Sarah's Blog
Category : Wildlife
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Mad week
Been a rather manic few days. We've had to have a new shower fitted because ours died. The landlord decided to splash out and get us a rather expensive, flashy one but when the electrician came to fit it last week he discovered the wiring was a bit knackered. Worse than that it was, apparently, dangerous! This surprised us because the other shower had only been fitted (by someone else), 2 years ago when they re-did the bathroom. I said to him that, surely, the other people had obviously thought it was ok. He said, "it's not ok ... it's really not ok". Um... righto. By all accounts we're extremely lucky not to have had a housefire. Heavens! Go and have a shower and BURN the house down! Fantastic. So, he came back this Monday and put in all new wiring which took FOREVER and resulted in us having the electric turned off for most of the day. He left and Tim went to have a shower ... he was in there less than 5 minutes when the thing stopped working and fused the rest of the house. Perfect.
We phoned Richard, the landlord, who was INCREDIBLY apologetic (almost beside himself by the sounds of it) and arranged for someone to come round first thing this morning to sort it out. Anyway, long story short ... it now works and is utterly blissful! :)
What was also utterly blissful was the weather today. Sunshine, blue sky! Ahhh! more of that please! Even the birdies outside seemed positively ecstatic and making much noise!
Floyd has now settled in nicely and has stopped hiding in the shower. In fact, he's doing a pretty good line in taking over the place ... witness....
"my floor"
"my sofa"
"my bed"
"actually, Floyd, I think you'll find that's April's bed"
"no, it's mine"
"oh, ok then, she'll have to sleep on the floor I guess"
"no because that's mine as well, REMEMBER?!"
"oh yeah, silly me"
"idiot human"
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Sunday, January 02, 2011
Doesn't it feel GREAT?
I love a new year I really do. It's so refreshing to be able to put the old one exactly where it should be (i.e in the past) and move on. However, there is naturally a temptation to look TOO far the other way (i.e into the future) and start focusing too much on that.
As I said in a previous post, I have no resolutions and one reason for that is because it causes me to look too much into "what might be coming" instead of enjoying the here and now. We're not fortune tellers, we can't possibly know what is going to happen to us and, as such, there is little point in making plans for the future that are too concrete. Life, as we found out towards the end of last year, has a nasty habit of throwing you a curve ball and ruining your best laid plans. Sure, it's good to have little hopes and wishes but to say "by the end of the year I WILL have done xxxxx" is just asking for disappointment. You MIGHT achieve it but what if you don't? To be honest, I prefer to a) make reasonable "plans" that don't involve any huge life changes and b) accept that life frequently changes those plans for you and, if so, c'est la vie.
Now, before anyone huffs off thinking "uuurrggh! she's so UN-ambitious! She has no AIM in life!", let me tell you I do and it's a big one.
It's to be happy and have fun and enjoy life.
Be happy. Be responsible (as in pay the bills and educate my kids!) but, at the same time, keep a sense of childlike fun in life.
When I came to the end of last year I sat and thought about it - I sort of had a little giggle to myself as I realised JUST what made me (and my family) happy.....
- Playing. Someone (can't remember who which is shameful!) once said "You don't stop playing because you get old. You get old because you stop playing". So true. For heaven's sake! Is there a rule somewhere that says you can't play silly games because you're over the age of 10?! No. We play guess who? (the verbal version as opposed to the board game), we Mario Kart and Mario Party against each other, we build dens out of blankets. We tell each other mad stories. In the summer, the kids and I play a totally brilliant game which loosely resembles "sticky glue" - this involves opening the back door to the garden from Rosie's room and the back door to the garden from the dining room. Then, I am the "glue" and the kids have to sneak round and round, through the house and back outside and not get caught by me and "stuck" the idea being that I have to stick both of them. Of course, we start off silently creep-creeping round but, gradually, the game gets more and more crazy until it disintegrates into hysterical giggling. Don't even THINK about saying to me "but you're 40!!". SO WHAT?!
