Damn it

Just as I thought she was better my Hoppy went to sleep last night and didn't wake up this morning.

Quiet life.

Most people assume I live a quiet life.,rarely leaving the village,haven't had a holiday since 93,very rare nights out at the pub,let me tell you,if I could find the time for a quiet life I would.
Instead I am sitting writing this on notepaper in bed yesterday,in fact by the time I have typed this up it will be several yesterdays ago.So what has been happening ?Sam and Sarah have been on the phone complaining of swollen ankles,Sarah had a bruise appear on her leg so big and black that she was sent for blood tests just to make sure her platelets hadn't gone on strike,two days later she got a little insect bite which blew her foot up so badly she needed antibiotics..........Bex hasn't been moaning which is quite worrying in itself.

There was a big battery hen rescue last week by LHR,sadly the trailer carrying the newly freed hens was in an accident on the A14 lots of hens killed and injured.So having lost Cleopatra queen of the bantams to old age recently, I have now taken on Fanny the wonder hen !

Having survived cage and crash she really is a wonder hen.
My soppy hen Hoppy has been really ill with bubbly sounding breathing,she was so bad that on at least two occasions I thought she was a goner,but antibiotics and a bit of pampering and she lives on,she won't last forever,she is a sickly weak thing,but boy does she cling to life with some gusto.The hens that survived the crash were hosed down by the fire-brigade (gratuitous men in uniform pic here) as they were almost roasting alive at the roadside,they were then moved to their temporary accommodation by a fleet of volunteer drivers and parked in a nice warm straw filled barn,where their wet feathers gave all the water to the straw,which they all promptly laid eggs in,so I spent quite a while one afternoon washing, drying and dating 9 dozen plus eggs by hand whilst Hoppy sat on a rug next to me watching and munching the odd grape( I did tell you these hens were pets didn't I)
Now I am about to start painting the sitting room,a nice shade of magnolia,at least if I want to change the scheme in there it will only take dyeing cushion covers and throws.........Tomorrow I have to remove the triffid like nettles from the garden,do some more painting and dye my hair,oh and put a little old lady to bed in the village,bless her she was a 100 on Tuesday she got card from the queen and one from Ian Duncan Smith of all people,I have no idea why he needed to send her a card but hey ho it is only our money.
If this is a quiet life can I now try a busy one ?
PS.I wrote this two yesterdays ago.
PPS. I got the all clear from the hospital on the old throat thing,seems the voice changes are from giving up smoking.

I want a ciggie.

Am I a silly cow or what,I got Grubby to do some drilling for me last week,he went to move a nearby coat and I said no don't worry any dust will brush off.....Well it didn't so I foolishly put a full length waxed duster coat(Don't tell anyone but I have a cowboy hat too) through the machine on a cold wash thinking it would be OK.....I have just ordered a can of Barbour Thornproof Wax Dressing  .Do you know what a long winded stinky job re-waxing a coat is?
I had a jolly good chuckle today,maybe I am just not sporty enough,but can someone explain to me why whole troupes of people are strolling round the village in hiking boots with ski poles in their hands ? I live in East Anglia,you know the flatlands,g-d help us if some of them are actually practising for skiing,I am a big girl and some of those women dwarfed me.....I know, I know, they were Nordic walking,but it looks dead comical in 20c and in an area where a molehill is almost a mountain.
Well,we have a government,it wasn't an option on my ballot paper,but I will wait and see what 'toffs united' think they can do to heal the countries woes.
Oh and all the fuss over eyefattalelteyet that Icelandic volcano did you realise it is 30 years and a day since Mount St.Helens went up,my Dad has some ash from it.....goodness knows how, he has never been outside the UK.
I was wandering round the V and A website when I came across a fantastic quilt,go take a look Canals,coal and cotton.
Oh on the cityscape subject(well vaguely) did you know that the London underground is the habitat of a unique bitey mosquito ?
Sarah had a copy of the letter from the hospital about her scan, if you click on the piccy it should be readable,who would have thought a VSD(hole in the heart) could be a good thing.....so fingers crossed.

I haven't heard anything yet about my appointment for dodgy throat stuff but I am not too worried,I suspect at worst a polyp and they take a very long time to develop into nasty things.
Sadly Cleo the cross dressing hen has gone to the great dust bath in the sky,but she was twelve,a damnably impressive age for a bantam .

It never rains,it just pours and pours and pours...

So having given up smoking for three months now I have decided to decorate,I started with the easy bit,the front hall........
Halfway through my best friend decides to empty her loft of baby goodies,cot,first size bed,car seats,bouncy seat,changing mat,bedding,clothes etc etc.......and announces they need picking up,my other friend has donated a fridge to the cause as the door on mine is held shut by a giant magnet..........
all coming in through the front hall.........and just randomly parking anywhere till painting is complete.
I took the strange old curtain rail down above the front door,it brought a goodly chunk of wall down too,I haven't any filler but I do have bathroom grout,so you just know what I did don't you ?.
In the midst of all the chaos oldest daughter Bex rings..........

Guess what ,yup!!! she is having a baby too,so I will have three new grandchildren before the year is out.


And too top it off I have an urgent(the scary cancerish within a fortnight type urgent) referral to hospital for odd goings on with my voice box...........

And we still have no government,Labour should have got rid of Brown and they would have had lots of coalition allies I suspect.........

Do not discuss religion with my mother !!

Well it finally happened,after all these years of attempted indoctrination I have shouted at my mother to stop trying to convince me of a benevolent sky fairy.
I had rung her to tell her the good news about our Sarahs baby,she had another scan friday and it seems one of the arteries that was too small has started to grow and if things keep on the way they are he may not need surgery straight after his birth..........sadly he still has other heart abnormalities so will need surgery eventually no matter what.
Mother started lecturing me on how good her brand of sky fairy was and it was all because her church had been praying for him,she went on and on and on,in the end I yelled down the phone so she would stop and listen,I explained that if her god exists and he was any sort of a decent chap the baby wouldn't be born with life threatening defects,so in my opinion if there is a god he is an evil and cruel creature,I even tried the philosophical debate with her which goes..................

1. God exists.
2. God is omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good.
3. A perfectly good being would want to prevent all evils.
4. An omniscient being knows every way in which evils can come into existence.
5. An omnipotent being, who knows every way in which an evil can come into existence, has the power to prevent that evil from coming into existence.
6. A being who knows every way in which an evil can come into existence, who is able to prevent that evil from coming into existence, and who wants to do so, would prevent the existence of that evil.
7. If there exists an omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good being, then no evil exists.
8. Evil exists (logical contradiction)

 Still she went on and on about her elderly aunts church praying too,in the end I just said I agreed to differ and hung up........