R.I.P. Theo

Theo at a family wedding a while ago. 

I start this post with the saddest of news, the passing away of Liz's Father, Theo C who has been a feature of this blog for as long as it has been up here. We knew him as 'Mr SL', being the husband of Liz's Mum, Steak Lady. Regular readers will know that he had not been well for a while now and that some of Liz's missions down to Silverwood land had been to look after him as he was in and out of short stays in hospital.

Enjoying the sunshine outside here with Liz this summer.

He passed away peacefully in that hospital yesterday afternoon surrounded by all the family. He had been very much part of the bedside chat as the clan gathered and had just had his lunch. He was 88. We will all miss him - he was the best of men. Certainly to me he was the best Father in Law I can imagine wishing for and he always had a lot of time for me; generous, loving, welcoming and kind. I laugh now at my worries when 'courting' (does anyone still use that word?) Liz and knew I was going to have to meet her Father, impress him and ask his permission for Liz's hand, with me being a 'foreigner' and him known to be a passionate expert on all things Irish History; me coming to take away his kith and kin to another country. The 'perfidious Albion'? He was, instead, the best of hospitality, immediately bringing me into the family circle like that old 'cliché', "gaining a son, not losing a daughter" and his "Father of the Bride" speech was a mix of history and olde Irish (Brehon) Law around how auspicious it was to be wedding in November (the Feast of Samhain) and the old dowry set-up for the family women, that I will never forget. Love you Theo and I will miss you a lot. RIP my Friend.

Pink's ewe lamb. 

But what of things more local? Most exciting, I think, are events over at Sue and Rob's (they of the piglet-wrangling) rain soaked establishment. The ewe 'Pink', who you might recall I sheared this year as my first sheep owned by "someone else" and was true wife of the ram we borrowed to service our own ewes (the late Rambo) surprised Rob two evenings ago by popping out two tiny lambs.

Pink with both lambs.

It was lashing rain (as is normally the case) and Rob was doing his evening rounds when he heard bleating which was way too young to be the adolescent ram-lamb still hanging around with Mum. Investigating that far corner of the field , he found Pink there surrounded by afterbirth and with two lambs, on their feet, suckling away like good 'uns. That rainy cold night with the snow still melting in the field, was no place for these tiny newcomers, so the family have been rounded up and penned in a dry barn on good hay. This not without difficulty, apparently because the lambs, carried by Rob did not make the usual protest noises which bring the ewe anxiously following you across the field. They were quiet, so Mum looked like staying in the field where she could smell the afterbirth and presumably 'knew there were lambs here somewhere'. They had to park the lambs in the car-boot temporarily while they manhandled Pink over to a happy re-union. All sorted now, though. One lamb is a ewe, the other a tiny ram.

Soldier just fits in the wooden fruit bowl. 

I nearly caused Liz to choke on her coffee by announcing this birth in a text message saying that they had been born to "Rambo's wife"; which she took to mean one of OUR ewes. No Lizzie - ours are not due till Valentine's Day. That same evening Sue also got a message that the boar and sow combination I helped load for their trip to new owners in Sligo (Rodney the boar, Cassandra the sow) have now also recorded a happy event, ten tiny plump, spotty little piglets, all thriving and suckling from Mumma's 'milk bar' to a band playing.

Potato cakes with a difference - these left overs were mixed
'spud' and 'yam' mashed. 

I nipped over to S+R's place to see the new lambs and managed to coincide with the task of docking tails and attempted castration of the little ram. I had not seen this done before so I am always keen to see and try it and hopefully learn. Sheep-folk commonly use a special pliers which stretch out tiny rubber rings while you slip the tail (or scrotum) through the opening and then allow the band to pull back tight cutting off the blood supply to the body-part 'downstream'. The tail or 'tackle' then shrivels up and drops off allegedly painlessly if you do it within the first 3 days of birth.

With the spud haulms cleared and tomato plants pulled up
the chickens are let in the poly tunnel for a clear up. It is the
driest place in the garden currently so dust baths are the order
of the day. 