- Wildlife/nature/the OUTSIDE. In the winter me and the kids will crowd around April's bedroom window (the one with the best view of the garden) and spot all the birds and watch the rain or snow. In the summer we sit outside on the path and hunt for woodlice and ants, we go bee spotting, we try to see foxes in the garden in the evenings, we walk bare foot on the grass and grow food and pick honeysuckle off the bush and suck the nectar out (you have to try that, it's gorgeous). Nothing gives us so much pleasure as what happens right in our own back garden.
- Walking. Having a favourite place (or places) to just WALK is heavenly. For us, we love Hengistbury Head, the New Forest and the river in Christchurch. When you find somewhere that just "clicks" for you, it doesn't matter what horrors life throws at you, you just feel calm when you go there.
- Food/cooking. Get out of the processed food rut. MAKE STUFF! We love taking raw ingredients and turning them into a gorgeous dinner or cake or bread or whatever. The process of cooking is relaxing and the business of eating it is one of the best things in life. It's better for you, quite often costs less and tastes better.
- Creating. Last year, in January, I made a scrapbook with one page for each month. Then, each month, I added something to it - a card I received, a memory of something nice I did, something the kids or Tim achieved .... the act of creating is calming and it's lovely to be able to say something GOOD happened every month, however small. I'm just about to make this years book. Painting is something else I enjoy - let me tell you, I'm rubbish but I do love my creations and am like a small child bringing something home from preschool! Creating something sets you free, temporarily, from whatever else is going on in your life. You're focusing, for a while, on that ONE thing.
Here's a sage bit of advice ;) Go ahead and listen, the song itself is enough to make you grin :)
"You work and work for years and years, you're always on the go
You never take a minute off, too busy makin' dough
Someday, you say, you'll have your fun, when you're a millionaire
Imagine all the fun you'll have in your old rockin' chair
Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think
Enjoy yourself, while you're still in the pink
The years go by, as quickly as a wink
Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it's later than you think"
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Sunday, December 19, 2010
Nearly Christmas!
Nearly! Nearly! Just look at this - our Christmas tree with the snow outside (and only a few days from Christmas day!) ........ I know some parts of the country got this last year but we didn't. In fact I can't rmember the last time I saw this .... beautiful!
Talking of beautiful, I saw a Bullfinch today! I've not seen one of these in our garden before (although I'm sure they must have been there) - blackbirds, bluetits, dunnocks, green woodpeckers, magpies, robins a-plenty - even a ring-necked parakeet at one point (just the one mind you), but no bullfinches. He (she?) sat there patiently while I took a TERRIBLE picture (several in fact) - look at that front-view - how fat! *laughs* BAAAAD blur going on....
In the run-up to Christmas there is always plenty of good stuff to watch on telly (I have a VERY sad habit of going through the Christmas Radio Times with a red pen marking everything I want to watch heehee!) - last night Tim and I watched Blackadder (the one with Kate/Bob) and followed that with Bridget Jones's Diary. Tonight, it's The 100 Greatest Toys with Jonathan Ross and the NEXT Bridget Jones film. Looking forward to them :)
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Thursday, October 07, 2010
Autumnwatch!
Tonight ... on telly .. Autumwatch starts!! Yeeeeesss!!
I am pleased. Can you tell? *laughs*
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Saturday, September 25, 2010
Sewing, sewing and more sewing
I'm doing a lot of sewing at the moment! Here are some pictures (sorry, my camera has run out of batteries so I'm using Rosie's which doesn't take such good photos). First, a little checked bear (with a cute sideways smirk!)
I've also started cross stitching my Christmas cards - yes, this looks messy, I'm used to working in chaos! I'm in the middle of doing a sort of curly Christmas tree (just on the right there)
This is going to be a little stocking filler for April (shhh!), a sparkly pink walking finger puppet bunny (got pattern from Wee Folk Art) I've hidden him in my sewing box drawer! I even managed to unearth a piece of pink ribbon for his neck to match the heart!
I had a nice afternoon as Tim took the kids up to Avon Heath for a couple of hours so I could have some quiet time. Been aaaages since that happened so it was most enjoyable! Didn't do much in the end - just read, sewed a bit, sorted out Rosie's birthday pressies ....
