May 2, 2020
Social distancing – the new arrivals
Let me start this blog by sharing my contribution to the rainbow windows. This is paper bunting that I’ve hung on the inside of the downstairs window and I like it, makes me smile. I understand there are themes for each week for windows to keep kiddiwinks busy but I’ve done this now, it took forever *and* I cleaned the inside of the window before I did it so I’m not taking it down.
It’s now my day 47-something of the potentially 85-whatever-ness. Blah blah usual meh. Although bat season is starting soon and I’ve some survey work booked in the diary 🙂 I also picked up my third care bat of the year this afternoon, the three have been different species but all boys! If you want to follow the adventures of the bat care life please like the page of Evesham Bat Care on faceache.
There’s a pub roast dinner collection booked for tomorrow as a treat so bread was made today instead of the usual Sunday. Feeling a bit more confident about the process now so wanted to try switching up the recipe by using buttermilk but none of the supermarkets have any (or eggs or flour or kitchen paper) so it was a standard yummy loaf that disappeared far too quickly! Will keep looking and will tell you the results when it finally happens.
Today is quite a special day for me too as it’s almost my eleven year anniversary of having chickens. I’ve calculated (rather roughly) that I’ve had 29 or 31 chickens in this eleven year period and in order to commemorate this, four more landed today. Here are my current six feathered residents
Nestle is on the left side of the compost bin, Fat Alice is on the right with her bum to us. Ickle Alice is in front of her (all white chickens have to be called Alice, it’s the rules) then Nicky Hayden is the black and white speckeldy in front of her. Phat Penyard is front and centre and then Goldilocks is left middle hiding behind the rhubarb. We established today that Nestle is 6 years old and she’s the feisty, shouty matriarch of the gang even though she’s not very big.
These are the new four. The grey is a Bluebell and is called (Goth) Nigel. The darkest one is a Rhodes Rock and is called Reg. The light ginger (standard Hyline hen) is called Edith Gade, she has the whitest, fluffiest pantaloons, the dark coppery ginger is a Columbian Blacktail called Mr Gade. All these names are people from the magical island of Lundy, a super special, unique place that means the world to me. And when I was going slightly bonkers with the lockdown these were mostly the names I gave my imaginary hens.
Introducing new hens to an existing group is a NIGHTMARE. I’ve currently got an alarm set for 5am in order to open them up and get them out the coop to try and avoid any big fights, if they’re in an open space they have places to run around rather than being cornered in the coop. Fingers crossed some miracle happens and the fighting ends swiftly and we get more eggs from the spoilt reprobates.
I did an anonymous random act of kindness today. But I kinda want the recipient to know it was me because I want to see them smile and have a spark of happiness bounced back. It was my first secret act so I guess it’s understandable it’s feeling odd. Maybe I need to stick with being honest about my random acts?!
I had a bit of a wobble this week, I knew it was going to rain for most of the days and I was worried how this might impact my joints. I was okay Tuesday and Wednesday but Thursday wasn’t a good day. I’m falling asleep in weird places again in the afternoons and then not sleeping at night, I’m sick of seeing 3am on the clock I assure you. I’ve been told that wearing a wooly bobble hat with pyjamas and dressing gown indoors is not an acceptable outfit. I am going to start setting daily goals again for the week to come in the hope it will keep me focused and more positive.
Sunday is litter pick day, Monday has to be report typing day. Tuesday will be accounts day, Wednesday will be my pyjama day, Thursday is NTLive at home transmission day and Friday I might attempt baking a cake! I need to find an inexpensive source of specific sized baking tins in the future though, Amazon and ebay are charging the earth for baking tins right now. My preferred charity shops or discount supermarkets either aren’t open or aren’t doing anything other than essential things. I’ve added some to my Amazon wishlist as a just in case for August.
Today was nothing special in terms of day number or activities but it was a good day. And that’s enough for me.
viewfromthisdesk 
Tricia Scott said,
May 4, 2020 at 8:05 am
Hi there I’m hoping for some long answers so thought I’d use email instead of Messenger
What’s the story with Lundy?
Also, how do you clean the inside of your windows? I have a window cleaner for the outside but I gave up trying to clean the insides because they always ended up smeary
Thanks
Tricia
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viewfromthisdesk said,
May 4, 2020 at 10:01 am
Lundy discussions require a pot of tea and a lemon drizzle cake so we’ll save that for after lockdown 🙂
Windows – I use a bleach spray for the white upvc bits and wooden surrounds (it’s a north facing window so gets a bit icky) which I rub on with a nail brush or toothbrush and just wipe off any excess at the end. The glass I use a typical green coloured window/glass spray which I spray at the top and let it run down. I then smush it into the glass using a squeegee thing. Then I spray again and rub horizontally using kitchen paper. Then using clean paper I rub vertically to remove all smears. Yes it’s slightly OCD-ish and time consuming but there’s nothing else to do! One might point out that if the windows are having this much attention, that curtains should be taken down and washed and then re-hung and the curtain rail should be hoovered and scrubbed too. Ugh, effort!