of the basin very well, but we repaired that split before flambée-ing it with Greek fire-water and everybody loved it and came back for seconds.

Stephens's Day was probably The Perfect Boxing Day - everyone on good form, relaxing, lots of playing with the new toys and games with the kids, gentle eating and a bit of drinking, a quiet dog-walk, a lovely chatty visit from our Small-Holdering Mentors Anne and Simon. Good company, good food and drink, lovely cosy house. It doesn't really get any better.

And then it was all over, the final morning, a 'fun' breakfast of quail's eggs on toast (eggs courtesy of Anne and Simon) followed by more play and some packing up ready to go, dividing up the left overs to give the S's a decent "doggy bag", a final lunch of that hot spicy fish, then piling everyone and all the mass of stuff back into the car. The Silverwoods have a big car, one of those 7-seat people-carrier jobs, but it was choc-a-block. Poor J-M, who came up all the way with the ham on her lap, had to go home again with what was left of the ham back on her lap.

Off they went back to Silverwood to get ready to receive Mr S's own parents over from the UK for a few days. We were left with that "and... relaxxxx" feeling you get when you get your house back and a goodly amount of clearing up, putting rooms back into 'between visits' mode, a little washing (only lunch really) and then some catching up on the computers. We work an "all computers off" rule for these occasions - it's what Mrs S does in her own house and it works well.

So. That was that. I hope I have not been too long-winded. Now back to that small holding, where it is, almost inevitably, raining again.

More Barding from 1998

From: "Haggis (Bah Humbug!)"
Subject: [WESTIE-L] Haggis-the-Bard's Christmas Humbug
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 21:47:24 -0000

(Why does everyone do soooooo much shopping?)
Haggis's Dad's TIRED..........

Haggis writes..........

Who invented mince pies?
Please tell me who it was
Who invented mince pies?
I want to know because..
I'm not allowed to eat them
What kind of Christmas fayre
Is that to waft-at-my pow'rful nose
Come on you sod, be fair!

You humans fill your kitchens
Your sideboards and your table
with goodies much too much to eat
much more than you are able
We dogs can only watch and hope
as good food goes to waste
You tell us all that shortbread
Is not to Westie taste

There's choc'late, sweets and nuts and pud
There's cream and beer and rum
But what is there that's Seasonal
to fill a Westie's tum?
You humans open up your gifts
Which chocolate will you choose?
And all I've got in MY gift wrap's
more bloody raw-hide chews

We're bored we've not been walked again
My Daddy's working late
I've watched his "second helpings"
but there's nothing on MY plate
You sit and snooze all bloated
The weight is off your feet
You're happy that you've given me
Some scrawny turkey meat

You're full of Festive spirit
You set the Christmas tone
But all I've got to feast on
Is this boring dried-up bone
So, who invented mince pies?
I'd love to meat the swine
I'd tell him, stick his mince pies
Up where the sun don't shine!

Megan, Haggis and Kalamazoo
Home for the Bewildered

The run up to Christmas

With Mum through her cough and back feeling ready for some more house-bashing, we head back for the house in Roscommon. The children are still at school, so we do the school runs first and also call off in Roscommon town for some essentials, not eventually arriving at the house till about midday. Mum heads for the caravan to make coffee, Dad into the house to get the usual fires going, one in the hearth in the living room, the other in the range. Rather fortunately we have discovered a stack of very old, almost rotted through sacks of anthracite on a pallet amongst the grass by the skeleton formerly known as "hay barn". The pallet and bags are almost gone but the anthracite is made of sterner stuff and a half bucket lobbed onto the range fire or into the real fire lasts hours and gives more heat than the peat briquettes or turves.

As a result of all this daily heat we are noticing that the poor old house, which has seen 15 sequential unheated cold damp Roscommon winters is starting to dry out and warm up nicely. There is residual heat in the place and the copper tank is still nice and warm when we first go in of a morning and we also think that chopping off the plasterboard walls, taking down ceilings and clearing away rubbish and dodgy floor layers lets the warm air get in and around helping to dry out the damp-traps. This morning we even noticed that the kitchen floor and the floor of the 'foyer' are properly dry in the morning despite rain all night, we have not seen that before - they've always been damp from wet walked in on our feet and boots the previous day.

