Moving

Friday and the weekend were busy days with Joe and Kate's move. Alison was with them for Friday and the removal men did a great job in getting things into the new home quickly and without too much fuss. The family all came back to ours for the night and enjoyed a good feed including the figs and shortbread which went down very well. The patatas bravas turned out well too!

I was at the new house on Saturday helping out with unpacking and putting things together. Fr example, putting some cardboard and then window film across the main bedroon which had a gaping hole of a couple of centimetres letting in plenty of cold. The house needs quite a bit of work in fact but it is a great size, good location for them and essentially sound. It will take time to get it as they want it, including any extension work they undertake. 

The girls stayed with us on Saturday but went back for the evening and the night and they slept well in their new bedroom, shared until the other room is ready for Amelia to move into.

I collected the girls again on Sunday so Joe and Kate could get on and we had a lovely Christmas type day with dog walks and seasonally cold weather. The photos show the setting sun from yesterday evening making the lane look even more lovely than usual. 

Maria had a party in Ringwood in the evening which coincided with the turning on of Christmas lights in the town so we met up with Bridie and Joseph and enjoyed the stalls and lights until 6.30 when we took ourselves to a very pelasant wine bar and spent a bit of time enjoying a couple of glasses.

Bright sunshine

I did my morning run early today before taking Joseph to school which meant I had a clear morning spent preparing a vegetable stew using potatoes, carrots, turnip and leek from the allotment, as well as other ingredients. It also gave me time to sort out the bath which has been draining slowly for a little while but a few good plunges seemed to do the trick. I have cleared my existing to do list!

It was such a beautiful day I was able to enjoy several cold but sunny trips out with Juno and to spend an hour going up and down the road to pick up litter. Not too much around which was nice to see.

Joe and Kate move today and Alison has already set off to help out whilst I take Joy for her Covid booster jab and sort things out with the dog and ensure we've got food in for the busy weekend ahead. Looks like we'll be having lots of overnight guests tonight and tomorrow.
 

Busy day

 The photos show the allotment at its late autumn best. My first visit of the day was to Verwood to put in a new cat flap at Joy's house which was straightforward enough, and to await the arrival of the men trimming the branches from a fir tree overhanging the garage and laying across the telegraph wires.

From there I went to the allotment and did some tidying of the compost heap and digging during which I discovered lots of potatoes I had failed to notice previously when harvesting weeks ago. They are lovely looking and are a welcome addition to the store cupboard and I'll be using them, or some at least, in a winter stew tomorrow. The nice thing is I was also able to bring home some carrots and turnip which will add to the stew, as well as a leek. All good stuff.

Having got where I wanted in terms of preparing for the winter ahead but also preparing beds for next year, I went for a run starting beside the Stour and completing 3.5 miles in 10 minute miles. It was then back home for lunch and then my session in the back garden getting rid of the hedging cut yesterday. I got the larger branches cut down and put them in the coal bunker to dry out and season a little with a view to using them in the wood burner later. The remaining hawthorn twigs I chopped up and burnt in the fire pit for a lovely autumn bonfire. There's nothing like it!

The remainder, I piled high and then took the hedge cutters to it so that the pieces were small enough to fit nicely into the garden waste bin. It took a bit of work but we got there and it is looking nice now.

I took Juno round the goat farm and then set to tea using the bolognese sauce from the other day, roasting an aubegine in small cubes with garlic to add to the sauce, along with pasta, brocolli and a lentil burger from Monday's batch cooking.

Busy again but enjoyable.

Tuesday frost

We had a frost last night which meant the fingerless gloves were out again for the dog walks to the woods and round the goat farm, as well as for my 3.5 mile run before lunch. Juno has been enjoying playing with a squeaky santa and is carefully avoiding tearing it apart, as she has with other toys. She has mastered getting it to squeak as well, which is nice.

I got out into the garden earlier and cut the side hedge at the back right back, lowering it by a couple of feet and letting more sky into the view, particularly when looking out the lounge window. Now comes the job of tidying the mess up and getting rid of the pile of branches and leaves which may involve using the wood burner.  I also got the utility room tidied. 

Alison took Maria to dance which meant I got on with the tea - jacket potatoes, lentil dal, curried roast butternut squash and salad. Far from Alison and I enjoying a quiet tea, we've had Joseph for the day as he has been unwell, Bridie on her way back from work to collect Joseph, and Glen too. Every spare moment I thought I had earlier this week has now disappeared with Joe and Kate moving, Joy having some work done in her garden which requires some supervision and a meeting at dance tomorrow.

Still not quite right but getting there

Having finished the parquet floor in the front room, I am not having to inhale any more noxious fumes and that is going to help enormously. I don't think it has been helping me get over the cought that had been bothering me for a couple of weeks. However, I have also been able to get out for runs and rides, including a trip to Ringwood on Friday for an eye test. I was very pleased it showed no change over the past two years, so no need for any glasses just yet.

We have been pretty busy over the past ten days having enjoyed a trip to Compton Acres where we also took Juno. Not sure she appreciated the Italian or Japanese gardens but we did. The photos show her out and about in Cranborne and in Verwood and she is doing better and better, a lovely family dog. She's currently lying on the floor with Maria and Juno is squeaking her santa toy, rolling on her back and holding it between her paws.