Ooo! I also found that Autumnwatch starts on the 7th October! As last year, it's on once a week (Thursday's this year though rather than Friday). It starts on the day Tim goes back to work which, at the moment, seems a long time off!
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Monday, July 19, 2010
Bees and lavender
I've been making lots of lovely smelly things recently - with lavender. I love the smell (particularly around the house) and it grows really easily. Having lavender in the garden also attracts bees which is really, really important. I've made a little video (with some footage Tim took in the garden earlier) - please watch :)
So, what do you do with all that lovely lavender (apart from seduce bees!)? Lots of things! Here are just a few.
Hang it in bunches to dry (and scent the room!) Here's mine in my kitchen - it needs to be somewhere warm so that it dries quickly before it rots.
Make lavender water (which can then be frozen in an ice cube tray and defrosted whenever you need some)
Pull the flowers off the stalks and put in some fine cotton material
Fasten with an elastic band
Pop into a tall glass jar
Pour on boiling water, cover the jar and leave for 24 hours (sorry for the blur!)
Then, remove the bag and throw away the flowers. Put some fresh flowers in the bag and reseal with the elastic. Tip the water into a saucepan and bring to the boil then put the flower bag and boiled water back into the jar and top up with fresh (boiled) water. Leave for another 24 hours then tip into an ice cube tray and freeze.
Make a very special, dry-skin busting soap. First, grate up some unperfumed, uncoloured soap (mine is palm oil based). I actually used a zester to do this - takes a while but is strangely satisfying!
You will need: olive oil, lavender flowers and dried chamomile. You will also need some sillicon cupcake cases and a baking tray.
Put the grated soap in a glass bowl and put that over a saucepan containing boiling water. Set the whole thing on the hob on a lowish heat. You will be adding freshly boiled water to the soap mix but it needs to be on the stove to keep everything at a good, constant temperature otherwise your soap mixture won't melt down properly.
Put your lavender flowers in a plastic bag and use a rolling pin to GENTLY crush them
Make some tea with your chamomile!
Add about a cup of boiling water to your soap mix and stir. As it starts to melt down, add in the (strained) chamomile and the lavender flowers and a couple of teaspoons of olive oil. Stir. Looks a bit yuk at this point!
Add another cup of boiling water and stir again - it will be getting bubbly
Now, take the bowl off the heat - don't worry about any soap bits remaining because now you're going to beat the mixture with a wooden spoon. It will start to thicken up.
You can go in with your hands to squish out any remaining bits (make sure it's not too hot still!)
When you're ready, spoon the mixture into the cupcake cases and put in the fridge to harden off.
In a couple of days you can turn them out - hey presto! Cute cupcake soaps that are wonderfully good for your hands (got rid of April's nasty dry bits!) HOWEVER PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE test on a small patch of skin before completely lathering up with it to make sure it doesn't cause an allergy!!
Oh, and one final bee-related thing ..... Tim was tidying the front garden this afternoon and found a poor dead bee :( We have a little "animal graveyard" in our garden (created by April) to put any dead creatures she finds (woodlice, bees, spiders etc) - but before she put him there, she had a look at him under our mini microscope ......
I got a photo of his wing through the microscope
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Sunday, May 30, 2010
Hello Mr (or Mrs!) Woodpecker
.... green woodpecker - seen hopping about on our lawn - the back end of :)
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Thursday, May 13, 2010
Today I....
...enjoyed the lovely weather which was was warm and sunny and gorgeous despite what the weather forecast said :)
... met an odd looking man who came round to bring Tim a musical score for the show he's doing.
... played some maths games with Rosie (adding and subtracting negative numbers).
... got an email from a blog-friend who told me that Chris Packham was making an appearance at the Ringwood Waldorf School (to do something called Never Mind the Buzzards!). Oooo! I want to go!
... wandered round the garden with Rosie and used April's little old Fisher Price tape player to record bird and bee sounds (not sure why - was a nice thing to do though!)