Over these two days the jobs are to take down the ceiling of the right hand bedroom (east end), to take down the ceiling and the plaster board walls of the kitchen (plus cutting through the old plumbing of the ancient kitchen unit, removing it and breaking it up into scrap metal and bonfire). For a bit of fun we also clear out the out-buildings we are calling "the office" and "the original cottage". The latter is named because although it is now a byre, it has a chimney and a human sized door either side, making us think it was originally human habitation, abandoned when the new house was built circa 1900. Among the junk we are tossing out (old rotted wooden barrels and oil drums, wood-worm ridden farm implements and tools, numerous sacks of old baler twine bundles, bags of bags and an old shipping luggage chest labelled Queenstown. Queenstown as far as we know was renamed Cobh (Cove) in the 40's, so how old this old chest was we weren't sure, but it was crumbling with woodworm so it went on the bonfire.

Enough for now.
More soon
Deefs

The Great Adventure

The big day has arrived. The Adventure begins in earnest. Today's plans involve collecting the trailer from 2CV Llew's place the other side of Canterbury and bringing it back here so that the two cars and the trailer can be packed with all the stuff that remains here. This is not too much although it has grown slightly since Mum moved into Diamond's with the addition of various gifts and acquisitions. It's what came here in the little Fiat Panda, plus Dad's overnight bag which came on the plane, a couple of boxes and a few bits which have lived at Llew's workshop since our (Oct 3rd) move out from the old house; a bizarre collection of empty crates and buckets, the loft ladder and the fallow deer antlers and a printer.

The box is the lovely collection of "silly" presents which the Swindon side of the family gave Mum and Dad when they were down for the Christmas meal recently. All individually wrapped and tagged with an amusing luggage-tag they would be things like rubber gloves ("for the hands-on down and dirty stuff"), a packet of "Builders' Tea" (for when you need a drink), woolly hats, vitamin pills, scrubbing brushes and so on, as well as more serious stuff like Jameson whiskey and fizz. We should have kept all the labels - some of the comments were inspired - but like you do, they ended up swept up in the wrapping paper blitz. There are also now Mum's leaving do gifts. We hope all this will fit in the two cars and the trailer fairly easily with nothing over loaded and no visibility impaired.

The plan is to pull out of Faversham (Wagons Roll!) about 1pm just so that we can do some of the journey in daylight and take it fairly gently up to North Wales and Holyhead Docks. We sincerely hope not to need all those 11 hours to do the distance. We are all booked on the overnight ferry 02:50 with sleeper cabins. Then tomorrow morning the plans involve driving across from Dublin to Strokestown, Co.Roscommon where we hunt down the solicitors office, sign the last bits of paper and take possession of the keys to the new house. We motor on to the house, fight our way in and then poke around to see how much "clearing" the three sisters have done, and what we are left with.

The 2CV and trailer then remain at the new place while Mum and Dad drop down in the Fiat to the Silverwoods where Mum and Dad and we dogs and the in-Laws are re-united and Brand New Life (BNL) starts for real. Everyone will stay the first night at the Silverwoods; after that it's all open to discussion and what opportunities arise as BNL takes its own new course.

So, readers, this is probably the last post for the moment till we can get enough kit and electricity together in the one place to restart the story. I know that many, many people are wishing us all the best and a safe journey and we all thank you very much for that. Updates soon.

Deefs

Four More Sleeps

While the rest of the Western World might be waiting for Christmas and telling their children "19 more sleeps" to rein in their excitement, in our family we are on "four more sleeps" in anticipation of the Great Adventure on Sunday afternoon through to Monday morning. Mum and Dad are in a kind of temporary routine. Dad's alarm goes off at 07:30 and he shares breakfast time with Mum, cooking toast this morning. Diamond stays a-bed a little while longer. Mum goes off to work for the pre-penultimate time this morning well wrapped in the new pink "Commander Dave" coat, woollen scarf, purple big bobble hat and gloves, lap top over her shoulder. She opts to walk. "It'll do me good", she says.

Dad is off to the caravan this morning to clear out any perishables left there when they stop using it and make sure it is fit to be handed back to 2CV Llew. Main events though are a public screening of the new Mike Maloney (Countrywide Productions) barge film "Red Sails" which features a lot of SB Cambria and actually has Dad's name in the credits. This is happening in the cinema ("The Royal") in Faversham Town Centre and is free so we expect a big turn out and there is an option to show the film again later in the afternoon if it is over crowded.

Then tonight is the next in Dad's succession of farewell do's, this one the 2CV club lot having their Christmas Dinner at the pub the group uses for it's club nights, the Haywain in Bramling, just east of Canterbury. Llew is driving tonight so Dad can have a beer or two.