We had no problem with the tails but hit problems with the ram's 'bits'. The tiny testes (sorry if you're having your tea) do not stay helpfully down in the 'sac' while you apply the band, the lamb can draw them right back up tight to his pubic bones. You try to hold them while you manipulate the pliers but then you are sure you feel them slip back out of the 'noose' and you are left banding a fold of empty scrotum. Both Sue and I had a number of attempts but ultimately failed. They may try again over the next day(s) to see if it gets easier, but my sheep 'bible' (Tim Tyne's "The Sheep Book for Smallholders") says (p106) "The elastrator can be used to castrate male lambs but you should ask yourself whether this is really necessary. Most people do not bother nowadays as the modern taste is for smaller cuts of meat - ram lambs will be slaughtered long before they become a nuisance. Entire (i.e. not castrated) lambs will produce a better confirmation carcass with more muscling and less fat". I may see how Sue gets on and then decide what to do with mine on the strength of that.

Love's young dream? Guinea cock-bird 'Apollo' is so firmly
bonded with our remaining turkey-hen that we worry about
killing the girl. 

Our other main task lately is killing the turkeys, 2 down, one of our own and a bought-in extra to go. Here we hit another 'welfare' issue. 'Left-over' Guinea cock-bird Apollo seems to have fallen deeply in love with the remaining turkey hen who is about 3 times his size. These turkeys were always going to be Christmas dinner, not 'keepers' but if I despatch this hen I will be left with a broken hearted Guinea fowl - exactly what we planned to NOT have when we got the two new Guineas hoping one of them would be male and would pair off  with widow-bird 'Min'. The answer might be to kill Apollo too but he's going to fun to catch - Guineas are way smarter than turkeys when it comes to evading me. Ah well, more on this after this weekend. I will let you know how it panned out.

Finally a funny human story. With Carolyn (of the mini-horses) currently car-less due to a dead alternator I have been doing 'taxi' off and on and this morning I was on school-run taking C and Henry (3) along to the local pre-school. Henry is normally madly in love with the young teacher and no trouble for Mum to get through the door but today he had what she describes as "a little wobble", didn't want to go in and announced that "This is the worst day of my LIFE!" Oh to be 3 again, when the worst thing that ever happened to you was having to go to school.

As Fit as a Butcher's Dog?

3 dogs with a burnin' yearnin' to get amongst those piggies.
Poppy (Poppea) is closest to camera. 

It is almost a standing joke that a lot of folk who own dogs the size of our Westies, let them get way over weight. Rotund little barrels of flab with a leg at each corner, they waddle along slowly, slack on their leads in front of little old ladies who are bimbling along equally slowly. They never get any real exercise and they are spoiled rotten by over-indulgent "parents" who see them as their babies. They cannot run and they certainly cannot turn round to lick themselves clean. They usually die fairly young (maybe 7 or 8 for a Westie which might otherwise manage 14 or 15). I am, of course, carefully not mentioning any weight issues for the human; I am a bit short on moral high-ground there.

Towser (sitting) and Poppy

We have always tried to keep our dogs a bit leaner and more fit and in this we are completely at one with friend, vet-skills trainee and experienced show-dog preparer, Charlotte. Charlotte is quite evangelical on getting definition into that 'waist' and being able to feel ribs through the sub-cutaneous fat and feeling spinal processes. She tells us that fertility in particular in dogs, falls away as weight increases. She is currently involved in an amusing 'battle' with a Dalamatian bitch owner who would get her dog into pup using the services of Charlotte's superbly fit stud-boy 'Pongo'. At the moment this is failing because the lady-dog is, to put it mildly, 'indulged' and Charlotte is patiently (and generously) letting the lady try and try again (normally you'd get one try and a follow-up for the stud fee) while trying to subtly get through to the lady at each visit, that if she could only get some weight off......

Deefer chilling.

Well, in our case, Towser and Deefer have always been fairly slim and fit, but young Poppy was always given to scrounging round the other dogs' bowls after they had eaten. Up till about 6 months ago we were feeding tinned food (the best brand round here seems to be "Brandy") but also a biscuit mixer. The dogs were not eating the whole bowl full, they were sometimes not interested at all and they were also given, as Westies can be, to squitty bums. Charlotte noticed the extra 'cover' on Poppy at one of the groomings and commented, only voicing what we already knew but had been letting slide. Time for a diet, then for all three. We took them off the biscuits entirely and reduced their ration to one third of a tin each morning and evening. They only get the smallest (dried meat) treats occasionally and very rarely get bones and never kitchen scraps or offerings from the table while we are eating.