... sewed a tooth fairy pillow for my little babe who has got her first wobbly tooth! It's hanging on by a thread at the moment so won't be there for much longer. The odd thing is that the new tooth is already there, already erupted, BEHIND the baby one! April is terribly, terribly worried she's going to swallow the tooth while eating because she's heard the story of Rosie doing just that when she lost her first tooth. She was eating a custard cream at the time!
... put Rosie's name down for a place at Young Rangers at Moors Valley to start in September when she turns 13. She's very keen to, eventually, work with wildlife/conservation so it's a really ideal step into that to start getting some experience. She's wanted to end up working with wildlife since about the age of 6 and is really very knowledgable :)
... and now I'm going to go and watch Bill Oddie on the telly.
Byee!
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Saturday, May 08, 2010
Squeak squeak
The kids were eating lunch today and Rosie spotted a tiny little woodmouse out of the window - he was rummaging around in our front garden flower bed :) I went out and managed to get a picture of his bum! You can see how tiny he was comparing him to that dandelion leaf on the left.
Then, while I was still there, he sat up beautifully and looked at me with these HUGE eyes as if to say "oh go on then, get a better picture!". So I tried but the batteries ran out on the camera!! I'm SO disappointed because he was sooo cute!
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Friday, April 30, 2010
THAT sort of day
You know the sort - where EVERYTHING gets on your nerves. Just stupid little stuff.
I woke up feeling a bit out of sorts and the feeling was not in anyway helped by the fact that I realised I had no hot water. The boiler has broken again.
AGAIN!!
Right, ok. So that was that. Then I thought maybe I'd do some cleaning but was feeling too lazy. So, I did some work with the kids and that was more successful. Then they went off to do other stuff and I played around on the computer until April called for me from her room "look! mummy! there's a funny bird!" The funny bird, which was perched right at the top of our fir tree, was in fact a juvenile heron! It was huge! I rushed off to get the camera, came back, pointed and was JUST about to push the shutter when ... it flew away. Aaarrggh!
Then we had lunch - chicken dippers and smiley faces (yep, me included because I had a mad craving for "toddler food" today). April pestered me endlessly while I was grilling which resulted in me NEARLY depositing a panful of smiles on the kitchen floor and her getting ordered away.
*Sigh*
Then, eventually, Tim got home from work and we went off to Tesco - I needed (amongst other things) some more ink but guess what? They'd sold out of the particular one for our printer.
Now ...... just about to get the kids off to bed and HOPEFULLY have a pleasant evening!
Oh, one thing that made me smile today - only 20-odd days until
Springwatch! Me and Rosie love watching that and keeping an eye on the
webcams at the baby birds :) ... and I...enjoy Chris Packham ... 
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Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Pictures
Not an easy time at the moment for a couple of non-bloggable reasons and on top of that I'm making zero progress with the website (Tim needs to do some of it for me and I'm going to have to wait until he's on holiday) but I've been photo-taking a fair bit :)
So, instead of rambling on, I'm just going to post some pics I've taken recently (some good quality some not so good but all nice I think)
April playing - picking flowers and playing in our little "woody" bit of garden - there's Katie (Hemmy's girlfriend too!)
A Great Tit - marching purposefully across the lawn - what he's looking back at I'm not sure! Baaad quality picture this!
Pretty flowers :)
Finally, a peacock butterfly that was sunning itself on our path
That's all folks! Got to go and get Rosie motivated as Tim's taking her to the dentist to have her fitted brace today - lovely!
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Monday, March 22, 2010
Setting a good example
Behold! Recycling pigeon!
I was in the kitchen this morning, making tea for Tim in an attempt to
get him out of bed (although, to be honest, I think probably this 
would be more effective.... I'm a real early bird and his reluctance to
get out of his pit in the morning drives me potty.)
However, I digress. There I was making the tea when I heard a big thump and looked up out the window. There was a pigeon which had landed in the old pigeon nest which we found last autumn and it was picking it to bits! When it found a (presumably suitable) twig, it flew back to it's nest site and then a few minutes later returned for some more at which point I got a little video of him :)
He has a good old rummage around trying to find just the right bit of twig!
