Silver lining to moaning cloud

It’s taken me all day to write this post, but that is quite a good thing. When I started this morning it was just going to be one long moan but the day turned out quite well as it happened. I’m sat here now with a glass of wine, nicely relaxed, but might as well start at the beginning;

9.10am – This is going to be a bit of a moan…

For a start, it’s raining again, (not quite as bad a last Monday when lots of roads round here flooded and up the lane someone had to be rescued from their car when it got stuck in 18 inches of water, (but another dismal Monday all the same.

Secondly, cartographically speaking, we are living in a really silly place. We are in the top right hand corner of an OS Explorer map, which is great if we want to go south west of here, but if we want to go more than 3 miles in any other direction we need one of the three adjoining maps. And maps ain’t cheap.

3.25pm – Thirdly. Yesterday we went of for a lovely afternoon stroll on White Sheet Hill. It was a bit damp but beautiful and peaceful. We’d been walking around the hill forts, kids were flying kites on the top of the hill. It was lovely until the calm was shattered by quadbikes, a motorbike and a 4×4 churning up the track. Grrr. There’s a lot of strong debate that goes on about people using vehicles on tracks, bridleways and green lanes. Never mind the noise, after having seen the damage these vehicles can do to tracks around the country I think vehicles should be kept off them.

(interlude – I love the song on the new barclaycard advert – it’s so happy – Let your love flow, by the Bellamy Brothers)

4.30pm (the silver lining) – I’d just put some washing on and something caught my eye out of the back window, hang on, oh crikey it’s a barn owl. I spent the next 20 or so minutes watching the owl fly around the garden and hunt in the field next to the house. It was an incredibly beautiful bird – I’ve never seen one in the wild, hence the excitement. Despite being bullied by a crow and a magpie the owl caught a little mammal in the field and flew off, returning a bit later.

(Whilst I’m on birds the last post was meant to mention that we’d seen – and correctly identified later – a Nuthatch whilst we were up at Stourhead. )

Wonderful weekend

It started with fireworks, which we weren’t too sure how the little one was going to cope with. We were all prepared for howling and making a swift exit, as it happened he loved them, and the bigger the better.

With Anna and Chrissy down to stay for the weekend I got out for my first full day’s walk in Dorset. The weather wasn’t great and the walk instructions were dismal but we have a good, if eventful walk around Bishop’s Caundle. We came across a friendly gamekeeper who suggested we wear bright clothes all winter to make sure we don’t get mistaken for a deer and shot (showing us the bullets for full effect). After a lovely lunch at the Trooper Inn in Stourton Caundle we had a run in with a herd of rather frisky cows. For the first time ever I pegged it over a fence, jumped a river and limbo’d under some barbed wire to get away from cows, who were a bit too interested (in a ‘what you doing in my field’) in our route. A slightly damp three trudged back into Bishop’s Caundle just as it was starting to get dark.

The rain came down so plans for a second night of fireworks were abandoned in favour of a big dinner followed by a soporific evening in front of the woodburner – which has too modes; either not lit or blasting out enough heat a cathedral.

We were rewarded for our early get up this morning with a virtually deserted Stourhead and good weather. The autumn colours on the estate are just getting better and better. As we were on the way home the rain started and hasn’t really stopped. So after roast dinner we had a perfect Sunday afternoon, warmed by the burner, surrounded by the Sunday paper, watching Singin’ in the Rain.

Sunday 8pm and all now suitably restored for the week ahead.

Obama

The world is a more hopeful place this morning.

woodland fungi

Mushrooms in Duncliffe Wood.

Clickety Click

I went to a Knit and Natter group last night at Tamsyn G’s in Gillingham and had a lovely gentle evening. It was really good getting out on my own and nice to have a prompt to get knitting again, my new project is a baby tank top knitted in Opal tiger wool.

tiger tank top

Upped sticks – in sticks

I’m no more a Londoner. We’ve moved to Dorset for a new life in the country; more fresh air, less stress, more fun, less traffic, etc etc. It’s a big move, we’d been in London for 10 years, and made a life, home, careers, baby there. Life is quite strange at the moment, having gone from dense city living to no one within spitting distance and everything on our doorstep to everything a car journey to. It still doesn’t feel quite real at the moment, like we’re in a nether world, not quite landed at the other side. More from Dorset soon.

ooh, summer, nice

Life has changed again. I’m now back at work, although not right now as I’m working four days a week. Sort of part time. The first week was OK from a work perspective, and I’m feeling very enthusiastic about things, despite not being there for 11 months. From a home perspective, we’re getting there, nursery is a big thing for us both to adjust to after spending all our days together.

and…

• Just come across clipmarks and quite like what it does
• Been knitting, just in time for the weather getting nice and warm
• I’ve been looking for someway of indexing recipies online, we gotta eat seems the best of the bunch so far but it still takes a bit of time to enter each recipe, particularly the ingredients list and quantity of each thing
• Loving the Anna Pickard’s live blog of each episode of the Apprentice

Quick type

Right, baby is having a nap so I’ll try to get a quick post down.

I’ve been making my own pasta after, successfully putting a wanted ad up on freecycle for a pasta machine. The whole process is relatively easy and quite relaxing, however I’d recommend not trying to look after a baby at the same time or everything will take twice as long. It’s not just been pasta, my maternity leave has been one long bake-a-thon really, mostly filled with cakes and biscuits and puddings.

Also been spending my time researching a bit more of my family tree. It’s something I pick up and put down every few years, but this time I decided to bite the bullet and actually sign up to pay to access records and I’ve really gotten somewhere. My aim for some time had been to get back to 18th century. I’ve been able to take two lines back into the late 1700s. Other interesting finds have been a Cornish tin miner great-great-great-great-grandfather and two great-great-uncles that were doctors in the RAMC in WW1.

Time’s up, he’s awake.

Boogie days

Afternoon discos for babies, sounds great and nothing like the Ally McBeal dancing baby thing.

Found out by accident that you can get some good 2 for 1 offers on your Oyster card so we ended up going to the Cabinet War Rooms on Sunday. It’s well worth a visit, most of the rooms have been left as they were, in a plastic free world.

At home the world of food has now greatly expanded to include protein and tiny soldiers of toast.