Busy morning, lazy afternoon

Well hello there; we're both very tired right now after an excellent day so I'm going to try and be brief. You can judge how well I do by the end.

Straight on with the chores

So the day started with no alarm and a bit of a lie in. It was wonderful. We let the girls out onto the balcony and went back to bed for a fair while until they were scratching at the door and banging to get in. They then did not get the opportunity to wee on the bed as I took them straight downstairs for their toilet break, let the chooks out of their house, and went back up to bed for more snuggles. What a lovely way to start the day. We did have jobs to do first thing and so the scaffold was brought into the bedroom (dropping dust everywhere which I still have not hoovered up; there's another job to do before bed) and I took my life in my hands to climb it and investigate the wiring at the top end. It was as we had suspected; the red sheathed cable was attached to the brown in the fitting and the blue went through to blue.

This is what I found

With the knowledge gleaned there I went up to the roof again and checked again what was happening up there, drew a picture and sent it to Steve and my dad for confirmation of what I was seeing. It looks like the old wiring had the switch across the neutral not the live. Anyway, at least I now fully understood what was going on up there and would be able to get stuck in. Both my dad and Steve gave me good help which was much appreciated as well.

Thelma in the bird house; they weren't bothered at all

I wasn't the only one with a task to do early; A had decided the birds need a proper pond and so took herself and the puppies over to the enclosure. Once I had finished drawing my pictures of the wiring I went to see what was happening and found that the puppies had been allowed into the enclosure with the birds and there was no problems at all. This is great. I would definitely not trust Rambo though.

A hard at it

Helping out by clearing the loose dirt

She had made a really good start at pickaxing the ground where she had chosen to bury the container and I let her carry on with that, spelling her every few minutes by clearing the loosened dirt and giving her a break. This is how the locals work in pairs and it works really well. Pretty quickly we had the hole that we wanted and the brown bucket fit in perfectly.

Here is our new makeshift pond

From there we just had to fill in the gaps around the outside with the spoil from digging the hole and then go and collect lots of water to fill it with. I think I may make a little shelter for this to keep the sun off it and prevent it from evaporating like mad in the heat we are currently experiencing. We have seen the birds having a look at it over the day but I haven't seen a swimming duck yet. Fingers crossed.

Happy birds having breakfast

The new additions are really settling in well now and the dynamic in the flock seems good. KitKat obviously still rule the roost however they are now not pecking on Ginger/Baker as much yet they have also not really picked on Beaker and Balls either. We may have a month or two more to wait before the first eggs arrive but (other than the fact we're going to have to increase our water-supply to them) we're still not regretting getting them at all. Yet.

No more twisting wires as connections

After we finished this we took a quick break and I spoke, as mentioned earlier, to my dad and then Steve about the wiring. I then headed up into the roof to actually do the connecting. I took a drawing of what I wanted to achieve and very carefully connected everything up as planned. I then ran the new cable down the cable tidies to the consumer unit and wired in the new breaker. I'm going to need to draw up the box soon so I don't forget which breaker is for which circuit. By this time A was back inside (read the next paragraph for what SHE was up to before) and so I went down, flicked the submain on, and A turned on the lights and we had success! I'm so happy to have done this but there is lots more to learn; I am so much more confident now though; just think, draw pictures, plan and don't presume.

Loads of stones collected for the driveway

So while I was doing that A was out sweating away in the sun shifting stones out of the waste piles for use in lining the driveway. I have a long term plan to have runners on each side, between the silver birches, of gravel with nice stones on top. This will probably be an autumn job but we do need to save stones for it rather than pay for them to be removed and then not have enough to finish the job. She did a cracking amount of work though and while we may need more than this, at least it has been started unlike when I went to do it the other day and just decided I couldn't be bothered.

Rambo really really REALLY loves the water

It was now lunchtime and I had some nice butties while A had a much deserved snooze, with the puppies in with her. I didn't disturb her and when she woke up we decided that my swimming plan was a good idea so we loaded up Lucy and drove to our favourite spot. Just as we got there and were about to unload a group of kids walked down the road, with a big Alsatian, and so we decided to not contest it and just go somewhere else. We ended up parked back at our bridge after not seeing any other empty swimming spots. A shame, but that's life sometimes. Rambo was STRAIGHT in the water as per usual!

Their first time in water

I followed him in with the puppies for their first experience of swimming. Now we were aware that Louise hates rain and so it was not really a surprise that she was not best pleased to be dunked in the river and let go. She did swim, however, but directly out and up the bank where she stood shivering and looking unhappy. Thelma did the same. Oh dear.

A flock coming down to drink

From this muddy point which was not our usual entry (there were cows up the way we normally went) we walked for a while along the bank looking for a better place to swim. We got so far and then decided to go back but the farmer had moved his cows and they were now in the path. There followed a bit of a stressful time as Rambo tried to go for them, A managed to sidle past with the girls and then used my sandals to encourage the huge cow with huge horns to go back past me and Rambo as I held him on a short lead to stop him from attacking again. What a lump!

Yes they are hiding up her skirt

Relieved to have not been gored to death we were now able to get to the river out our preferred spot and so down we went. Once again Rambo was straight in and the girls were less keen. By the time I reached the beach with Rambo A had already tried to get them to swim and they were trying to climb under her dress to get away.

She is as unhappy as she looks

Unperturbed we kept trying to encourage them in but they were having none of it. They started doing the swimming motions even while they were still held above the water and then as soon as they were let free they were back off to shore. I got some lovely floating done and A did a bit as well but we weren't able to relax as the girls just kept running away. Pretty shortly, but after a lovely time, we were heading back to Lucy. Even while I was carrying the girls really high through the tributary (really warm in the sun) they were swimming away in my arms, desperate in case I put them in the water. They shivered and shook all the way home and only relaxed again once they were rolling around in the long dry grass to dry themselves off. They really are NOT water dogs.

And so our busy morning segued into our lazy afternoon. We went onto the roof terrace at first to sunbathe where I once again tried out the sun umbrella but again the wind was just too high for me to relax. A joined me and we put the swinging chair up for her but I stayed on my black recliner and read. A gave up after half an hour but I stayed a while longer and now I am pink. She was the wiser of the two and when I finally gave up and went to look for her she was ensconced on the balcony in the shade on her huge bean bag. I lay down next to her for a while but then was really tired so I went to bed and slept for a fair while. I do remember Louise coming to see me at one point but I was pretty much dead to the world.

Superb dinner - a joint effort

When I woke up I was gasping for a brew so the kettle went on and then I joined A watching a bit of the men's final at Wimbledon. It was suddenly feeding time for Rambo and the girls so I got myself into gear and started preparing dinner. I had decided the day before that a full roast was too much for this heat and lemon chicken would be good so I found a recipe but when I came to it I realised it was for chicken breast and I had thighs. No matter I set to and did the frying step (small amount of flour rubbed into the skin, lemon juice and zest, butter and olive oil) and then transferred it to the oven with all the juices to roast. A came in then and did the fried rice and then we sat and ate it and it was really good if I say so myself! A definite success. The root recipe I based it on is here: http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/lemon-chicken but as I say I used thighs and then roasted them for maybe 20 minutes or so after frying them for about 10.

So I have been very brief in terms of time even if not in terms of words; I've typed fast this evening. Tomorrow is going to be busy as I have to dash to the bank first thing to stamp the paperwork and then I am working all day as well. I also really want to do the travelling blog update so maybe you'll get that soon. Maybe.