My ta-da moments begin

The transformation of the chook areas has begun....and nearly finished!

This [above] is how it started off - with the runs still in place. UJ dismantled all this wire and framing.

There were two chook houses and a big compost bin, as well as some very overgrown shrubs.

Sunday afternoon I had got to this stage: chook houses were there still, awaiting removal, and the bottom half of the compost bin was still there, with black gold still waiting to be collected up and moved.

By the end of Sunday, it was clear and ready for the rotavator man.

Tuesday lunchtime the rotavator man was here and busy and then this morning, in a shower of rain, the turves went down - and what a transformation.  I have a really lovely little secret garden here behind the workshop, which is a beautiful sun trap too!

This is the other long section which stretches the length of the plot, front to back, and down the side of the house.  This is "before" the folks got busy.

And this is how it looked in the afternoon sunshine.

Wow! I am so impressed with what has been achieved.  Now I need to save up for a ride-on mower, I think [just joking!].

Little did he know...

You've all read my intentions about applying for the lay ministry worker job which we hope is going to be advertised later this spring, but few people in real life know about my thoughts on the job.  But the Spirit is working, and I had a lovely preacher ring me up last night, quite out of the blue, and tell me that he thinks I would make a good lay worker and that I should consider applying for the job!  It confirmed my prayers, and encouraged me no end.  I just hope that they get the advert out soon....the waiting is hard work.

I spent most of yesterday with a headache but it did improve by the time I went to bed last night!  I got hit on the forehead on Sunday by a coil of tensioned wire that I was removing from the fenceposts - the FH had strung it up and we had netting on it to grow runner beans on in the first couple of years that we were here.  Trying to be efficient for the fencer chap who is coming today, I was removing it so that he could get on with the new fence posts and not have to waste [my] time on the wire.  The end of it pinged out unexpectedly and caught me quite hard at the time.  It feels bruised but all I have to show for it is a little scab where the end of the wire made a perfect circle in my skin and bled for a minute.

Hope you are have a good day today xx

In the garden

I moved on two chicken houses yesterday - one to a new owner and one smashed up with a hammer as it was past repair: I haven't had that much fun with a mallet in years!  It was a very therapeutic half hour - I had started in a very ladylike manner, taking the bolts out of it one at a time, until I came to some that just would not budge.  So I decided that just smashing it apart with the mallet would be the most time-effective manner to deal with it.

I had to get the FH's old car moving again as well, so I had to charge the battery up - the neighbour, J, came round to help me sort that out as I couldn't work out exactly where to put the charger clips on the battery but I took a photo when he had gone, so that I know for next time.  It started up yesterday afternoon so it got shifted OK and will be out of the way for the fencing chaps.

When I had moved the old chook houses, I had to demolish a compost bin that the FH had made out of an old pallet box.  He had put it in situ and THEN built a shed so that it couldn't be removed from the position without being dismantled: I now have a wheelbarrow and two big bags full of lovely home made compost, and the bin is in the heap with the old chook house.

All in all, I had about four hours pottering about in the garden - and it was lovely.  The sun was shining, and I stopped now and again for a cup of tea and a sit in the sunshine.  Hard to believe that the EFG phoned us up at tea time and said it was snowing in Aberdeen!  She sent us some photos to prove it too - what a contrast of a day from north to south.

Hope you all have a good week - lots going on here this week so I had better get on!

Breaking even

I had a terrifically busy day yesterday although some of the plans didn't come to fruition - the people are coming to get the chicken house today instead of coming yesterday - and I had some unexpected visitors, and then I forgot to shop for the frozen sausage rolls that I had been asked to buy for the refreshments, so I ended up making cheese scones instead!

But it is just before 9am on Sunday morning and there is a service prepared and all is well in that department.  The quiz went well last night and we added about £120 to the church funds even though there were only about 20 people who came to the quiz - the top score was 63/100 so I think that the questions were sufficiently challenging.  I have to find another 100 for the end of June, and more for August and October so if anyone can recommend a source of good questions, I would LOVE to hear from you!

