A very wet day.

It is still raining here. Continuous, relentless water falling from a dull grey sky. Not a day to be outside, apart from essential stuff.

So, I cleared the ironing mountain (!) and then made a start on the mending pile. I have dropped 4 dress sizes since June, so this was much needed work :) I have a load of clothes which are now too large for me so I am taking in as many as I can to save some money by not buying new clothes. Most of these will only be worn in the garden although some are good stuff - some of the more difficult/expensive/favourite items I will take to the seamstress in Ledbury to be taken in for me.

I am all set up in the corner of the sitting room, the fire is lit, I have music or Radio 4 or TV to entertain me if I wish and a mug of tea.

I also got lots of old clothes cut up for rags, quilting and buttons. As they are all natural fabrics the remains will either be composted or used to make char cloth for fire lighting in the wood.

After a lengthy session with needle and thread I have 8 pairs of trousers taken in at the waist, legs taken in up the seam and some shortened as well (I have not lost height, but I had not got around to shortening them!) That will save me some money not having to buy new trousers :) I also have three shirts which have been taken in at the sides and bust and three favourite t shirts which have had the same treatment.

And it finally stopped raining late afternoon and the sun came out, so I went and picked the last of the Cosmos from the cutting garden to add some colour to the house :)

All in all a good and busy day  :)

The joy of the "everyday" life

After the excitement of the last couple of weeks, fun though it all was, it was a bit of a relief to settle back into the "everyday" routine. I am a home loving Compostwoman on the whole

Typically my daylight hours starts and ends with doing the chickens. The Seramas are as enchanting as ever; tiny, clockwork like movement, fluffy bundles of feathers they run around at my feet and are one big social group. I let them out of their run while I do the various jobs around the barn and they love exploring, but never too far from me :) If one gets separated it is very upset and squawks madly until it is reunited with the flock.

They are very attached to their run, though and after 10 mins or so will all troop back inside, without any chivvying from me :)

Next I see to the "big girls" all five have settled down to a happy, mostly-non-pecking, pecking order and are content in each others company. I am getting 4 eggs most days and several times a week all 5 lay so we have lots of eggs available. Which is a good thing for me as on The Harcombe Diet they are handy to have to eat lol. Five hens is a good number for us to have I have found. The sixth hen, Amber Poppet, was too poorly to recover from her recent illness despite the antibiotic treatment, so I sent her gently on her way one evening. Sad but neccessary.


Then it is time to see to Juniper the last remaining Guinea pig. She is quite old now so does not move around a lot but loves a cuddle and to be brought into the house and sat on a lap for a while. We try to talk to her as much as we can and not leave her to be lonely.

I am always accompanied by Cassie my furry cat familiar when I go out to see the animals. She loves to come for walks with me and always dashes to the gate before me so she can jump up on the gatepost and give me a kiss. We all watched the BBC Horizon Secret life of cats TV series last week and it made for very interesting viewing - I think our cats would show up, if tracked, as farm catsbut with lots of lazing around in the house as well.

The rest of the day at the moment is spent on any number of the following; washing, tidying, sorting out stuff, working outside, cleaning out one or both chicken houses and runs although I try to stagger this job, having a bit of Fb and blog time at lunchtime; cleaning, helping Compostman, mending, sorting out my clothes which are TOO BIG ( joy) taking in my clothes which are TOO BIG (if I can), a bit of archery practise, picking veg and fruit (although that is tailing off now) and maybe some composting. A mixture of inside and outside work and fun throughout the day.


Some days are wet so most of the jobs apart from the essentials are inside ones; some days we go out to shop or to a museum or library.

In the evening after doing the reverse chickens- guinea pig routine I watch TV, read, craft, chat to the family and do more stuff on the computer. The woodburner has been lit for the last week or so, now so the evening are very cosy in our sitting room.

Normal, routine, everyday life:) I love it.

Marjoram update

She is still with us :)

She is still living in the house in the cat carrier but now goes outside during the day with the other hens , who on the whole are kind to her :)

I DO watch to make sure, though .

I take her outside when I go out to sort out Chicken Village, I put her down at the top of the wood, where  Chicken Village is situated.

I get Nutmeg out from her Broody Duties, and the two of them eat together - they were good friends before Nutmeg went Broody and Marjoram went moulty and then ill.

No other hens interfere as they are still shut in, it is just these two old girls, together :) And me - another old girl, sitting on the bench, drinking tea and chatting to them. Sometimes Cassi Cat joins me :)

Then Nutmeg goes back to The Eggs and Marjoram finds a quiet and sunny spot to sit and rest :)

Setting aside the worrying  stuff about Fracking - we have been harvesting lots of produce from the veg patch in the last few days.

I feel a sense of dread at what the future may hold for us here around Much Marcle if Fracking does come here :(

I have just told a friend about it and she was shocked - she had no idea of the issues involved or that there was such a threat in Herefordshire.

But life has to go on, even with all the turbulence around us. We have a water leak in our kitchen, and have been lifting spuds, and having friends round to drink tea.

Please, if you could, sign the petition Ban Fracking in Herefordshire

Blinded by the light - on being woken up earlier than I would like, and how to stop it.

At the moment we are sleeping in a bedroom which has one large window, facing East.  I recently noticed that I am being woken up, earlier than I want, by the early morning sun streaming in and hitting me in the face. We have lined curtains, but obviously not lined with thick enough material to block out sunlight.
 

Thinking about "covers for windows" and how well they work has become a higher priority for me because the Pink Bedroom, which Compostman is currently refurbishing, has not one but two large windows, one facing North and the other facing, yes you guessed it, East. So when we move into this room (soon!) we will have the same issue with early morning sunlight in our faces and an additional window letting in light. We can't turn our bed around, so we don't look at a window, as the shape of the room precludes that.
 
We always planned to move into this room when it was completed (only waited 16 years!) As we are now fast approaching the "choosing paint and fabric" stage of the works I need to find a solution to the problem now.

What I have done in other upstairs rooms is use blinds; to me they seem to block light without shutting it out altogether. Thinking about it, we actually have blinds in all the upstairs bedrooms except ours and the Pink Bedroom. Compostgirl has blinds and curtains in her (South facing) room and all the South and West facing windows downstairs have blinds. It is only the sitting room and dining room which have curtains.

So, problem solved - I will be getting some blinds for our new bedroom  - so the question is, what sort and what size? We want to measure and fit them ourselves rather than have someone do it for us, so after a quick Google search for bedroom blinds, I had a look at  Web-Blinds and found lots of helpful advice.  I had no idea there were so many different sorts of blind!

The Web-Blinds site also has lots of useful information on how to measure for a blind and a wide selection of different patterns and colourways. I also found easy to understand fitting instructions for all the different types of blind :-) And if you would rather someone measured and fitted them for you there is a link to their sister company, Hillarys.

In the other rooms I have simple roller blinds but I think for our bedroom I would like Roman blinds - although I am very tempted to get some roller blinds made using one of my own images (they call it a Digital blind on the Web-Blinds website)

Maybe something like this, from when I went to Garden Organic last year?

The bee garden at Ryton.

or this?

Marigold Hen

I think Compostman would prefer this, though!

The JCB

Hmm. Maybe just a nice, lightly floral pattern, instead?






Disclaimer - I am looking around for ideas to decorate the newly refurbished Pink Bedroom (may need a new name as it may not be pink much longer)  This post features a paid link to a company I would be happy to order from, in the future. As always, the words I write are my own and are my honest opinions.