Last night Dad bad farewell to the Horticultural Society for whom he has been Treasurer for 11 years. It's a lively club holding 4 Shows, a dance, 2 or 3 coach trips (one a 4-night holiday), a quiz and 12 Speakers Nights per year. It has a turn over of about £20,000 per year so there is plenty for the Treasurer to do and Dad has enjoyed it but last night is the AGM where Dad must present the audited accounts one last time. They all seem to love him there (poor fools!) and he gets a nice send off with votes of thanks coming from all ways and a presentation of an engraved pewter tankard. There is a small party in his honour after the meeting which includes a cold buffet which features cheese straws, a known favourite of Dad's and subject of plenty of joking by the many little old ladies and aul' fellas who make up the Society. Dad is succeeded (as they say) by new Treasurer Alf so good luck to him. Dad hopes he enjoys the job as much as Dad did himself, all be it Dad is now pleased and relieved to be handing over the tiller.

Four More Sleeps

Deefer

Must be Close

It must be getting close to Christmas now - we noticed that even the Regular dog walkers on the Rec are starting to say "Ah well, if I don't see you again before Christmas, have a good one, now" as they part company.

Dad is doing some long crazy hours too, and only twice because he was stuck in the snow. Snow's all gone now although it's very cold and there is more white stuff forecast. The gang had a load of Mum's friends and colleagues over Friday night for a major meal and party. We love all that - plenty of extra people to make a fuss of dogs!

From there Mum and Dad headed for Isleworth to visit another of Mum's friends, and forgot to come home that night. Must be their ages. There were rumours of lots of walking around Richmond by the Thames looking at the big-scale weirs and locks , Thames stylee, the occasional beer in riverside pubs and then on Sunday an extended walk round Kew Gardens. In the latter case Mum armed Dad with the birthday present video camera, so there may be some footage to check out soon, on You Tube.

We were left behind because the friend, Maisie Lou is a dyed in the wool cat person, having a very fluffy black boy-cat by the name of Beau. Normally quite chilled, he does not take to dogs apparently, and especially fast chasing type dogs, so we were abandonned to the tender mercies of the Angel B and Uncle Jim.

Then it was back to the grind stone with, for Dad at least, an extra quick night shift on Monday night where a server needed re-booting which couldn't be done while it was powering the day job at the 'New Shed'.

Enough for now
Deefs

My Daddy Loves.......

When First-Dad was out Christmas shopping in Marks and Spencer, he came across tins of shortbread with cartoon westies on the front and, naturally, bought a load. To cut a long story short, one came to current-Dad, and was much enjoyed over Christmas, although the humans kept it to themselves, and we dogs didn't get any.

Back at work, Dad was thanking First-Dad and commenting on how nice was the shortbread, when F-D asked if we dogs had had any. Finding that we hadn't F-D said that dogs LURVE shortbread, and that he'd given some to his (my Real-Mum (Mollie), Real-Dad (Hector) and bro' (Archie). Complicated innit?

The shortbread was in the tin in those discs which are pre-marked into 6 segments. F-D had put the tin down, broken off a segment and was further breaking down that triangle into dog-sized bits as a treat. There you go, Mollie....... there you go Archie......... Hector! Hector? Where are you, Hector? (silence)....... F-D, suspicions aroused, goes hunting for Hector and finds that he's nicked the next whole round out of the tin, run off to hide and is frantically trying to cram the whole thing into his mouth before he is busted!

Mum was unkind enough to look at me and say "Now we know where she gets it from......"

The nerve, I tell you
Deefer

Now why didn't I think of that?

D'ohhhh! There we all were looking for Westie-flavour Christmas goodies, and frustrated by the lack of westie-flavoured Christmas cards coming from the usual sources (Blue Cross etc), when had we thought about it, all we needed to do was google "westie AND christmas" (the capital "AND" makes the search engine go off in search of websites which contain both words). Step forward, The Westie Shop

http://thewestieshop.designsales.co.uk/en/westie-christmas

...and a wealth of cards and all sorts. Ah well, too late now, but we'll know for next year. As it was we went with various RSPB and Blue Cross cards anyway, plus 60 off a Truprint use-your-own-image one which featured Mum sitting in the project 2CV car "Mademoiselle" by the road sign for the French Town of La Chapelle d'Armentieres (but that's a whole 'nother story - search this blog for the "Mademoiselle" word and you'll see).

Meanwhile, rain, rain and more rain as we drip and slosh gently towards the end of 2009. Happy New Year, everyone. And Mr Silverwood and Em-J, we hope you're feeling better soon.

Deefski