blah, back home its raining, damp and foggy, I need sunshine, feel like spending the day in my local tanning salon! My old chickens are being very mean to my new chickens but if I dont leave them too it they will never all live together. I imagine the new ones are really annoyed to have come from a warm barn with never ending food to a cold muddy garden with evil, selfish chickens and a cockeral who does unmentionable things to them, rescued? Not in their eyes. I need summer, grass, windows open, flowers growing. I dont want to be washing three days worth of welsh mud from clothes and trying to get it all dry. I keep trying to be grateful and positive and instead feel resentful when I find apple cores, cereal bowls, crisp packets and wrappers all over my lounge every day, ho hum, have to clean out the bird cage...yuck

In wales

Little bit colder than last time we came! But having fun never the less





and we tired the dog out!

migraine

What a week! After the facebook debacle, my computer crashed for the last and final time, kapoot. Dead. I knew it was coming, my Dad thinks he can wipe it and reinstall the hard drive, luckily most of my photos and music are backed up on a separate portable hard drive. I’m running on my sisters old pc, newly fixed up just before she bought herself a laptop! So I’m running at full speed again, had forgotten what it was like to use the internet and it not crash simply from asking it to move the page down…
***
One of my childcare jobs is coming to an end, the mum isnt finding it financially viable and now she had finished working the time she had too to cover her maternity leave, she’s finishing which of course means so am I. Will miss the boys and the good money it brought me!
***
We are going up to the horse farm in Wales again next weekend. When I was emailing Carla to finalise arrangements she told me that Shandy – Lollys favourite horse had had to be put down. I had to tell Lolly, it was awful, her face, the tears, the “no” was heartbreaking. She has been riding the same horse every year for 5 or so years, she thought he would last forever.
***
My back is playing up again, not looking forward to the long drive next Friday. The painkillers don’t work as well, I feel odd and drowsy for an hour and then the pain is back. The stress of knowing the pain is coming only add to the muscle tension, vicious circle.
***
The area I live in is becoming more and more dangerous at night. Taking Lolly and her friend from across the road to dance class which is about half a mile from here along a main road is scary. I make Dumpling hold my hand even though he wants to run around. Good job I did as last night a man with a short pool cue was chasing another on a bike and I had to pull Dumpling and the dog into a doorway as they shot past us screaming obscenities. In the day it’s a nice area of shops and mothers taking their children to preschool, women shopping and chatting, pensioners shuffling along for their paper, dog walkers on their way to the park, but at night it’s a no mans land. Gangs of older teenagers, smoking pot and drinking and fighting with each other. In the summer its ok, large numbers of students from abroad come over to study, they are great, pleasant, tidy eager to speak and practise their english, I give directions all summer long! The evening are light and people mill around and sit outside pubs and cafes, it’s a nice place to be, but in the cold winter months, not so great.

Would you trust your seven year old son if he came to you with a viscount biscuit, unwrapped and said

"you can have this one, I havnt licked it or anything"


...?

One of the things you do is remind them that you have photos of their children from the same era and ask if you're free to do as you wish with the images...?

What are you supposed to do when someone places a group photo of face book, one of which is your daughter and another is a convicted, incarcerated child rapist? The person refuses to see that their is anything wrong with the whole situation and even other children connected with the photo have defended its right to be there? One teenage girl commented "he didnt to anything to us so get over it" !!! So its ok that he didnt rape any of the children in the photo, just that thats the sort of thing he did and ran a sports club full of young girls in leotards? Nope they all support him, unbelieveable.

collected 5 eggs this morning, not bad for a morning thats so cold I had to bash the ice out of their drinkers before I could refill and then go inside for water as the outside garden tap had frozen! had two eggs for lunch, delicious! The yolks are so yellow and delicious,nothing like shop bought ones!

***

Finally got Dumplings hair cut yesterday, just a trim, he likes the shaggy surfer look, I hated it just after he had it cut but its settled down now and he looks cute, pics later.

***

Off out in a minute to a fun farm, look at the animals (yeh I know, we have enough here) play in the big park they have and walk the dog in the woods, have to keep dad moving so he doesnt get cold and grumpy!

***

I turned 34 in the past few days and am figuring if no one knows then I wont get any older...?

Recovering from the migraine that seems to transfer itself form Maria and Terroni to me through the blogsphere! My head and neck feel bruised from the thumping, screaming pain that had me awake at 5am, tiptoe-ing around the house for water and more painkillers and cursing myself when switching the downstairs light on woke the cockerel in the chicken house, am sure a few neighbours cursed me too!

Had an ok-ish day with my dad, sister, her husband, two girls and a niece from her husbands side. Had its good points and bad, my sister and husband go from being completely twee and in love to bickering like toddlers. My niece was her usual beautiful but drama queen self and has picked up on the fact that her parents think she is feeling left out with the new baby and using it to its fullest advantage! We took an amazing walk with the dogs and kids, their house backs onto a wood and river, you open the back gate and you're off. My dad doesn't like dawdling though and got cold while the kids were climbing trees, posing for photos and having fun. he is ok if hes working in the cold but standing around he just gets cold and grumpy despite his warm clothes, gloves and hat. The idea was to get there mid morning, go for a walk and then have lunch, watch a film in the afternoon and get home by tea time. I presumed that lunch was cooking while we were walking but no, my sister decided to start cooking a full roast dinner and 1.45pm, so we didn't eat till 3.15. Delicious as it was, my blood sugar levels couldn't cope and the migraine started early evening. I need to eat every four hours and snack a little in between.

What else? Lolly has gone to see the teenage vampire film again, whats it called? I'd forgotten what its like to be a teenager and happily spend you're hard earned babysitting money on watching a film for the second time, I think I saw 'Ghost' four times! Dumpling is behaving very well, he's back on the omega 3 fish oil syrup again and it really seems to help? Still the untidiest pair in the land and I still have to raise my voice to get anything done, asking politely but firmly doesn't have any effect with them, you have to sergeant major it.

Chickens are laying about 4 a day between 7 of them, not bad, keeps me in eggs but its great in the summer when 7 a day is standard!