A February BBQ

What a busy beginning to this week we have had; really busy in lots of unexpected ways. I'm pretty late starting to type this update (it's already 6pm and dinner is well under way) so we'll see if I even get to publish it this evening. Onwards.

Guests

The theme for this week has been guests. Lots of them. On Monday night I was just about to head to bed when I had a message from Venko, the lovely policemen/musician who made friends with me at KAT and helped me so much with the trailer registration. He had some time off work and wanted to bring his family to the countryside and immediately thought of coming to see us. After a brief chat it was agreed that he would come over on Tuesday for a BBQ at lunch time. Short notice, but a lovely idea and we're really pleased he came.

Venko's kid watching as A plays with Louise

All the puppies joining in

He's an inquisitive kid

We got ourselves ready (I swept the balcony, which is a quick task but one we've been putting off) but then we realised that the roof terrace would probably be warmer as it'd be more in the sun so we moved the BBQs up there. We found we were a bit low on charcoal so Venko agreed to bring some which saved a trip out for A. It was the first time he had visited so he got a little lost and I had to drive down the bottom of the hill to meet him. I pulled Thomas up heading back up the hill and sat on his roof so I'd be obvious. This worked well and they were here, greeting Rambo and loving him, and the fowl, and the puppies and the whole place. It took ages for Venko's wife and child to come inside as they were so interested in playing with Rambo; he thought all his Christmases had come at once. It was so lovely to see a child who isn't scared of a big dog and (other than running a couple of times, but then understanding why when he was told not to) acting very sensibly around him. He also loved the puppies and spent lots of time playing with them; indeed he hardly ate anything he was so into the animals and nature.

Venko taking a big bite out of a Lidl burger

He likes them

Just after we both shot; they must have been good ones

Venko shows us how it's done; six from six in the distant bucket

His son has a go; good parenting, I think

Dangerous woman!

I wasn't keen, but I had a go anyway

The breeze was getting more and more and though the sun was warm it was quite chilly on the roof terrace by the time we finally finished eating; one thing over here is people don't eat fast and they don't eat much. The BBQ was a success though, Venko brought some home made bread which was very tasty indeed. After we finished this it was time for some recreation as he had brought both his homemade Hungarian horse bow, and his hand gun, to do some shooting. This prompted me to bring out my long bow, which has been gathering dust since last summer, and we had a really great time shooting arrows along the land. He then got the hand gun and shot holes in one of our buckets and then encouraged both me and A to have a go. It was so loud I thought my eardrum burst, and A struggled also. Louise really did not like the loud bangs and was clinging to one or the other of us while the shooting was going on.

During the afternoon Bekir turned up as well, with his son, and stayed for a little while talking to Venko and then looking around at what we've been doing around the place. It was lovely to see him and he is looking very well indeed. Fingers crossed he can start back working here soon as we have SO much to get through this year. He was off home, having been to market day, though so didn't stop that long. Our other guests headed off about 3pm and both A and I were exhausted; it takes a lot of concentration when neither you nor your friend speaks the others language very well and I'm sure Venko and family were tired as well. It was a really lovely visit, though, and I can't wait for him to get back over.

Other than this, today we had another visitor. A had given a lift to a man into town this morning on her run to the shops and he came over, with the Little Lady, with a gift of some baklava to say thank you for her driving him to town. We invited him in and A made some filter coffee which we shared with them in the living room, along with the lovely banana and walnut cake A had made on Sunday. He speaks quite fast but we were communicating OK. He is another ex student of the school and it's lovely to have another person see what we are doing to such a large part of their personal history.

Gardening

The glorious weather of the end of last week has continued right through this week so far so we've been able to get outside quite a lot and get stuff done. A's back, while it is slowly getting better, is still quite bad and so she is being very careful about what she does but being outside in the sun has helped it a lot I think. She's had to take the week off work because sitting at her desk was making it seize up quite badly. Anyway, we have got quite a lot done.

A checking out a seed packet

A wheelbarrow full of sticks from the lawn area

Starting to dig out a flower bed

Flower bed dug, Thelma wants me to throw her toy

A mix of random seeds goes into the flower bed

Covered in plastic to keep the ground warm

One of my bulbs from last year is coming up

A bee which stopped on the table to say hello

On Monday A was back outside planting seeds for various things. She did some more food based items but was also keen to get some flowers going as we have so many packets of seeds for them as well. I took a quick potter around what will eventually be the lawn and started picking sticks up, and A joined me and between us we collected two wheelbarrows full. At lunch time I went outside again and helped by digging out a flower bed along the concrete between the two lawn sections. A then scattered a mix of seeds from various packets and we then covered them over, watered well and put plastic over hoops on top, to keep them warm over the slight cold snap forecast for this weekend. Spring really has sprung early over here and the bulbs in the Tortoise garden which I planted last year and left in the ground have started to show already. Also there were lots of bees flying around which is great to see; we need bees on our land for all our crops to be fruitful.

Pond to be cleaned, and the gunk I removed

Super happy to be back in their pond

Monday night as I shut the chickens and ducks away I opened the valve to empty the pond for cleaning in the morning. I had forgotten I had done this by the time morning came, particularly with the excitement of Venko's visit, but A reminded me because the ducks were less than impressed at not having a pond to swim in. It took about ten minutes or so, no more, to scoop up all the green gunk (mainly duck poo) from the concrete into a bucket and the job was complete. I turned on the tap to refill the pond, and then on a suggestion from A I poured the goop out around each of the trees in the orchard. The water pressure, after having none at all last week, is back to being really good and the pond filled in less than three hours which is super fast. The ducks have been very pleased to get it back, as you can see in a picture taken this morning.

