Happy Birthday EFG

EFG is now a teenager - 13 at last! Wow....makes me think. She's going into Y9 at school this year as well, and will be doing the first of her GCSEs this year - she's getting so grown up. We have had a lovely day today celebrating; she was up and opening her gifts at 7am, pottering with the YFG and her friend from up the road in the morning after she decorated her cake, and then we went out after an early lunch to go to the cinema for her birthday treat. After picking her friend, S, up, we got to the cinema a little late to see Bandslam, but I think that they were already going off that idea in the car anyway - so we ended up seeing "Ice Age 3" which was an animated film - a good one.

The friend stayed for pizza and cake before we took her home again, we popped in to see my sister in the same town, and called round to see the Head Coach from gym who had some allotment produce for us: runner beans, rhubarb, courgettes, onions, potatoes and a cabbage. Some of that will get eaten at the weekend, and some of it will have to go into the freezer. Being given all this lovely food makes me really feel that we are going into autumn now - the harvest is being gathered in; the slightly dusty smell of the combine harvesters in the fields around us and the balers ejecting the round bales onto the fields - we love to watch the bales magically appear! I'm not so keen on meeting the combines in the narrower roads round here, but the drivers are usually accommodating and move over....

Tonight there has been a massive plume of smoke visible on the horizon for hours and it has been on the news tonight that a tyre shredding plant has gone up in flames at Littleport which has worried the YFG. She remembers the Australian and Californian bush fires and was worried that the fire could spread over here - I had to explain that this fire was under control and that we are lucky that there is a big river beween us and Littleport which would stop the fire, should the fire service lose control. The EFG solemnly pointed out that all that smoke wasn't doing the ozone layer any favours, as we could see it throughout the evening.

I succumbed to the ebay temptation and bought some eggs on Wednesday evening - they arrived this afternoon by Special Delivery. Trouble is that I had to buy another incubator to put them in. End of poultry purchases for this year - totally! I bought some Black Orpington eggs (a dozen), half a dozen pure Lavender Orpingtons and half a dozen split Black Orpingtons ie carrying the Lavender gene. I'll explain that another night! They are all "resting" after coming through the post today, so they will get set in the incubators tomorrow or Saturday nights - I have to calculate the availability of the brooder space, so I need to make sure I can cope with all the potential hatchings.

Am I addicted???

I feel as if I might be! To what, you ask - chickens and eggs, is the answer. I am spending too much time browsing ebay looking for new and unusual breeds of chickens for which people are offering hatching eggs. I bought 6 Gold Partridge Orpington eggs at the weekend, which arrived yesterday and are going into the incubator tonight, and since I am going to have to run the second incubator, well, it might as well be full, mightn't it? So I am looking for another half dozen to go in there with them.....had my eye on some Lavender Orpingtons last night, but missed them by a pound; there are three more lots on there tonight, so I will be trying to get some of those, without going over my self-imposed limit!

We are also going to put the three older Buff Orpingtons into the Autumn Show at the East of England showground on 11th October - we've never shown any before but these look so lovely that I thought I'd have a go - they won't win anything as I haven't a clue how to present them for showing but hopefully we'll learn from the experience and find out more on the day. There are sure to be lots of people around who will be happy to tell us what to do.

The YFG had her friend H round to sleep over again last night - it was more successful this time, and they slept in the motorhome in the garden. We all got up late this morning and have had a general pottering day. FH's cousin and his cousin's wife have been here this afternoon and evening, bringing the birthday gifts for the girls, and we have been making plans for the EFG's birthday on Friday: I have to make the cake tomorrow so that she can ice it, and we are taking her friend S to the cinema on Friday afternoon.

Tomorrow we are going to see my dad and have lunch with him, and then go and catch up with a friend who lives in the same town who I haven't seen for about a year - shamefully! She has been busy and I have been too, and our lives have drifted apart from the way we used to be, but we are both excited about getting together for the afternoon tomorrow. Might even have to bake a cake to take along - must get up earlier tomorrow with all this baking to get done.

And last night, I had to buy eggs! My girls are all (well, nearly all) taking a break from laying; they managed three between them today and that just isn't enough. Thankfully, Sainsbury's have some very reasonable free range eggs so we bought some of those. I'll be glad when the newer hens start to come into lay!