Well, you can see from the pictures that the new regime has worked, especially on "the Popstar" and their new slim lines are revealed after their April 13th spring buzz-cut. That 2 inch fleece no longer hides a multitude of sins. We hope Charlotte will be pleased. The bad news from this is for Pirate the formerly emaciated stray cat. He has definitely piled on the weight since we 'rescued him' and Charlotte is now zeroing in on him for being covered in "rolls of blubber" so he too is now on reduced ration. 2/3 of a tin per day instead of the full tin. He's not happy and comes wailing for food if he hears us in the yard but, hey, he's a lucky rescue stray and does not need to be quite that rotund. Meanwhile, 'Poppy' is mainly Liz's dog and I have been instructed that Liz's prefered spelling is 'Poppea'. Who am I to argue. Poppea it is from now on.

These narcissi are following on nicely
from the big daff-shaped daffs. 

On a completely unrelated tack, a previous post had me noting that I had found hand-cut turf workings down at the Kiltybranks dog walk, and I put some pics up on here of the cut areas. By complete coincidence, a guy living near here was in Googling "Hand cut turf Kiltybranks" and was amazed and delighted to see my pics of his workings and got in touch. To cut a long story short, I met him down there (we'll call him Paul the Turf) on one of my dog walks and we got talking and comparing notes. It turns out he is also a Brit and has been over here just a few months more than we have.

One of our new hellebores.

He and his good lady actually looked at our house when they were house hunting but she didn't fancy it because it was 'spooky'. He remembers the old VW Golf in the bramble patch. They just fancied a chunk of turf cutting bog, so they bought a slice of Kiltybranks and he has been happily cutting and drying his own turf ever since. Lovely bloke and a good contact. He also has a lively rescue dog called Sam, a collie, who was more than happy to race around with my three while Paul and I chewed the fat.

In beekeeper land, I am still without my faithful 'colleague' (Liz is down in Silverwood till Tuesday) but our new 'oppo' T-McC was around this weekend and the weather was gorgeous on Friday, so we two decided to go ahead with the big job of moving the bees (and frames etc) from the 'new' hive to my old white boxes. This mostly went OK but (shhhhh) between you and me, I have to admit to a bit of a scary, messy, error which nearly undid us, in which we narrowly averted disaster and which served to remind us that we are yet only beginners at this art. I won't go into huge detail - that'd be interesting only to beekeepers, but basically we decided (on the hoof) that we needed the brood frames out first, as they would go into the bottom box of the new build. I would therefore crack off the whole 'super' (shallow top box = honey store) and lay it to one side while we lifted out the brood frames one by one.

Unfortunately the gift colony was set up as 'brood and a half', with nothing between the brood box and the super above, and the bees had done a good job of gluing the frames below to the ones above using 'wild' honey comb (brace comb). When I went to lift the super, which was really heavy with honey anyway, some of the brood frames below came with it leaving me with a seriously heavy chunk of hive which I could not put down to sort out, could not slot back in place without risking bad damage (including to bees and the queen) and could barely hold up. Big problem!

Liz and Mr SL visit on Friday to admire the piggies.

I managed to put it down at a jaunty angle to avoid squashing too many bees, but the gaps meant that bees were pouring out of the tower in huge numbers and T and I were at serious risk of getting attacked and stung. Well, this is the short version of the adventure, so suffice to say that we remained calm and  withdrew a few feet to let the bees all calm down and they amazed us by all starting to relax and go back inside the badly stacked hive boxes. We were able to go on with the job, briskly reverting to Plan A, which was to take out the super-frames one by one before starting on the brood box and, that way, we got it all moved and reassembled before barrowing away all the now redundant hive boxes and frames, retreating, pleased not to be followed by any bees who might still be upset with us. Within ten minutes the flying bees were all back round the entrance and queuing to go back indoors.

