Some new arrivals!

I'm a little bit in love with Silkie chickens! They aren't a breed I'd ever kept until earlier this year when I was a bit spontaneous and bought two bantams at auction. Sadly I lost little Cappuccino but still have her sister Latte. Although Latte is gregarious she has spent a lot of time on her own over the summer so I thought it would be nice to get her a couple of friends.

Enter Mocha and Milkshake, both a rather fetching chocolate colour with black pom-poms. Thankfully they seem to get on well with Latte, you can never tell, birds are no different to people in that they don't all gel or get on because they're the same species! After a bit of a quarantine period they've been gradually introduced to the rest of the flock and are fitting in nicely.

Open Reach and the saga of rural internet

Blog posts have been a bit thin on the ground due to me having poor or no internet again. This year has been a real battle for us to get internet that's usable. I live in quite a rural location still serviced by copper lines put in when home phones were quite new. Both myself and my nearest neighbours are used to a rolling saga of issues every time it rains even remotely hard with bits of the road having to be dug up because of water in the joints. Our line is pretty shallow and several times that's also been damaged by farmers digging drainage channels into the ditch network. Then there's the ongoing saga of "the hedge"; apparently there is a joint where my neighbours line spurs off from mine under a big hedge. So frightening is the horticultural beast that no Open Reach engineer will tackle the excavation of the thing. In reality a pair of loppers and a spade would probably do the trick but of course it's all health and safety these days - if you can't...

Merv on Monday

The little rascal hasn't been on for a while due to one thing and another. I'd like to say he's got better behaved in the interim but sadly that's not the case. He still thinks he's King of everything, and needs to keep the sheep in line. I try to reward him for standing on his platform, where he's out of the way and can't cause mischief, but he seems to have learned to jump up and get a treat, then jump off and butt sheep. The little blighter is always one step ahead of me, don't be fooled by the angelic face!

The perils of driving on rural roads

If I were to pick one downside of living where I do it would be the need to own a car and have to drive. I'm around 20 minutes away from the nearest town, and sadly in the time I've lived here the village has lost all it's amenities. We no longer have a shop, post office or pub, so even a hermit like me has to venture out into the wider world. I've been driving for around twenty years and honestly I think the standard on the road now is appalling. I'm not just talking about the cheap, infrequent maintenance either. The way people drive is downright dangerous. Until two years ago when I got injured I used to run 10km on the roads three or four times a week. Being responsible I always wore HiVis and ran towards the traffic as there are no pavements. It was always blatantly obvious when oncoming drivers weren't paying attention and hadn't seen me. Many times I was forced to jump into the bank to avoid being run over, and they looked surprised when they did se...

A Little Cottage in the Country

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