Confessions of a serial mower - scandal and wildlife

"Rummin ol day today" as dad would put it. Storm clouds but no rain; wind yet humid and close. Neither one thing nor tuther!

One of GOH's girls in the office has handed in her notice - she is running off with someone who is married and they want to start a new life away from the gossip! Gossip, we hadn't heard any gossip and feel well out of the loop!
We hadnt got a clue - she is one of the more serious, studious members of staff, not at all flighty or flirtatious - so we are all "gob smacked" as the saying goes these days. At least she is giving notice I suppose and not doing a moonlight flit.
So, quick advert put together, and hey ho, another one bites the dust.
She, it has to be said, has been rather "smilie" of late - now we know why!

Rescued a blackbird from the greenhouse before it bashed itself to death against the glass. I feel a bit like that myself today - must be the weather.

On a brighter note, the eleventh duck has resurfaced - she has not been eaten by Mr Fox but seems to have been alienated from the flock as it were. Brothers, don't get me started on that one. She sits alone and looks very sad. I am feeding her up and making a fuss. Bloody males, it wont be long before they all want to jump on her - ain't life grand!!

One of the mother pheasants has hatched off 12 chicks and they are strutting up the drive - more livestock to worry about.

I'm not actually as miserable today as my blog makes me sound - my wording is rather
morose - I am blaming it all of this flipping weather.

Confessions of a serial mower - down and dirty

Well I have just spent an hour and a half on the kitchen floor with our carpenter - lots of sweating, swearing and thrusting, but no sex. Yep, the integrated fridge has gone wrong, the new one has arrived and it is a different size!! My arms are small enough to reach the back to adjust the legs and said arm got stuck!!
Luckily I know carpenter man very very well, from junior school in fact, so getting down and dirty was not an issue. I mean dirty in the sense that the dust and debris behind my fridge and plinth was somewhat embarrassing. But, much to my amazement, no dead animals!
This is not the day I intended.
Firstly we had a power cut during a severe thunderstorm, then carpenter man turned up unannounced as his outside work had been rained off, and we "might as well have a go at the fridge"!
Whilst on the floor with said man, GOH comes home! His contact lens has come adrift and he can't sort it! So, he helps get my arm out and I then have to find contact lens under his eyelid. Typical Friday really. I hope you are all having a fun day too!

I took this picture yesterday afternoon and then saw @themill's border - I now need obelisks to complete the look I fear. Did you make them or did you buy them I wonder. There is talk of heavy rain here for the weekend so thought I had better record the roses before they get their petals all bashed.

I am now going for a lie down, alone!!!

Confessions of a serial mower - just another difficult day!

Hellfire and damnation. I am seething.
May 2006 I frequented our local Ford dealership with a friend of very limited means and a small savings account, to exchange her old banger. We struck such a deal and we were thrilled. Her old Fiesta was traded in for a 3 month old ex-demo Ka.
I did all the dealing and suchlike as old mousie is sometimes likened to a Rottweiler and I was rather pleased with myself!! It was a cute little car and just right for her. Her first proper car that wasn't a "heap". Something of her very own.
A year's free motoring was ensured for said friend with the final free
service being this May, all part of the package.

Wrong!!

Said salesman it seems was in the midst of a mad passionate wild affair at that time, his mind was on other things, and he did not write up the deal as we both understood it. He left the dealership soon after our transaction, and after some 30 years of marriage, ran off into the sunset with a lady he sold another car to!! He now, rumour would have it, drives coach tours all over Europe with lady lover and no one knows where he is based. Wonderful.
Anyway, friend goes to pick up little car from its service to be told she owed £200.00 and the service was not free and there was no record of it.
"Couldn't possibly be as it wasn't new when we obtained it". It had just 3,000 miles on the clock and was their demonstrator!! Why would I make it up.

We are both liars it would seem. Couldn't possibly have made such a deal - if we had it would have been logged etc etc. Well, the "loved up" salesman made so many mistakes on the sales document anyway, that we are at a stalemate at the moment.
It's a "he says, she says" dialogue.
Friend paid up, in tears, and I am now trying to get the money back.
Her husband, of course, had said she shouldn't have the car and she is now getting the "I told you so" spiel.

I was so pleased with myself at the time for sorting this out, without the use of GOH, and now the bloody thing has gone pear shaped. Now £200.00 may not sound much to most people, but to my friend, it is a huge big deal.
Hubby and I have over the years bought various cars from them, and now of course GOH has got involved. He was so incensed, and I have to admit, I am going to let him run with it.

Now awaiting a huge removal lorry - no, we are not joining Jane and moving to pastures new - in a rash moment when No 2 son bought the house in Portsmouth, I said would they like our dining room furniture as it would fit so well in the house.
Thinking it was far to old and traditional for them I thought I would make the gesture.
"Yes please" they said, "When can we have it"!! Sh*t!
They have now sold their stuff and need it now. So my lovely 12 seater table and chairs are off to a new life. I have managed to hang on to the dresser, which being oak, luckily isn't to their taste! I am now going to redecorate and get an oak table and chairs.
I will not be changing my car this year it would seem.