One problem remains. In our rush to rescue the situation we did not thoroughly search every frame for the queen, so we did not see her and there remains a risk that I have inadvertantly killed her in the bodged job. We know she is (wing) clipped and marked, so if she fell from any of the frames onto the grass, she would be lost and unable to fly back into the hive (some bee keepers believe in cutting off half the wings on one side to prevent queens flying off when it is swarming time). I will not know for sure that she is still with us until we can examine the hive again and either find her or find new laid eggs which would be evidence that she survived our abuse. We finished the day determined to leave well alone for at least a week to let everybody (including the bee keepers) get over the trauma. We learned a lot. There you have it, warts and all.

In one final 'story', before the bee task, I received a lovely visit on the Friday from Liz, who brought Mr SL and Mrs Silverwood up on a flying visit, mainly so that they could meet the piggies, lambs and the rest of the gang. The pigs came out and were charm itself for their guests, who were bribing them with slices of apple. We all adjourned to JD Bob's favourite eaterie, Durkin's in Ballaghaderreen for a spot of lunch. Very nice too.

You will be relieved to know that the bees are all calm now and spent Saturday coming and going from the hive as normal. I will let you know how Her Majesty is (or isn't) in a future post.

European Lime and Cider Apples

3.93 kg of red cabbage.

With Liz back from her latest 'errand of mercy' down to the Silverwoods, the kitchen is once more its periodic whirlwind of activity. The Christmas Pud stir-up, postponed from the proper day (Sunday 23rd) went ahead with the usual lavish spread of ingredients packets all over the dining table and of course we both got to do a stir and make our wishes. I was instructed to bring in from the garden my finest red cabbage which we had been saving for the making of the Christmas 'spicy red cabbage' recipe. This had grown and grown and even took me by surprise by being 3.93 kg and as big as my head! Liz was suddenly scrabbling around all the fruit bowls and fridges for enough apple to go with it and raiding the onion 'ropes' in the car port for enough onions.

I love the sight of red cabbage shredded up.

The mix is now gently brewing in the huge slow cooker and in our big gumbo pot and will give us frozen portions nearly through to next Christmas. That is just from the one cabbage. While I was out there, I also lifted some more spuds (Sarpo Mira) and a few carrots. These crops seem to store best left in the ground, as long as you do not have too much of a slug problem. I found a few small clutches of slug eggs but nothing to worry about and the spuds are coming up nice and clean; it is just a cold wet job in the drizzle and I am happy that I can walk on the paths between the ridges to dig and also that we have a nice warm house to retreat to for a coffee.

The 2015 pigs are not even born yet, but a little old lady
we know of in Leeds jumped at the chance to name them!
Our pleasure, Olive!

The 'errand of mercy' was Liz staying at the parents' new place over the weekend keeping an eye on Steak Lady and Mr SL (the latter not long back out of hospital) but also able to nip round to the Silverwoods' and dog-sit their three Westies while the family de-camped to a hotel in Bray for a baton twirling competition (mentioned in an earlier post). This also gave Steak Lady a chance to abandon Mr SL for tasks like a 2 hour shed-clear-out, or any shopping, knowing he was well looked after, and chatted to by, Liz. Mr SL is thriving by all accounts and is up and about, shaved and out of his PJs looking much more like his old self than a patient. He has always been a very dapper chap and happiest in his suit. He was hating the unshaven, just got out of bed look.

A first rack of lamb and a good dollop of
home made crap apple and rosemary jelly

Exciting news this week when I got a text from our main tree supplier, FutureForests.net to say that 'our' trees were now out of the ground and ready for 'shipping'. I had seen on Facebook that they had had a fire at their premises but were hoping to get back to business as usual and they obviously have. These trees will be some European Limes (Tilia cordata x) which we are mainly buying for the bees. These limes flower in June which is a bit of a hungry-gap between the main flush of spring flowers (dandelions, horse chestnut, fruit blossom, blackthorn, hawthorn and the like) and the full flourish of proper summer flowers, the bramble and so on. A friend in the Cotswolds tells us that they are much loved by the bees and that a tree in summer can 'hum like a hive'. The writers in our bee keeper Federation mag (An Beachaire) also recommend them, so we are giving them a try. The rest of the trees are our first dip into cider apple growing and possibly cider making. We have bought traditional old Irish varieties (we love the names - Dabinette, Camelot and Dunkerton Late Sweet). We read that Irish cider is normally made with a 50/50 mix of the actual cider apples and what ever dessert apples were to hand. . These should arrive here either tomorrow or Thursday, so watch this space on that one.

