rain, reclaim yards and rogan josh

What to do.. a miserable day, so we went to the reclamation yard.  I love it there.  I just love all those made to last old things – the  cast iron fires, aluminium watering cans, mangles, doors, gothic window frames, granite slabs, foot scrapers.. and so on.
Officially we are table shopping – our dining room [...]

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badgers and bTB

I’m sad to read that the attempts to stop the  proposed cull of badgers in Pembrokeshire has failed.
Ironically, they plan to vaccinate the badgers in England, starting next year with injectable vaccination, and following in 2014 with bait.
I know how tragic it is when a farmer loses animals to bTB – but they don’t keel [...]

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bonfire night again

And by some weird imbalance in the universe, we managed to do the bonfire/firework bit between showers.
I think, left to myself, I would happily forego fireworks, and not having other people let them off at other times would be a fair swap, but nothing is going to stop my Dad from enjoying them. 
The usual crowd of [...]

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november

It just seemed to sneak up on us – I suppose the good weather making us forget it was autumn, then suddenly it’s November.  And blustery and raining.
I’ve stripped the last of the tomato plants, and picked my last tomatoes – a few more batches of roasted tomato sauce for the freezer, and some jars [...]

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halloween, samhain and all

It seems to me that there are many markers for this particularly time of year. It starts perhaps with the clocks changing, slinks into halloween, through samhain and finally finishes with bonfire night. I expect there are many more festivals I don’t know of – but they are all about the end of summer. It’s [...]

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mackerel sky

It’s been unseasonably warm lately – I’ve been doing loads of drying laundry  outside – and am constantly surprised by how early it gets dark – as it does not fit with the weather.
I’ve been out cutting up logs today; a slow are arduous process with a bowsaw, but think of the money we save on [...]

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clocks change

And I am disoriented once again.  I must be getting older…
Actually woke refreshed and raring to go.. which was unusual, and probably indicative that I mostly don’t get enough sleep – an extra hour went down well. But of course all things outside went on at the normal times, and the animals looked askance at [...]

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autumn proper

Suddenly, I noticed whilst trudging down the hill to visit the sheep, the leaves are coming off the trees in armfuls, and it is autumn for sure. The sheep, bless em, are usually lurking in the field shelter, and like to look up nonchalantly as I peer in to makes sure we do actually still have [...]

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