Photo is of son, daughter outlaw and the Heiress here at Christmas with the dining room furniture. I may hold back on the grand gestures in future.

On a brighter note, in the Telegraph this morning, I see it is very "now" to wear pink. Thank god for small mercies!

The great, the good, the rich and famous descended on Suffolk this weekend for one of the biggest house content sales of the year, held in a village nearby. The collection of furniture and objet d'art was huge and very valuable, and judging by the Telegraph this morning, made over £2 million! Keith Skeel the famous interior designer and collector is moving on and out and abroad. The side roads were awash with expensive cars and posh folk all vying for a piece of the action.
Not much there for us or that we could afford, so we headed out of Suffolk down to Essex to have lunch with four of our bestest friends.

The sun shone by lunchtime and we were able to sit outside the Barn Brasserie at Great Tey for pre lunch drinkies. This large barn conversion is a wonderful restaurant that even caters for the likes of me with my food intolerances and the menu is marked accordingly, gf, gluten free, df,dairy free and even vegan. Something for everyone and as usual the food was spot on.
For some reason or another the service was rather "hit and miss", but it caused us so much hilarity that we forgave them and accepted complimentary coffee to compensate.
We were called into the restaurant at 1.15 as our "starters" were ready. We were served from a huge selection of breads; tomato ,seeded, nutty, etc. etc.
Alas no warm oven baked fresh bread for me. However, because we were talking so much we clean forgot the time and by 1.45 realized we still hadn't actually had our starters and we were ploughing through the wine fairly!
We signalled the waitress and she promptly rushed over and started clearing the table. We explained we had only actually been eating the bread and "where was the rest of it". She looked aghast. There was much toing and froing from the kitchen and raised voices were heard.
She explained that we had been "breaded" and the kitchen hadn't been informed. Well, we all fell about as we had not heard this expression before - I personally thought it made me sound like a bit of scampi - or perhaps some deep dark masonic ritual or "blooded" as in hunting and all that.

Anyway it set the tone for the day and we laughed throughout. I think we left there at 4.00 pm - a hell of a Sunday lunch!

Our designated driver brought us back, and we finished the day off with nibbles and fizzy overlooking my stripy lawns. No one wanted bread.

Today is back to reality with the silage being cut in the next field and the huge baler coming behind. In my younger days silage was collected and heaped in large silage clamps on the farm to be used as and when. Now it is stored like big straw bales. I wonder if it is to do with Health and Safety - the clamps used to be covered with black plastic and old car/tractor tyres - I don't expect this is correct anymore!!

The deer have found my new rose bed of David Austin "Sister Elizabeth" roses planted in memory of my mum. They have stripped them bare of their leaves and all that remain are the pink frothy heads hanging forlornly on the twiggy branches. I would laugh if it wasn't so sad.
So no pictures of the roses, just one snapped through the hedge of the silage making in progress.

Confessions of a serial mower - an Aga Saga

A comment from Pondside made me realize we all rave about our Agas, Rayburns and suchlike and some folks, particularly across the pond don't know so much about them. So, in a nutshell, they are either two ovened or four, mine is two, run on gas, oil, solid fuel or electric, enamelled ranges. Enormous storage heaters that cook. Not cheap to run, but then they can do so much more than cook - heat water, radiators, press clothes on the simmering lids, drying herbs, preserving, toasting bread and crumpets on the hobs, and warming bums. There is really nothing quite like an Aga roast. You can even do a "fry-up" in a pan on the floor of the roasting oven.
Visitors tend to race across the kitchen and hang off the hand rail, warming their bottoms. Farmhouses and large country houses had them way before they became fashionable. They are instantly available to cook with, whenever, no preheating etc here. Rather than worry about temperature control you place your items for cooking in varying positions within the ovens - the top oven being the hottest etc. Sounds really weird at first, but you soon get the hang of it. Mine is run by propane gas as we do not have mains here, and is a rather dark chocolate brown - it was inherited with the house and this particular colour, whilst not my choice, has now come back into fashion and can be bought again would you believe. I knew if I waited long enough it would. www.aga-web.co.uk

Daughter outlaw, a new convert to them, has just purchased one second hand herself off e-bay for her house in Portsmouth. She has got the more traditional cream. All she needs now is her new kitchen to put it in - planning permitting! I know lots of you lucky things out there have four ovened ones and I am rather envious of that. Still, beggars can't be choosers. Still, having been brought up in a home with a solid fuel Rayburn which was a nightmare to control and keep clean, I was just plain thrilled to get a gas Aga of any size or colour. When we were in Florida last I saw a four ovened Aga going into a MacMansion as they are known - even in the heat and humidity of Florida, they are the thing to have - you just turn up the air con I guess. In Suffolk, I hardly ever need to turn her off, even on the hottest days, I just open all the windows and doors - I can't really bear to be without her you see. Bugger the flies!
So for Pondside, a tiny potted blog about an Aga - so now you know what we are all on about.

