So I am being a bad Mummy and being stressed - we have a broken home at the moment and budget wont stretch to a party outside the home so we decided to postpone Mary's birthday celebration - she is not old enough to know different.
But we did have a little picnic tea with her - Daddy made her special pizza she can eat and she opened the cards and presents that arrived in the post.
I also made cake pops in the afternoon with her.
She likes cake.
Today we went and signed for and paid for a plot of ground to grown things on - it is not an allotment as such but is on a farm - I would still like an allotment round the corner but have gotten hacked off with messages being ignored etc...
In the photo Jean is marking on corner and Al and Mary the other - I'm taking the photo from the apex.
Anyway - it is a large plot if an odd shape and comes with raspberry canes already in situ. They have of course died back now but there was shrivelled blackened fruit which I rubbed to get the smell and yep - raspberries.
Of course everything is water logged around here at the moment - Jean wasn't complaining though. She even got Daddy and Mary to join her 🙂
We've been busy building paths to the chicken run though Al keeps miss judging how much concrete we need so it has spanned out several weekends now! He's found an easier way of mixing the concrete though and that is by using a tarp 🙂
As you can probably see from the photograph the garden is a mess with the old rabbit run and soil that's been dug out to make the run area and the old oil drum that the people who lived here before left and which is full of stuff and bin bags of stuff that got damaged by leaking ceilings and so on. So I cheered myself up by putting up the nice teacup garden ornaments my friend Ulrike gave me and envisioning what it will look like after a few more weekends of hard graft.
I really love these and they will be the main feature of our garden food area. I may assess how easy the cats can get to them and put some bird food in or maybe a little pot plant - at the moment it is far too rainy for either option!
We headed up to see our Northern friends, going on a little tour on route to see our friend Andy which was far too brief but lots of fun. Though I don't think Alaric is going to forgive him for introducing us to the 'What does the Fox Say' song!
Jean loves this song as it is the style of music she likes but not about love or money or things she's not interested in - it's about foxes and she loves animals - her comments where high pitched and consisted of 'CUUUUUUTE!!!!' Also the old guy reading reminds her of Ferfer when he's reading her and Mary stories and doing the silly sounds. I personally think the guys are cute and I love silly songs 😉
Alaric lives in horror as I have started singing it but merging it with leek spin and the gummy bear songs etc al 😀
Anyway it was great seeing Andy again and the kids loved him 🙂 One of the things it has highlighted for me is how long it has been since I saw a lot of my friends - something I wish to rectify this year.
Then we went on to Yorkshire to see our friends Ulrike and Mike and their ginea pigs 🙂
Ulrike had decorated the house fantastically for Christmas! Jean and Mary are still talking about it 🙂 There were lots of pocket dragons and a golden dragon in a santa hat with bells on it for Jean. Mary is so happy with her 'babies' - survallian family rabbits - baby and toddler 🙂
The girls loved opening their presents and we played board games 🙂
We went to see some horses (photos on Alaric's phone still!) and watched the Grinch and Brave and played Mario Carts which I am even worse at than 2 years ago, when I played it at my Bro's house - Jean says this is because I was using a steering wheel last time and this time it was controllers. I was pretty bad with the steering wheel!
Ulrike is a Harry Potter nut just like us and has the MOST amazing potion bottle collection 🙂
We also had an amazing breakfast with bread rolls in a lovely wicker basket:)
It was lovely and we really enjoyed ourselves and wish we could have stayed longer with both Andry and Ulrike and Mike. Here are more photos of the girlies and piggies 🙂
As you can see Jeany still really loves the bundles of fluff 🙂
We are now selling the eggs from our chickens 🙂 They are 25 p each or 6 for a pound. I am buying some egg boxes that we'll put our logo on etc... but would still appreciate the egg boxes people have been giving us for the eggs 🙂
Being ex-bats they have had all the innoculations etc... they are now happy hens wondering around in their new home being stroked by small children and given lots of veg to eat as well as their special diet to help them recover from their previous existence.
We also now have allotment (phase 1) at Primrose Vale farm shop so we are hoping to up the veg production this year 🙂 I'm still going to badger the council as I would like one that I can get to easily on my own, as well.
We are composting the chicken bedding so will have lots of lovely fertilizer 🙂
Events and Outings, Mary, Recipies | sarah | 
Wed 29th Jan 2014 5:21 pm | 
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