Mk 3 sheep shelter (now with sides!)

Our old sheep man, Kenny, laughed when I first erected a shelter for the sheep back in 2012 when we had them in the orchard. These were tough Mayo sheep, he insisted, used to being out in all weathers on scruffy mountainsides. But they seemed to like it and use it, hiding in there when the nights were frosty or one of our mighty Atlantic squalls came driving through; this even though the shelter was a rudimentary affair with just four posts and a roof, with a 'back' made by tying an opened out builder's bulk-bag to the sheep-fence. I have done a shelter ever since, moving the old corrugated sheeting, the builder's bag and door-frame timbers around to which ever field the sheep were in. This week I got hold of Sparks's brutal diamond-cut angle grinder and cut out some bits for the sides. We are positively palatial and the sheep which should also be coming soon will be well protected. Mayo sheep they might be but 2 of them at least will be in the family way and will get, even if they don't need, a higher standard of pampering. The third sheep is too young to be got in lamb yet, but she can also enjoy the shelter while she watches and learns from her 'aunts'.

Windfall

A bag of windfall apples

One unexpected surprise, an unforeseen fringe benefit of Steak Lady and Mr SL buying their house down by the Silverwoods; this big bag of windfall apples. The garden which came with the house turns out to have some very productive apple trees and, this year anyway, the owners of the house had no interest in picking them, so they were just all windfalls on the ground beneath the trees. Liz picked them all up for 'us'. Initially she was helped by the 'smalls' who were amused by the idea of being able to feed the pigs from long range but one little hand grabbed up a squelchy rotten one and withdrew in horror, and the 2nd found one (he had been warned) with a wasp inside and that was enough for him, so all help evapourated at that point. These kids. We will make ruffty-tuffty farm children of them yet!

The Buff-Orp 'roo' investigates an apple

I was, of course, a bit careful feeding these apples to the pigs - too big a change of diet can upset their digestion, so the whole bag thrown in would not have been good. They did get decent sized portions though with each meal and now all the apples are gone. Diamond was reminding me of a pot-belly pig which was kept near our local farm shop in Kent which was once fed a whole bushel-box of over-the-top strawberries in one go and was later found lying on its back among the fruit, groaning and moaning that it couldn't face a single fruit more, it was soooooo full! The pig survived and was back on its feet next day.

These striped beef toms do not seem to do 'bright' red;
they stop at this mid-pink, but they are juicy and  very tasty.

We have heard from some "experts" (everybody round here claims to "know" about pigs because their Grand-dad kept them or the bloke next door has a couple) that the pork takes up the flavour of whatever you are feeding them most recently. Guinness, for example, is supposed to infuse the pork with a beery, marinaded flavour, though Liz would not let me give ours beer when I asked, saying that maybe they were a bit young for starting the boozing; they were only babies! We wonder whether these windfall apples will give them a pre-apple-sauced twang. However all this talk of marinading could just be a flight of fancy. Carolyn of the mini-horses (and also Gloucester Old Spots last year) tells us you'd have to be giving them so much beer to make any difference, you'd give them liver failure.

Neighbour-bull, Felix (centre) has a lie down with his
wives and children

Well, I am on my own again with Liz away on her third (and planned final) mission to assist with house moves, this time over in Kent where Diamond and husband John are moving from one side of our former town to the other. John has been completely renovating this new house over the last few years, as well as battling with the local planning committees (it's in a 'Conservation Area') and having a hip replacement operation. Now, though, it is ready, the carpet crew were in on 30th Sept and today the removal van and its crew of packers, humpers and shifters were due to turn up at 08:00 a.m. It's all gone very quiet in the Lizzie text dept. so I assume they are all hard at work. Both are not enormous houses (basically 2 storey terraces) but have steep and narrow stairs, so the removal men will not be rushing at either end. Liz believes these guys do best on copious supplies of tea, muffins and bacon butties, so they are probably all quite happy.