There's been time in the garden too and I have done another mow of the lawn! It's November and the grass is still growing. There are plenty of leaves to clear too. One highlight today was seeing a buzzard perched by the back hedge on a telegraph pole, perhaps attracted by the dozens of sparrows there which hide in the hedges by the feeders. I also cleaned out the sparrow nestbox and found the summer's nest and a small wasp nest too.

Alison and I had a trip to the allotment where I planted the last of the autumn onions and the broad beans. The garlic is already doing well. We harvested greens and more beetroot and pruned the raspberries, strimmed the grass and tidied the compost heap. It is all looking pretty good for the time of year.

We are still working through the potatoes we grew and there are still more beetroots and carrots to come home, as well as having garlic bulbs on the go too.

Perhaps the main activity has been the parquet floor. I've taken up almost all the tiles and cleaned them before gluing them back in place. It is pretty level, the latter sections benefitting from greater expertise! Once in place I got the sander out and gave the surface a good clean using the sawdust to mix with the filler/sealant. That stank the house down, a really powerful smell and not something you could stay in the room long with. However, it did go off quickly which was good. I then oiled the tiles and they look pretty good and are certainly stuck down for a good few years now.

Almost out of the woods

My next plan was to have the medication which makes you drowsy, after a couple of cans of lager and a gin and tonic. It worked for an hour during which time I was aware of having a lovely sleep only to be awakened by the sound of Glen being sick and staggering all over the place from a night out with friends. That meant another sleepless night but I did go back to bed after the school run but that simply gave Glen the chance to get up feeling rough and letting the world know and ended any chance of any sleep! I think he is trying to kill me off!

My approach last night was similar to the one outlined above from the previous evening but this time I chose to sleep on the sofa and amazingly I did get a few hours and coughed infrequently. Much improved.

That's meant I took Joseph to school and then stopped at the green for a dog walk in the mist before returning home and attended to a number of tasks including emptying the bins, filling the bird feeders, collecting leaves, raking the gravel which was delivered last week, going for a litter pick in both directions and both sides of the road and then taking Juno out for another walk, this time the goat farm walk.

On this occasion I'd got my binoculars out for the first time in a while and took time to stop and watch a pair of jays, chaffinches and a solitary redwing which is the first of the year for me. The feeders at the side of the back garden are being visited constantly with lots of starlings joining the frenzy at intervals before all taking off in unison.

Cunning plan

 In my efforts to thwart this latest chest infection my plan was to go to bed later so that I was so tired I'd sleep through till morning. Having had such a poor sleep the previous night, I was confident it would work but it was not to be with a midnight turn in resulting in a coughing fit just ahead of 4am and a restless few hours of walking Juno under clear skies filled with crystal clear stars and a bit of American football, a good indication of just how desperate I was becoming.

I managed to drive Joseph to school and stopped at the village green to walk Juno properly, see above photo taken on the return toward the crossroads. I did go back to bed but mainly listened to the end of the audiobook Great Circle which has been a great listen. I know it was nominated for the Booker prize and it might seem a bit like jumping on an existing bandwagon but it really is a wonderful book with sympathetic characters and great representations of women and their changing fortunes which could also be rightly challenged as showing too little has changed still. Having to disguise oneself as a boy or man should not be necessary. There are numerous themes within the book including one that resonated particularly, personal agency, how much we are products of context and circumstances and how much we get to choose. Even within the choices there are so many compromises required, it seems getting by is almost the best we can hope for.

I took Juno to Verwood with me when I drove the motorhome down to change my library books and then to collect Joseph from school. The walk round Cranborne was suitably autumnal, the mewing of a buzzard overhead, groups of rooks in the fields and passing wood pigeons dominating the skies.

Ill again

 It is very frustrating being ill again not so long since Covid, and in some ways, this is worse as at least with Covid I was sleeping. The irritation in my chest and throat is making me cough and waking me up at stupid times, 2.30 last night, leaving me feeling pretty washed out. I ended up watching Youtube and subscribing to an American Italian guy's channel on cooking and watching a documentary on tudor cooking at Christmas, all good stuff.

On the plus side I had a better day yesterday and got out with Juno and lit a bonfire for the children to play with in the evening. They loved throwing leaves and twigs in and writing on the patio with the charred wood which tubled over the sides of the fire pit. Our old metal chimnea has completely rusted at the bottom now and cannot stand upright, a little bit like myself, and will have to be disposed of. 

Autumn is well underway but we've had pretty good weather for the past week and I've been watching the birds coming into the feeders this afternoon, over 20 starlings rushing in and being spooked, along with goldfinches, blue tits, coal tit and dunnock. We've got a lot of plump wood pigeons flying in and out too.

My book has now sold well in to the hundreds, with 95% of books failing to make it to three figures, I am chuffed to nuts with it and the reviews have been fantastic. I am so pleased and can't quite believe that other people are enjoying reading something I wrote.

Returning

It's been a fortnight or more since I last posted which is an indication of just how busy things have been. I haven't felt  like making time to write up anything but boy has it been busy, especially with the dance show which went incredibly well. We are so proud of Maria and it was also fantastic to see Glen and his band play over the last weekend too.

Not feeling too good presently but got the dog out on a cold morning with a bit of frost. It looked stunning and a far cry from Paul and myself walking the route on Sunday when there had been storm winds and heavy rain bringing down trees and debris which then took out an overhead telephone cable too. I did manage to collect some of the fallen wood yesterday to save for the woodburner.