Hoovers

The rain is getting to be really rather bothersome now! Still no sign of the great big wagons that are coming to take the top off the ground...it just never stops raining or drizzling long enough for us to persuade Ray (the man with the machines) that it is good to come!

The river came over its bank again today and my wild garlic is now marine garlic! Anyway, not really to worry, as where there is a Jeffers - there is always a plan!

Jeff spent today in the back garden hoovering up water. Years ago Jeffers bought a carpet cleaner - and not just any old carpet cleaner, but one with a 40 litre bucket attached...it has come into its own. Apart from pumping out the house on my birthday - it was today used to pump the water out of the soil and gulleys that we have going through the garden. Always leaning on the side of Heath Robinson...

This is how it works...

First - you pump the water into the carpet cleaner.

Then you tip the water into the rubbish bin thoughtfully provided by your local council

Then you put the bin on the tractor and drive it through the garden to tip the water into the river.

Mother of invention has nothing on him. We will have to see whether this cunning plan is enough to entice Ray.

The rest of the weekend has been taken up with friends and fun.

All happy, covered in mud and enjoying watching Jeffers from the window.

Bank Holidays

Snow

Snow and rain and some more snow...

Had a fun old weekend, never quite sure what the weather had in store - one minute great big dollops of icey hail, the next sunshine and today, finally, a great big flurry of proper snow! We went for a yomp in the park with friends and their children and marched along the muddy path, throwing the ball for the dog whilst the boys shot each other with twigs. We decided to go the long way round building up an appetite for lunch in a pub and got caught up in real, proper and fabulous snow. It did not stick, but my I felt brilliant - a two hour walk in the cold - it was marvellous.

Fell into a pub with our friends whilst Jeffers took the boys and Ollie home to get some clean clothes on. I was just ordering when in they came - Alfie dressed to impress in a tie and school blazer. He announced that as he was going to be eating out he really should dress up. He is such a chap - I am going to have to buy him a proper jacket and tie for these occassions when he needs to look his best. He and Ollie also went to the bar to order their own lemonades and Alf ensured that he had done his jacket button up. I wish you could have seen their faces - they were so delighted to be grown up enough to order their own drinks. They were apologetic that they could not order for us as they were not allowed to be served alcohol!

Had Susie, Simon and little Ben here for lunch yesterday and I managed a 2 hour cuddle with Ben! It was wonderful...

Condemned!

My plan for the past 2 weeks has been to spend the easter holiday rebuilding and lovingly making the 5th shed into the boys' all new, super and billion dollar den...

Marched out today at 11am armed with pruners, gloves, heavy coat, Alfie and huge amounts of vim and vigour...The sun shone and we went to work. We cut back every last bit of bramble, we hacked at every lose hanging branch and then we were ready to attack the shed.

Alf has put a lot of thought into the final design and I was beyond excitement at being able to create the perfect hang out.

When we opened the door the 5th shed appeared quaintly full of bits of wood and spiders webs and so I stood at the door and began throwing out all of the wood I could see no future use for - carefully to the side went a door and a rather nice thick bit of wood that I could see making a wonderful shelf- the rest began the perfect bonfire pile.

Alfie - who is slightly nearer the ground than me - kept saying as we ploughed through the wood, that it smelt. I, of course put this down to a fussy 6 year old and told him I would continue alone whilst he fought off the dinosuars and prehistoric animals that were surrounding us. Off he went - large stick in hand growling and also measuring the rain water (a scientist at heart).

A fair pile down, I was congratulating myself that I was making Jeffers the best bonfire ever and my first born son the den of dreams - when I have to say it did start to wiff a bit...

Looking down - I found the chicken feeder, then the metal feeder, the beginnings of a wasp's nest and then the biggest pile of chicken yuk...

I bravely fought on thinking 'bleach will sort this' and decided to just take out the last remaining scraps of wood so we could really get a feel for the dimensions and possibilities

Ever the brave mother, I then screamed and ran as two rather sweet bunnies came leaping out of the stack right at me. Caught myself laughing at my own patheticness but nevertheless...

The den is now condemned to a quick and fiery end.

Chicken pooh, wasps and a rabbit warren are slightly too much for me...