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Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Art, telly and gardening
Despite ongoing sicky-ness, we've packed a fair bit into the last couple of days. Yesterday was utterly gorgeous weather wise and April and I spent AGES hunting (quietly!) for in-progress birds nests in the garden. We stared for a long time at our resident pigeon flying backwards and fowards ALL morning with twigs in it's beak. We've also got blue tits in the bird box in between April's and Rosie's bedroom windows which is sweet :) The kids decided (eeek! a bit of homeschool stuff slipping in here!) to make maps of our garden and start plotting where birds are building nests - this is largely so that they can go back in the autumn and locate the now empty nests and investigate them!
Today (noooo! more homeschool mentioning!) Rosie was studying Picasso in art and she drew, in pastels, a Cubist portrait (hers will be on the homeschool blog if you want to look). This looked like a bit of fun so I had a go to - here is my (rather lame) effort *laughs* - the neck is too skinny and the yellow side of the face is far too "sloped" - I think there should be a gentler angle upwards and off the paper. Oh well, it's good to be creative sometimes even if it does turn out shabby :D
I started watching a new series on telly - The Wonders of the Universe (9pm BBC2, Sundays) - Empire of the Sun was the first episode and it was totally amazing! The bit with the total eclipse of the sun was incredible! If you want to watch it you can still catch the first episode on BBC iplayer for another month.
Due to the increasingly better weather (although today was a bit rubbish) and the leaf buds popping up everywhere and the crocuses on our lawn, I've gone all garden-minded :) So, today, we went to our local garden centre and came back with 2 bags of compost and a tub of plum tomato seeds. I've also got various flower seeds and herbs to plant so I think me and the kids will get started on those tomorrow or the next day.
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Sunday, March 07, 2010
Very sicky
Not been about (blog wise) for a few days - been nursing the sick pretty much - and spring cleaning.
Just as April was recovering from her hideous virus, Rosie came down with a slightly less severe version of it. Then, just as she was (is!) recovering from it Tim got ill. Actually, I didn't realise that Tim felt ill until yesterday morning because he never mentioned it to me. He left for work at the usual time 4.45 ish (am!), I got back into bed and fell asleep. Then, about an hour later i was woken up by a knocking and I lay in bed thinking "eh?" and not sure if I imagined it or not. Then there was another knocking and I started to panic because I wondered who the hell was knocking on my door at quarter to 6 in the morning! Then the phone rang and it was Tim and he said "hello, I'm outside would you let me in please?!" Oh. Ok then.
So in he came and told me that he felt really ill.
You want to know something really stupid? Before he told me that he felt ill, I had no idea and no idea why he was home again. Did I think "oh my god he's been sacked!"? No. Did I think "oh my god, the car broke down!"? No. Did I think "oh my god, he's ill!"? No.
The first thought that popped into my head was "oh my god, maybe the warehouse burnt down!". What?! Well, I was half asleep! *laughs*
So anyway, Tim got up, left the house at 4.45, went for a little drive to Christchurch, told the work people he felt crap, drove home again and went back to bed!
Today our landlord came to visit. He lives up north somewhere and all the years we've lived here we've never met him. He was down visiting his parents so he'd thought he'd pop in and whilst he was here he measured the kitchen because, apparently, he's thinking of having a new one put in sometime. Lovely! It's a really badly designed, hideously old kitchen so a new one would be very welcome - he also said he'd design it in such a way as to create space for our fridge/freezer which is currently in the dining area! Oooo!
So that was that. Tomorrow afternoon Tim and his sniffles are going off to the church because he has a rehersal for the Easter service - lucky them - hope they don't get his germs!
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Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Loved up pigeons
We have this pair of pigeons in our garden that have been, for the last few days flying backwards and forwards in the garden with bits of twig and (presumably!) building a nest in one of our trees. I do like this time of the year when you can see the birds getting busy for a spot of ....ahem.. reproduction ;) It's fascinating watching them with building their nests and then (ooo! so cute!) when you get to spy a bunch of newly fledged chicks!!
Anyway, this morning I saw our pigeons snuggled up in a lovey way on the branch of the tree near where they are nest building and (feeling ever so slightly voyeuristic I have to say!!) I grabbed a picture of them.