A once again carefully staining the garden furniture

It is hard work pushing a manual lawnmower on animal pasture

Lots of sticks were still hidden under the grass

Looks so much better after a mowing, though

The front stack of wood fell over

Today was another day for getting outside as much as possible. A was able to get out for a little while and do the table for the balcony dining set which is good; just one more chair and she's done now, though with her back and the weather forecast this may wait until the end of next week now. I popped outside for a late lunch and to push the manual lawnmower around the other half of the lawn area that I hadn't done at the end of last year. Despite all the time we've spent picking up sticks and stones from the lawn I managed to fill another wheelbarrow with sticks, and threw loads of stones out onto the lane as well. It took longer than I wanted to finish this but it hasn't ever been done on this area before so it'll only get faster. I've got blisters on the palms of both of my hands now as well. Soft office workers hands. While we were out there a sudden rumble made us jump and we spotted that the wood pile had collapsed again. This is something that will need thinking about. It wasn't all that well stacked in the end anyway, but maybe we need some more support in there? Another nice thing was the really nice cousin from the farm is back from working in England and he came to say hello while I was cutting the grass. He's a very nice bloke.

Animals

You've got to see a few pictures of our menagerie already in this update however there's a couple of pictures that are worth putting up which don't fit into the earlier sections.

Here she is trying to get her back legs inside

She made it, though she didn't stay in it very long

Sassy is still really enjoying her run being on the balcony and she loves playing with all the structures and things I've put in for her. She's a very big rabbit now, however, and can barely fit inside this little tent. Earlier in the day she'd tried to get in while A was watching and failed but she tried again and I had the camera ready to capture her looking out in triumph from inside. The puppies, as you can see, were most intrigued as well.

Thelma and Louise share a stick/tree/sapling

Playing with the ring toy on the roof terrace

Louise wearing the toy as a necklace

Rambo making sure Louise doesn't take HIS stick

Thelma being camera shy

Whereas Louise poses

Rambo surveying his kingdom

The puppies are as playful as they ever are with Thelma being the chief instigator of anything related to a "T.O.Y." though once it's being played with Louise is just as interested. She loves sticks, though this is actually a sapling we had pulled out of the garden, but her favourite thing ever is the chew toy ring thing we bought a few weeks back. She's managed to pull a couple of the nubs off but it has survived very well considering how much use it gets. Thelma is very camera shy and it's hard to get a good picture of her when she isn't playing as she drops her tail and runs away when she sees the camera come out. Louise is the opposite and is quite the tart. Rambo has had a great week with all the attention, and us being able to be outside more, and is a very happy dog indeed.

Magnificent skies

And again, as usual, we've had some amazing displays in the sky. Here they are.

Sunday ended with a golden glow

Monday was attended by scattered clouds

The first rays of the day shine across the valley fog

Smoke rises into the sunlight

A and Louise enjoy the sunset

Further round the horizon, the clouds capture the colours

Sunday night had a lovely sunset but it was over very fast; it was golden, unlike the usual red ones we get here. Still gorgeous, though. On Monday night the sunset was made special by the scattered clouds around the horizon which caught the colours as the sun went down and made a beautiful display for us. I took some panoramic pictures of this and have saved them out as maybe being good for a background on one of my model railway scenes that I am going to do. On Tuesday I was running around trying to find my camera as the sun came up and I got onto the balcony just in time to capture the first rays of the sun illuminating the top of the valley-fog. The days have been warm recently but it is still cool at night and you can see the smoke from a morning fire in the farm. Last night the sunset was back to its glorious red best and we went onto the roof terrace to enjoy it. Five minutes later the sky was grey and it was completely over. The skies have been clear every night recently and we've been able to enjoy some amazing star gazing but I haven't taken the camera out to get pictures; I'll get round to doing that again soon I hope.

Other stuff

A few bits and pieces that don't have photographs associated with them.

After much thinking, and me going in with a DVD and my harddrive to check it out, we've bought a new surround sound system. This will eventually go into the "theatre room"we have planned but mainly it'll be great for watching blu rays as the previous DVD didn't really cope well with 5.1 into a stereo mix. We listened to some Mozart over dinner this evening and it sounds great.

I've not got on with any more of the floor since the weekend as I've been too busy however I have managed to find a supply of plywood, and they deliver. I ordered very thin stuff this time which may not end up being right for some of the purposes I have however they have other options and they do next day delivery for basically the same price as the slower one. Very strange pricing model.

Superb duck egg omelette

The birds are still giving us loads of eggs; today we got five which means only one of them is at risk of Easter Dinner. In all seriousness we have so many eggs it's untrue; check out the amazing omelette A made this week to use up some of our supply. It was made with duck eggs and was beautiful. A word of advice to anyone thinking of getting ducks or chickens; we have four chickens and two ducks and I reckon that is sufficient for us, egg wise. We won't be getting any more unless we decide to keep them for meat.

So there you have it; a super busy beginning to the week as I said. Now to go and watch Sopranos through the new sound system.