My garden is going to be renovated this week: new fence posts and a smartening up of one side of the driveway, and about 145 square metres of turf on the chicken's old run area, including a chap to rotovate the area over first.  The grass should grow well when the roots get down in to the years' worth of chicken manure that has gone into the ground in that area of the garden.  It is going to be done in a couple of days.  And the best bit of it is that it is not going to break the bank.  Due to the savings routine that I have got into this year, which has involved using one pot of income to pay the direct debits, my income from the phones for food and diesel and other day to day living bits, and saving everything else that comes in, I can pay for this work without incurring any credit charges or interest anywhere - and just use our savings.  I had a huge stroke of luck yesterday in that the unexpected visitors came from the local bee club and bought some of the FH's equipment, so those funds have gone straight into the "garden renovation" pot to help with the expenses.  I am hoping that by the end of the month, although the savings won't have been added to this month, they won't have shrunk by too much either because I am just spending this month's savings, if I am very careful!

I am looking into having some foreign exchange high school students to live with us from September to June whilst they attend the YFG's school in the Lower Sixth.  There is no "rent" but a generous food allowance is paid which would actually feed the family, not just the two students, and I think it would be a good experience for us all for nine months - for us to have more life about the place, more company of her own age for the YFG, and it would make me think harder about planning some more challenging and interesting meals - there has been a marked note of repetition in our menus lately here!  We are very early-on in that process and still finding out about it, but I'd also love to hear from anyone who has had long-term foreign students living with them.  I had lodgers from the local college when we lived in Cupar and some of them did come to us for the year, but they were Scottish boys, and went home at the weekends most of the time, whereas these would be girls from anywhere in Europe and would be here full time apart from a break at Christmas, usually, so we will be in uncharted waters for us!

Enough for this morning - lovely weather here for ducks so a good day to stay inside and catch up on the ironing and housework I think!  We have the YFG's friend coming for tea, and her brother to whom I teach maths, because their parents are going out tonight, and the YFG went to them for tea last night whilst I was at the quiz.  They are lovely young people and we really enjoy having them - and they play board [bored, in my case!] games with the YFG, so that is a bonus for me!

Friday came and went

(image from pinterest.com)

I'm glad it is Friday at last - but I am actually looking forward to Sunday afternoon as that will be my "weekend"!

Tomorrow is full of gymnastics, typing out quiz questions, buying a paper for the Lidl voucher, making egg sandwiches for quiz refreshments, having someone come to fetch a redundant chook house, teaching small boy maths for an hour, attending quiz and serving refreshments and clearing up afterwards, coming home to prepare Sunday service [unless I can find the bones of one from a previous year that is vaguely recyclable - I am not proud at this point: by this time my eyes will be on matchsticks and I will be praying hard for inspiration to be forthcoming] and falling into bed, hopefully before the small hours!

Saturdays are actually the most hectic and horrendous days of the week sometimes.

I'm going to bed now and my bedtime reading is the passages for Sunday so that inspiration may strike overnight!

Variety in vouchers

Just as it was announced on the news last night that Tesco has reported record losses this year, it was discussed that shoppers are losing their old-fashioned brand loyalty and are shopping around more.  That's exactly what I shall be doing this weekend!  The usual £5 voucher in the Mirror for the Aldi shop has not been forthcoming today, and apparently, I am reading that there are just 10 individual vouchers for specific items - useful if you want to buy those particular things but not much help to the overall total if you don't need them.

But there is still some good news - there are Lidl vouchers for £5 off a £40 shop in "Lidl News" which should be inserted into a number of newspapers on Saturday 25th April - this weekend.  The website I saw that on says that we need to look out for it in the Sun, Express, Telegraph or Mail [and the Record in Scotland] so check that the insert is there when you buy the paper.

And so what does that mean for my Aldi habit?  Well, I used to make the trip once a month and try to combine it with other things to make it worth my while, but if there is not going to be the main voucher for £5 any longer, it won't be worth it really.  My strategy will be to still go, but only when I am going near one anyway - and when I am there, I shall really stock up on the products I love, like the washing powder and washing up liquid.  If the Lidl voucher is a regular thing, I shall use that more often, as I have a Lidl much closer by and I like the quality of their meat, and I can eat their gluten-free meatballs too!

Anne's loss

The news has emerged in recent days that Jonathan Crombie, most famous for playing Gilbert Blythe in the Anne of Green Gables films, has died.  He was only 48.

(image from usatoday.com)

I love the films and have the first on DVD - I had them all on video but gave them away years ago when the video player broke down and we replaced it with a DVD player.  I shall have to find the other films on DVD eventually so that I have a set again.

It was a treat to watch the development of the pair from the cheeky school room antics of their youth to the more mature teachers and students that they became.

(image from washingtonpost.com)

I know that he had a huge career on the stage quite apart from his Prince Edward Island character's films, but that is how I knew him, and how I will remember him.

(image from new.nationalpost.com)

RIP.