I did laugh when I got this off the camera - can just imagine what they'd be saying if they could talk! Perhaps it's:
Pigeon on right: My darling! Your feathers are so soft, your beak so pointy - you are QUITE the most beautiful pigeon I've ever seen!
Pigeon on left: *blushing* oh .... *giggles* ... you're too kind!
Or, maybe right-pigeon is taking a more roundabout route to seduction:
Pigeon on right: fancy a popping in my place for some worms?
Pigeon on left: *thinking* ... "I know what he flipping well means by that!"
Or, MAYBE (gasp! horror!), they are adulterous lovers!!:
Pigeon on right: Look, it's like this, my pigeony-wife doesn't understand me .....
Pigeon on left: that's what they all say ........ (*thinks*, but GOD! he's gorgeous!) ... oh go on then! (you can't fight those primeval urges can you?)
Ok, ok, I'm getting COMPLETELY silly now! *laughs*
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Thursday, January 21, 2010
Knitting and new things
I'm still trying to plod on with Rosie's knitting - I think it's going to have to be unpicked and redone AGAIN though as it's clearly way too big :( I can see myself reaching the "tearing my hair out" stage before Monday at this rate!
Even though the snow is all gone, I'm still faithfully feeding the birds (you should you know!) only today I delegated the job to April as she had finished her school work and I was still working with Rosie. Off she trotted to sprinkle some left over fruit cake around the garden - see that big pile of branches STILL there from last autumn?! Shocking! :)
My little babe also started Rainbows for the first time this evening :) She had a good time and came home cheerful so she's going again next week (they always give you around 3 weeks "trial" before you have to pay anything). I'm pretty sure she'll be perfectly happy but I want to be 100% as I think it's damaging for force littles into doing things they don't want just for the sake of it.
Right that's that, off to get kids in bed and make dinner with Tim :)
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Friday, January 08, 2010
Icy
Blog post title pretty much sums it up - both in terms of the weather and my current mood. Actually, if I'm honest, I'm not so much icy as just suffering from a bit of cabin fever having not left the house for a few days due to inclement weather. We ARE however, going to risk it a bit later and go to shops (maybe "big Tesco" if we're feeling VERY brave!) and, while not exciting, at least gets us out. Tim has been out and about at various intervals over the week and he says it is VERY slippery.
Anyway, I might have been stuck at home but I have been having fun watching the birds :) I've been venturing out in the early mornings and skidding all round the garden putting food out for them (god! our garden paths are perilous in this weather!). The reward for risking my neck is that I've been able to retreat back indoors and watch them all feeding :) Here's a picture I took of a robin having some breakfast just outside our back door - my photography is really poor-quality first thing in the morning! *laughs*
Other stuff has got washed out this week too. The kids were supposed to go to their first yoga class on wednesday afternoon but the teacher cancelled because of the weather. This class replaces the trampoline class that Rosie used to do on her own last term. The problem with that was that it clashed too much with her orthodontist appointments which are also always on a Wednesday. So, we scrapped the trampolining and I hunted around for an alternative -the yoga class is brilliant because Rosie and April can both attend because it's mixed age. Although on a Wednesday, it's not until 4.30 in the afternoon so it doesn't clash with Rosie's teeth appointments. Finally (the icing on the cake!), Tim can take the kids to the class giving me a wonderful couple of hours (ish!) completely to myself every Wednesday. Perfect!
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Sunday, December 06, 2009
Santa baby .....
"........ is there any chance of a surprise this year?" *laughs*, I'm having a happy time compiling a list, for Tim, of Christmas presents that I might like this year. I have to do this every year because Tim has a morbid dread of buying me something I'd hate and then I'd have to put on an Oscar winning perfomance pretending that I did like it. It's difficult for me to understand because I've never had much problem buying people nice presents, I actually really enjoy it. I tend to listen to people a lot and store away little snippets of information in a part of my brain marked "could possibly be useful at some point". I think his fear is kind of cute really but, I've got to admit, I really wish that he would just go for it and take the plunge :) I've tried hinting sometimes in the hope that he might ... well, you know! Alas, the list making is the only way!