It is looking like a good year for sloes.

I am 'over here' holding the fort, mainly doing autumnal tidying jobs. I like the fact that when you prune or cut anything in the garden or the grass at this time of year it is likely to stay cut. If I move the rabbits off a bit of grazed-out lawn, I know it will not have sprung back to the same height within a week. Brambles cut, docks and thistles pulled and any areas cleared of weeds will stay that way going into winter.

The bees are still busy in the October sunshine

We have also been investing in some plants. A local small scale nursery and cut-flower grower divides up her perennials at this time and lets Anne know that now is a good time to descend upon her with a 'shopping list'. We bought some delphiniums and 3 colours of bergamot to add height and more bee-food to our big raised bed. Bergamot is not anything we have grown before but I am told it is loved by bees so it is welcome here. I am also waiting for the 'bare-root' tree season so that I can buy some European Lime trees (Tilia x-cordata) which I am told flower in a useful gap between the early spring flush and the start of the bramble flower. Lime are also beloved of bees.

In terms of tidying, on my dog walk today, I noticed that the Office of Public Works (I think that is what they call themselves here) are clearing the banks of the local river (River Lung) near to our local picturesque bridge (Feigh Bridge). A massive digger is smashing up all the riverside vegetation (mainly willow) and pushing this in a heap, back into the trees further back. Behind the digger a bare (if very efficient looking), twenty foot wide shelf ends at a bare 45 degree slope down to the water's edge.

The start of autumn colour; this creeper on a barn roof ridge

Subtle it is not. The little kingfishers I watch in the summer flashing along this stretch have presumably moved somewhere else. I guess if anyone knows what is needed for efficient land drainage it is the OoPW for this wet old county but I do feel for the wildlife so brutally evicted.

Big scary rooster....

Big scary rooster; poor defenceless sheep?

These days we let the sheep out for an hour morning and afternoon from their run (where the grass is almost grazed off) to the front lawn, woods and hedgerows for a graze and browse; where there's still plenty of grass etc. At the same time the chooks are out free ranging, wandering about as a group. Each hen takes her turn to peel away from the group to nip back to the coop to lay her egg and, when she's done wanders back to find the gang and William (The rooster). William is delighted to see them back and charges towards them making his throaty growly noise, racing up to the returning female and doing his little stompy dance, which seems to translate as "Yay hay! Can we make lurve now?"

This morning the 'gang' were in the woods and the 3 sheep grazing away just outside the woods, all with their heads down so that they'd not have been able to see the hens over the long grass and brambles at the wood's edge. Returning hen appears on lawn from far side, so sheep are between hen and gang. William spots her and charges through the undergrowth, 'exploding' out into the open just by the sheep, who freak and shy, stampeding away! Dad nearly splurged his coffee laughing. Not sure if sheep can look embarrassed, but ours came pretty close.

It occurs to me that we have not reported a visit yet by Steak Lady, Mr SL and Auntie Mary, the Nun (85). 29th September was the date, to nearly coincide with Mary's Birthday but they were mainly here to show Mary around. We have always been close friends with Auntie Mary, who has called Mum her "Little Princess" since a very young age, but who spent most of her life Missionary-ing in Africa. For a tiny, petite, soft spoken 'little ol' lady' she has probably seen more of horrific real life than any of us are likely to see and can quietly relate stories which make your hair stand on end - whole African villages wiped out by AIDS, persecution of Christian villagers, war, turmoil and strife, starvation and hardship. She is a fascinating person to talk to. The picture is left to right, Mum, Steak Lady, The Nun and Mr SL, with Towser sneaking in at SL's feet and Poppy just getting her nose in shot bottom right. The visit went well and they all love the place. They piled into Mum's food, loved what we'd done with Steak Lady's garden cuttings and admired the sheep.


