A more normal day

After the troubles and worries of the last two days it was nice for today to be a bit more normal. There were no dramas, no risks to my ownership of the place or anything like that; just a day with gorgeous weather (finally) and a few interesting things that I took pictures of.

It was a gorgeous morning

Last night when I went to bed the thunder was rumbling around quite a lot, with some huge flashes of lightning. I had reports that there was heavy rain over at S and S's place however this never appeared here and, after one final flash bang it stopped before I went to sleep. I slept right through and woke to the sound of a dog howling. I was most concerned that it was Rambo however when I looked I could see it wasn't. This sound has continued on and off through the day but I've not been able to work out what it was yet.

Rather large baby swallows

This morning I did my rounds before I even put the kettle on; I'm getting better again in the mornings with the sun being out and me actually needing to do some watering. I may have said this explicitly before but this morning routine, taking me around the land slowly carrying a big watering can of water really starts my day off in the best way possible. I get to see Rambo and play with him first thing every day and I also get to look around and admire my property from various different angles. I did everything I needed to, including picking up a lot of glass and watering the pots with the hose, and then went to take the first picture and noticed that the babies in the nest in what will be the living room are getting rather too large for the nest. I grabbed the zoom to get a better picture. I can't wait for them to fly the nest because then I will work to make the upstairs inaccessible to these damn birds.

Filthy from Rambo

I had a load of mushrooms which were starting to need to be used up so I chose some lovely butter fried mushrooms with a couple of fried eggs and some bacon, set on one slice of bread, for my breakfast. I was expecting Lubo at about 10 today to give him the paperwork back and talk through the options around the ownership issue so I didn't get myself outside but stuck inside and did a fair bit of paid work. When it got near time for him to arrive I legged it outside, put Rambo into his enclosure, and then swept up the spilled soil from the soil bed Rambo had been sleeping in, and dragged the tray inside.

Lubo turned up while I was pottering again picking up glass off the patio and we went upstairs and I went through what I had learned from Sofia yesterday and what the next steps should be. We also went through the ownership question and his advice was very strongly to not do anything. He said that no one knows about the possible land question and he had a quite realistic guess as to why the land on this other document could be different. He suggested that when this document was put together maybe the kindergarten type school (run from the green building) had its own separate land and now they have sold it all to me as one.

Either way, I've decided for the time being to take his advice and I'm now just waiting to hear why the hell Sofia are applying a clause to my building that shouldn't be applied. More on that later.

Ten minutes of scything

Once Lubo left I was waiting for someone to come in the office to answer a question so I went outside for 10 minutes of scything. This may seem like a waste of time but I am getting much better and faster at this task and even ten minutes will achieve quite a lot. The pictures above (taken with the camera set on a tripod so I can get them near enough exactly the same angle every time (apart from I knocked the tripod so it did move a little bit) show before I started, almost exactly ten minutes later when I stopped scything, and 8 minutes after that when I had collected all the cuttings together and moved them to the collection point.

Jesus and Mo

I returned to my desk for the call (which never happened) and did a bit more work then found that the thing I was looking at had been changed and it was all wasted effort. Lovely. I was happy to see that Jesus and Mo were both out and about wandering around the enclosure and looking pretty happy. They have started eating well (or at least it seems Jesus is eating everything I put in there) so I do hope Mo continues to thrive. He is my favourite after all.

I received a wonderful gift in the post today which is this book which I expect, from next year, to be my bible over here. I will be reading this cover to cover when I have finished the book I am reading now, and will be taking advice from it in how I lay out the gardens for the next couple of years. Thank you for my gift, you know who you are :)

Starting to boil up the chicken

I have been collecting chicken bones for a while, freezing them after the previous lot in the fridge got a bit moudly and had to be binned. What with the chicken carcass from the weekend I decided today to finally boil it all up for stock and so I set it to simmer this morning. It took all day but just before I started cooking my dinner this evening I strained off the liquid (and also some of the meat) into a pot and then put the waste in to be recycling in the humanure. I'm going to have to put this outside today as, even though this morning I emptied the collection pots, they are now completely full.

Second set of scything

After doing a bit more paid work I decided to have lunch (the last of the tomato, last of the cheese and what would run my mayo down to only one pot) and then let it go down while working and drinking a cup of tea. Once I felt a bit more capable of moving I went outside and picked up the scythe again, having sharpened it. This was not quite such a successful time as, after cutting down a swathe of brambles, the head became loose and no amount of bashing with a hammer would persuade the wedge to keep the blade jammed in place. I worked until it got too frustrating and then collected it all together again.

It was coming to time for S and S to pop over anyway and I was so sweaty that it was a good thing I stopped as I got to cut my hair and have a shower and felt much fresher when they arrived. We pretty much head straight back out and I was successful in my aim of helping them with the lights for their car. After this we went past the hardware shop (where I looked at more woodworking tools) and then onto Kaulfand and Bila where supplies were bought (including more choc ices as the heat has made them quite tempting) and some more water bowls for Rambo and Rocky (whenever he arrives).

Back to the house and there was happily time for a cup of tea and a nice chat about the progress they are making, and the plans I have (and S, not S, had a huge amount of sugar in his tea which he told me to write about so there it is) and then, after saying goodbye to Rambo (who was really obedient again as he can be) they headed off towards home while I went back to the house. I went to let Rambo out and noticed a huge caterpillar legging it across the patio. I didn't have any camera on me at all so went running towards the house. As I approached I saw the little lady was standing waving so I went to get the camera, then took Rambo back to his enclosure (poor lad probably didn't know why he kept getting locked away) but the creature had disappeared so no picture. I invited the Little Lady in and she said she needed some wire which I have loads so I happily gave her some. I then asked about the scythe and Usmivka was down in the bottom field so I took it over there and he fixed it with some well aimed bashes. He also gave a few swipes with the sharpening stone.

When the post was delivered this morning I had asked the Special One to work for me tomorrow and he said yes; I double checked this while I was with them in the bottom field and it seems to be confirmed. I'm going to ask him to clear the attic for me. Usmivka said that he would come over and do some more hammering on the scythe blade tomorrow too so I could have a few visitors. They're so wonderfully helpful.

Gorgeous evening sun

So it was time for me to head inside, think about dinner, avoid doing this blog, and watch the England cricket match which started (very badly) today. I had pork chops with home cut chips for dinner and ate far too much; I'll have to really focus on the scything tomorrow to work it off. I also paid more attention than usual to the sun setting and was rewarded with this lovely early sunset shot taken from the landing.

Bright moon

As I get to the end of writing this blog (which was so close to not happening you should be lucky it exists at all) I can see the moon through the window, but hidden behind the trees still. It is really bright tonight so I went through to what will be the living room and took some pictures. It is so bright that my incompetent operation of the camera made it quite hard to capture however this is good enough.

So, with the dogs yapping away (and me not getting frustrated at all) I'm going to sign this off as I am now on a call. Ciao.