Anyway, other stuff. Rosie went off to her Guides carol service this afternoon at a quaint little old church in Hampreston. She, apparently, enjoyed it but it wasn't very long so I'm not sure it was a full and proper service or just a little sing-song especially for the Guides.
It absolutely poured with rain this afternoon - very suddenly and dramatically! The bird feeder outside fell over and I had to go out and stand it up again so I threw on the first coat I could find. This turned out to be Tim's work rainmac thing and it is HUGE! He says it's pretty big on him so you can only imagine what tiny little me looked like in it - swamped! Anyway, didn't mind the rain because there was a gorgeous rainbow :) April was thrilled - she loves rainbows. The photo isn't great because I couldn't get the whole thing in and it was actually a lot brighter than the colours in the picture look, but I just think rainbows are so happy-making. What you can't tell from the photo is that it was actually bucketing down!
Oh, and our printer has died. Not surprising really, it was very old and used extensively. I can't replace it until after christmas because all the pennies are needed for pressies for people. What would be really, really good is one of those super-quick laserjet printers - I do so much printing that this would speed things up hugely *sighs*
Right, off now. Got to tidy up a bit and then later, after dinner, I've got to do a bit more work on a present I'm making for Rosie.
Bye bye!
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Friday, December 04, 2009
Friends of the feathered variety
Made lardy-bird-feeders today (with a little help from the kids!) I always put out food for the birds but, when the weather is really cold, they need fatty food as well as just seed to help keep their little bodies warm.
These are just melted lard (yum-not) with birdseed, breadcrumbs and grated cheese mixed in. Then you just shove the whole lot in a little yoghurt pot (or similar) through which you've already threaded some string. Put in the fridge for a couple of hours and then tie up somewhere outside (I hung mine on the washing line near my other feeders because I like to watch the birds out the kitchen window).
I think the birds will need these because it has turned very, very cold - when Tim left for work this morning it was -1 and he had to take a jug of water out with him to defrost the car.
He's just got home from and we're currently trying to summon up the enthusiasm to go shopping - it's cold and getting dark out there and I'm not sure I want to!
Oh, before I go, here's a picture I didn't post yesterday - April blowing out her candles :)
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Tuesday, December 01, 2009
First frost
This morning I was greeted by the rather beautiful sight of sparkly, frosty rooves and fences - granted, I'm shivering because the heating is still not fixed but, hey! it was still beautiful :)
The poor old birds were almost certainly more cold than me and were hanging around this morning because my bird feeders were empty -shame on me! So, I went out and filled them all up (and noticed that the bird bath was frozen over!) and within a minute I had blue tits, robins, blackbirds and, I'm almost certain, a mistle thrush (although they generally prefer berries and it might have been after the ones that hang over our side gate rather than my feeders!)
Rosie came home from Guides last night with this:
I know, due to my shoddy photography it just looks like a pile of tinsel but it is, in fact, a very pretty table decoration :) It's a ring that she's twisted tinsel around and then put some gold holly leaves in the middle with a red bauble. You can't see the holly leaves at all in this - wish I was better at taking photos!
We're hoping to take the kids late night shopping in Bournemouth one evening (I remember doing that when I was a kid and the excitement of going out after dark and all the lovely christmas lights was SO huge!) Only problem is we're not sure when yet - got so much on what with Tim's churchy stuff (he's got evening practices on the 10th and the 17th and then 2 services - morning and evening - on the 20th!) and Rosie going off to Swanage for the whole day (she won't get back till late). She also has a carol service with Guides one evening too. We're thinking maybe, sometime during the last week before Christmas week. Hopefully. If all goes to plan. It'll be a nightmare trying to park but we're determined to do it!
Right, better get on ..... trying to brace myself to go and have a shower in the freezer room - sorry - BATHROOM. We're going round Tim's mums this afternoon (again!) as she's going to give April her birthday presents - not sure why she's doing it early, April's birthday isn't until Thursday.
Byeee for now! :)
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