We have also been on a visit down to the Silverwoods, birthplace of Towser and Poppy (and their 5 brothers and sisters). This was to have been so that Dad could see and get photo's of the children's new activity, horse riding lessons, which happens on Sundays with the two eldest and the two youngsters alternating weekends. In the event it got moved to the Friday so that we could babysit little R (4) while Mr and Mrs S took M (6) off to Dublin for an appointment. We could collect R from school and hand her over to Aoife the Social Worker who was to take her on a visit to her natural family, and we could also collect J-M from school in the rain. We took the pups along so that they could experience their first proper car ride and re-acquaint with Silverwood and the S's. So it was a good fun visit with lots of coming and going but never really got going as a whole family event or a meal because everybody was there in snatches in between zooming off on 'things' - even J-M was on a French lesson as soon as she got back from school and Em-J now does homework / study after school till gone 6 p.m, so we never saw her at all. 

Dad's 2CV is now being readied for her NCT test (=MOT). We have finally got the windscreen we needed and she is now in the garage where they are sorting out her ignition and mixture. She's lost the ability to idle, which meant a quick pull on the choke to keep the engine going at every T junction. The garage have tried changing points and capacitor in case it was an ignition problem but have then found the car is leaking air round the carburettor. We are waiting for Monday when the garage will let us know what we need to do about this - is it a new 'carb' or just the gaskets around it. Luckily we have 2CV Llew to call on at the other end of the phone, with a stack of old carbs stripped off dead 2CVs, so we won't have to spend £££s either way. We just need to get Llew to actually put one in the post, which has been, in the past, not anything you can hurry! We love Llew madly but he's nobody's version of 'urgent'. We'll see.


That's about for this one. 

Deefer

Steak Lady

Monday sees the first ever visit by Steak Lady and Mr SL to this house and Dad claims to be as nervous as when he was a-courting Mum and had to go meet the In-Laws for the first time. Then it was, "Will they think I am a suitable partner for their precious No 1 daughter?" Now, 20 years later it's all about whether they'd like the house and home we'd created and would they approve of the potentially mad thing we've done stopping work, selling up in Kent and moving to this Brand New Life. Mum was, I suppose, a little nervous about whether Steak Lady would think she was a good housewife and home maker. There was a bit of tidying frenzy, menus were drawn up and some special foods prepared. Zero hour was 11 and the stage was set. Sparks texted us an ETA having lent Steak Lady his satnav and set it running for them. The plot was afoot.

In the event we need not have worried. Steak Lady and Mr SL seemed delighted with the place right from the off. They loved the tour showing them all the rooms and they were impressed thoughout by the clean, light, newness and obvious build quality. Mum sat them down with a quick snack of toast with mackerel paté (from yesterday's beardy-Skipper's fish), fancy ham and cheese and Steak Lady piled in with relish. "I WOLFED it down!" she told a friend who called to see how things were going. Then we all got our wellies on and showed them round the fields and garden and, again, they were delighted. We adjourned to the sitting room (now set up as a clean 'best parlour' after the eviction of all kindergarten beasties). Here I schmoozed up alongside Mr SL who made a big fuss of me. He loves dogs anyway, and has 3 Yorkies one of whom is (the late) Coco's brother and litter mate. Kitten 'Blue' adopted Steak Lady's lap.

We were called through to lunch, which was a delicious fish pie plus peas and curly kale from the garden and everyone piled in again so that the dish was soon scraped clean. Steak Lady then produced from her car three lovely stocky healthy fruit trees with which Dad can start his planned orchard, a 'Katy' and a 'Red Windsor' apple and a Conference Pear. These needed a drink, so were stood in the tin bath for a while. They will not need watering much once they are in the ground here in Roscommon if this summer carries on the way it has been going, but the rain held off for our tour and for Dad to mark out the position of the trees in the planned orchard. They also produced for Mum's imminent birthday, a lovely fancy table cloth from Montenegro, where they'd been on holiday as part of a cruise.

And so the visit ended and Steak Lady  and Mr SL headed back to Dublin with the satnav re-set to home. They had been a bit nervous that we were 'so far away' and that it would be a difficult and exhausting journey. Now they were delighted that it wasn't so bad after all, 2 and a half hours of easy, mainly major road and motorway driving. They will be back, they promise. Safe journey, you guys! Sláin Abhaile.

By the time they arrived home, Mum and Dad had started the orchard, planting those first three trees, but that's for another post.