I have found a good company down the road that come and build you a den to order. I am rethinking this bonanza and may have to hand this over to professionals.

Not a lot

A great weekend of nothing - due mainly to the fact that poor old Jack has two flat tyres and we can't get him mended until Monday. Jeffers was back with the shovel and brute force - oh the disappointment of not having a powerful old boy to help with the heavy work! So Jeff had a couple of bonfires and chopped down some unwanted trees and we have just spent the weekend generally mooching about.

The great big diggers did not turn up this week due to the rain and boglike nature of the ground. The machines would not get up here for a start and even if they could the ground is so sodden that taking off the top layer would just have made for one big mud bath!

We are now waiting for enough of a break in the drizzle and rain to have a few clear days for the big wagons to come. The up side of this is that we (ok Jeff) has had extra days to really clear the land ready for the onslaught. It looks amazingly different and you can look out of the back window right the way down to the river bank - which is now a complete thick carpet of greenery about to spring into blue and white delight. It really is going to look stunning when all of the woodland flowers are out. I have discovered a new website called http://www.shootgardening.co.uk/ (recommended by a client at an awards do - you do find the strangest things in the strangest places), but it is great for looking up some of the new plants and flowers as they sprout into life. I can tell you we now have wood anenomes - not doing the latin names just yet - may this will come along with the green fingers.

The den has gone which would have made me sad were it not for the fact that the newly discovered 5th shed has now been earmarked as the new improved version. I could barely contain my excitement and have drawn a plan for my vision! Alfie has done likewise and must be learning at his father's knee as he managed to draw his version complete with dormer windows, trap door opening into the stars and an attic conversion...

You enter the den by walking across the rain drenched land, through a time portal and into the realms of the dinosaurs - but of course!

I wandered down to the river yesterday afternoon for a quick walk about with the dogs and found myself still sat there an hour later just contemplating. I am sure this is good for the soul. Alfie returned from his first game for the A team and was so caught up in the excitement of the beautiful game that he decided to take his mum on at a game of one on one. We found a bumpy track of relatively dry ground and marked out two goals. Now, I know that I do not understand all the ins and out of the rules of football, but the Alfie school of refereeing really did me in. As I now understand it - If I score a goal this may be disallowed as either I was too near, too far, or maybe I kicked whilst he was doing a special football skill...either way I lost 10 -2.

I bought the boys weather measuring kits today. A weather vane, an anemometer to measure the wind speed, a compass and a thermostat. I can tell you that at 2pm today the weather was drizzly, northerly winds of 13 km and hour, a temperature of 13.4 degrees c whilst inside it was a cozy 20.5 degrees. Good eh! I think my next adventure will be a metal detector to uncover the roman hoard probably buried somewhere in the mud.

All calm, tranquil and covered in mud

Ben

The best news ever...yesterday my sister had her baby! A nine pound bouncing boy called Ben...he was brilliantly overcooked at 15 days late and is wonderfully aware and so sweet and calm. I have had my first adventure as an auntie - feeding, cuddling and then giving him back! (now I know what my sisters have enjoyed with my two)....Gorgeous. It was quite emotional knowing that he had arrived as it makes it very obvious that Dad is missing from the fun and love - I know he is watching so only had a little cry.

Alfie and Charlie did a star turn today and dressed up in their best clothes, including ties for them both and school cap and blazer for Alf, to go an meet their little cousin. Good to know that the need to wear the right attire for the right circumstance is flowing through them even down to the socks they chose.

Susie and Simon look elated and tired and it brought it back seeing Susie struggling to walk properly. I cuddled as much as I could before having to hand him over - would have been there all day.

This exciting news was slightly better than the middle of the week...

Jeff has been clearing the garden like a demon in preparation for a company that (weather permitting) arrive tomorrow to take the top 16 inches off the land. You may recall I put my back out badly attacking the brambles - but this was nothing on what happen to J...

On Wednesday he was outside, covered properly and wearing goggles as he used the full- powered strimmer on the brambles - all was going well until his goggles fell off. As he bent down to pick them up a stringy and violent branch snapped forward into his face. Eyes wide open...the thorns hit him square in the eyeball. Ouch I hear you cry! and ouch indeed.

