I've been underlyingly grumpy this week, for no good reason. It's been really windy, which I always find unsettling, and I've had a sense of my days slipping away without me really doing very much. I'm trying to pin them down, to be more deliberate, to at least create a record of what I've done so I can look back and remember. Thursday was pretty cheerful. We started with a cuppa in our favourite cafe, and then I spent quite a lot of time sitting in the garden shelter, plotting and scheming. It was windy outside, but not in the shelter itself. The chickens sat with me for a while - they can be pretty settled and restful when there isn't food on offer. Thursday was also the day I finally got round to weeding the veg patch - with the chickens patrolling the perimeter looking (unsuccessfully) for a way in. I'd been pretty pleased with the lack of slug damage so far, but this last week the kale has been full of caterpillars. Any illusions I had about the chickens acting as pest control were shattered when they wouldn't even eat a caterpillar that was plonked directly under their beaks. Thursday was also the day I harvested some veg! Not much, just kale, chard and a few peas, which I cooked up later with a massive risotto. I've been slowly shifting my 'hay sponge' onto the edible windbreak to use as mulch, so I did some more of that on Thursday too. The garden (or at least the veg patch) was looking pretty tidy by the end of the day. Friday was quite different. I woke up in a bad mood, and grumped myself into an even worse one by stomping around trying to tidy up the house. Eventually it was 'suggested' that I meet a friend, and so we had lunch in a cafe near her house, and it was most cheerful indeed. We managed to lose our only set of keys for one of the cars (it seems we may have thrown them out with the recycling), and then later in the evening there was a power cut as I was trying to cook my tea. Written down in the cold light of a new day these things don't seem so bad, but they piled up on one another and by the end of Friday I was Quite Fed Up. Fortunately, sanity has been restored this morning, as a lovely locksmith-magician turned up and created a new key out of thin air, and a spare for both cars (and a spare for what I thought was a front door key, but which apparently isn't). I've been pottering outside today, but the weather is a mix of sunshine and showers and I keep having to dash back inside. I did stay out long enough to find some windfalls though - half of our apple crop and all of our plums (er, one). Sad casualties to the weather. I'm never gloomy for long though. This afternoon I'm off to meet some friends for a cuppa in a place I've not been to for years, and later we have a friend coming to camp in the garden. I've got some adventures planned for next week, and it's nice to have something specific to look forward to. All good.
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Hello!Sit down and make yourself comfortable. I'm Jenni, and I write here about our new foray into country living, which includes growing food, knitting, baking, wandering around the fields, and seeing which local cafe serves the best cake. Categories
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