Confessions of a serial mower - back to normal

Yesterday was totally mad. Rain drove through cracks and places we didn't even know we had places. The dining room leaded light window, large and North facing of course, streamed with rivulets of water, draining down to the ledge and then along the beams to the wood floor. Pooling just short of my huge rug. We mopped up with towels hastily grabbed from bathroom and did the best we could to stem the tide.
I have lit the wood burner in there today, to try to dry and air out the room.
We recorded over 3 inches of rain this weekend. Extraordinary for this time of year -more rain in a day than usually for the whole of May. The dampness seems to be seeping through the house, except for my beloved kitchen with madam Aga sending out her warm rays to greet me. Thank god, and the occupants before me, for she!

Others, less fortunate in the neighbouring village have been without power since Sunday so I can only imagine how they are coping.

Our traditional Whitsun Gala held every year for the past 60 in the surroundings of Framlingham Castle was washed out. Cancelled for the first time in living memory.
Bert Stocks Fun Fair arrived, but no fun was to be found. As fast as they tried to
erect their equipment, it just sunk into the mire that is the Castle Meadow. If it didn't have a running moat, it has one now.
Fields stand with water - just two weeks ago we were despairing that the beet would die through lack of rain, and now they stand up to their necks in water.
Their leaves are at least touching over the rows, on schedule, by the Suffolk Show, tomorrow. Surely it will stop raining by then. The Trinity Showground at Bucklesham near Ipswich [named after the Suffolk Trinity of horse, sheep and red poll cattle) stands on light sandy soil, "boy's land" as they say round here - so it should drain and be usable we hope. For a wonderful day out, where Town meets Country, there's not much to beat the Suffolk Show - especially if the sun should shine on it. It usually does. Here's hoping.
A view of our barley taken last week, on a Suffolk sunny day.

Confessions of a serial mower - Farewell our lovely

We bade farewell to our beloved "Lady Doctor" as she was known around here, today.
She was only 67, and had suffered with a brain tumour for the past four years.
She moved to Suffolk some 35 years ago, with her young family, having qualified in Glasgow and working in large cities in the North. She stemmed from a hugely academic and talented medical family. We were very lucky to get her. Suffolk was a dramatic move for her, and she came to settle in the large old Rectory in my village. We thought she would be too posh for us. How wrong we were.

Lady GP's were somewhat of a novelty then.She joined our practice on a part-time basis to do the "women's things" as it were. General Practitioners then were mainly middle class, middle aged, set in their ways, men. Our glamorous LD was a vision to behold. She wore stilettos - always; very tight short skirts and low cut tops.
Her hair piled high with bright glitzy flowery things, wafting perfume wherever she went. She liked a fag and a gin and tonic but not in her clinic!; her family, her patients, classical music, Italian art, the local harrier hunt, and a giggle.
She was a vision; glamorous to the very end.

Her first marriage failed and she had a new partner and husband in her latter years who was devoted to and utterly besotted with her, and who can blame him.
She suffered much tragedy, not least the death of her young daughter last year, also of a brain tumour.

The Church was filled to bursting and I stood outside with my boy, and his friends who had driven from all over the country this morning to be here to support her only son, their beloved friend. For the first time in his life I think, No 2 son was early - he rang me at 11.00 from the church to say there was no one there. Of course not, the funeral was at 1.00 p.m. He was two hours too soon. We laughed, he came up to the house for some food, before we all set off up the farm driveway to the church a second time.

He had been up since 5.00 am, to sort the Heiress out and get child care for her as daughter outlaw is in front of the cameras today on Branscombe Beach in Devon. You will recall that the MSC Napoli lost its cargo here and people looted it. Today, the Receiver of Wrecks hands back some of the looted goods to that poor woman who saw her goods being taken from a container. I digress. Someone at least was having a brighter day than us.

The birds sang in the trees, as we sang in the churchyard - the small flint St Andrews' church sardined with her family, never mind colleagues, friends and patients. We had the sound relayed out to us. An appreciation of her life was read out by one of her practice partners, he sobbed throughout. Rooks called, goslings squawked in the meadow next door,and babies babbled and grown men cried. Our retired vicar came back to officiate, as did the retired vicar before him. Everyone wanted to say farewell. A far too premature goodbye. A true country send off; of folks in black, folks in working clothes,nurses in uniform, girlies in short short skirts, and boys in ill fitting jackets and tight jeans. No frowns at this mismatch of motley crew today.
She would have loved it.
The bells rang out and Bach played on the tape machine - "Sleepers Awake" - and four pall bearers of varying heights struggled with her coffin, tilting at an alarming angle, on the uneven grass. A single wreath of red red roses, bobbing along on the top. All that was missing was the clip clip of her high heels.
She would have laughed.
Particularly as I stood in a very large pile of goose poo outside the lychgate.
Laugh,.. until I cried.