He spent 3 hours in A & E whilst they put dye in his eye and washed them. 4 thorns in the eye that hurt and 2 in the one that didn't. He has been in horrible pain, which seems to be subsiding now - but being a man on a mission this hasn't kept him off Jack...

The land is now completley cleared of the detritus that was scattered everywhere - from old burnt out bonfires, brambles (long may they burn!) and every bit of nonsense we had been left. It looks so different - and massive! Even taking down the wire fences has had an effect on the scene around us. We have also found another shed - that is 5 now.

Tomorrow - as long as the gale doesn't arrive and according to Metcheck (our new best friend) it won't - we will have a gang of men coming to take the top soil off, add drainage and then leave us with a very muddy plot of land to re-sow with grass seed. This should hopefully stop the land feeling quite so bog-like and make it easier to manage in the future. We also have the iron railings arriving en masse tomorrow ready for Jeff's next great adventure of putting in paths and lines of demarcation in. All go here...

We have had the plans begun by the guy that did our last two houses and have decided to put in for a 4 bedroom house using the existing footprint of the house - effectively going up a level and adding a bit to the downstairs. The front of the house will appear as a 1 and 1/2 storey with small dormers whilst the back will be glass dormers across a proper second floor. Jeff and I normally bicker at this stage as to what we want with loads of tooing and froing - but there has to be something about this place - independently we both drew the same plan. Consensus hits the household.

We also played guest to twin 5 year olds this weekend for a sleepover. Wonderful - all in one room. The twins in the boys' beds and the boys sandwiched between Jeff and I. At 7 o'clock this morning one of the twins opening words were 'when can I get on the tractor jeff?' Priceless fun!

Muddy children, muddly dogs and muddy us...can't get much better. Oh yes you can-became Auntie Mimi!!!

Pong

We have had an abundance of greenery appearing all along the river bank. It stretches all the way down to the water and onto the area that when flooded was about half way into the depths. We knew that the thin leaves were the beginnings of bluebells, which as you drive around this neck of the woods in spring you can see turning the floor into a carpet of blue, but the other stuff seemed to be ever thicker and we have had no idea what it is.

Now we know...it is wild garlic and it looks rather like a big field of wild garlic! Randa and Mum came today for lunch and after traipsing down to the woods we picked a couple of leaves - broke them two and wow what a smell!

Mum made me feel great by saying that pretty soon the river bank will smell like 'stew', not too sure how I felt about this. It doesn't conjure up the best of pictures does it?

...Friends over, ' hey, let's walk down to the river's edge and dangle our feet in the cooling water - just sorry about the smell of beef stew'...

Anyway, having now done some looking up on the interweb (think you call that research), it is really rather great having wild garlic. It seems that you don't bother with the rather small and insigificant bulbs and instead it is all about the leaves. You pick one leaf per plant so they keep coming back and use them in cooking. They have very pretty white flowers as well, so I now have dreams of a bed of white garlic flowers and stunning bluebells all along my river bank.

This morning I took advantage of Jeffers taking the boys for a swim and alone in the garden I practiced ultra-gardening. This consists of hacking back and maiming anything that I don't know what it is...

It was a jungle out there - me against the brambles. I wasn't really equipped for the job with yellow rubber gloves a pair of blunt garden scissory type things, oh and a rake. Just perfect for chopping my way through the egde of the back garden. One hour later, my back out of joint and a blister on my hand, and no you could not really see the difference, but I knew I had been there.

My sister came today and was placed on Jack the tractor. She started in the lowest gear for all of a minute and before I knew it she was hurtling around the garden, laughing in a slightly uncontrolled manner. She finally brought him to a stop, with a mad look in her eye and sheer enjoyment written all over her face. We both agreed it would have been Dad racing around the garden, turning tighter and tighter circles and at more and more of a pace, probably until he tipped the tractor over. Shame he is not here to have a go, funny though to think about what a devil he would have been...

I tried to demonstrate my skills at picking up things with the tractor. Obviously as the eldest sister it falls on me to try to out do my sisters at all times, but all I achieved was scrapping bigger and bigger wads of earth onto the bucket. I clambered off as soon as I knew it wasn't going my way - Randa remained suitably fun forgiving me my total ineptitude. I only realised today for all my tractor driving - I didn't know how to turn him off!

Do now!