Singing Chicken

Happy Easter to all my blogging pals. I hope you enjoy yourselves. If you are one of the unfortunate people who have to work then I hope it's not too much of drudge and that you fill yourself with chocolate eggs or hens whilst there and when you get home.




BTW, the new lambs around the village have started to be born, AND....our wheatear was back on its usual wall on Sunday after leaving in September. Joy of joys! I haven't seen the female yet. Left -side view. Right- rear view. The name is derived form "white arse", so they say!
All photos from Google Images

I watched the Hairy Bikers "Mums Know Best" every week (in Jan/Feb?). They always seemed to find a huge diversity of nationalities and cultures within the area they were visiting and brought them together to share each other's foods. I don't think they were making any point except to display the huge range of foods and recipes within families and to encourage sharing and exchanging.



On the other hand, occasionally there is some game or other played, involving some kicking around of some type of ball. There was some sort of tournament of it in Feb and March. Sometimes the ball is round and sometimes it's oval. What a different side that brings out in people. Age-old oppressors bring old resentments to the fore, with claims of being the new oppressed, the long-oppressed bite back, chips on shoulders deepen and immature, naive things are said. It is quite a shocking eye-opener, all in the name of sport. You think you know people.... Well, let them get on with it. Let the armchair hooligans show themselves up, if they can't just chill out and see it as a bit of fun. Isn't that part of the definition of "sport"? Chain 'em all up together, lock 'em up and let them scream at each other where kind, civilised people can't hear them.



That ball stuff was a GAME! They did used to speak of 'teams'. Now they call them 'squads'. That just about says it all. The language of sports journalism has become more military. They talk of a team being "facing" another team. Why not just say "playing"? It's a GAME. PLAY IT.* It seems that "sport" causes divides and it's food that makes bridges. That's certainly how it looks. So let them play with cake, or maybe a big round cheese.

Would that help? Doubt it. Some people bring aggression into everything. They even bring politics into sport. The only sport I ever watch is that involving horses and that's rarely on TV these days. As for the ball games, I'd rather watch paint dry - so long as it isn't a certain colour of paint! Would rather watch the T------'s colour than THAT team's colour. Ha ha ha!

*Overheard in a campsite in Tralee years ago, mother to child: "You. Get in that car. Get yer game. Play with it.... or I'll box yer ears!"

Went for a ride yesterday. We were trotting downhill, down the lane, when the pony slipped on some moss and fell on her face. I went over the top, landed on my head and shoulder and heard myself go KHKHKHKHKHKHKHKHHKHHH... along the road as my hat scored through the gravel. "Oh heck, now she's going to fall on me; the end is very nigh", I thought. No, she didn't but she was on her knees and forehead behind me. "Bet I've got a broken collar bone then" I thought. "Will I get to Prague?" My legs unfolded in front of me in slow motion and I rolled up. Ah good, everything working. "Bet I've ripped this jacket" because it too scraped along the gravel under my shoulder. No, it wasn't ripped. It looks as if I've got bad sunburn as it's all skint but that and a grazed hand is all I have to show for it.
Poor little pony. She came off worse. She has a grazed head and two grazed knees, right down to the pink. This is the first time that she hasn't run off and left me when I have been unseated.I think she was too dazed.



She has been tripping more than usual lately. Sure-footed Exmoors shouldn't just fall. Four-legged animals are far more stable than two-legged ones. I think she needs her feet trimmed. Her "toes" look long and squared off which is a sign that they've been getting in the way. I hope that's all it is. Sure-footed Exmoors shouldn't just fall. When you have four legs you are far more stable than a twoo legged creature.
I wrap this pony in cotton wool. She had some strange turns 2 years ago. There was nothing I could put my finger on, but she would stand in odd positions, eg with her bottom up against the wire stay of the telegraph pole. She would stand with her head low and sometimes look lame and sometimes not, but when you trotted her up she was fine. Sometimes she bent her knees and quivered a bit, looking as if she was going to lie down, but then she didn't. The vet came and did some tests and he was puzzled so I was worried sick. i thought that was going to be "it". It turns out she has liver damage which he says is not life threatening but may be life shortening. It means she sometimes feels mild pain, which could be causing the odd postures and gait at times. Did he also say she had some arthritis? I wrote it all down but where did I put it? I can ask him again. Since then I have looked upon her differently and I try to protect her from stress. I don't think of her as the same indomitable little power-house. She's fragile and every day I anxiously watch for any signs. It's a constant worry what I might fnd one day.
She's 26. Exmoors can be a long-lived breed.

Top photo from google.



Here's my own pony's great, great aunt (and my other pony's great, great, great aunt? I have mother and son) on her 40th birthday. She lived to 41.

I got within 1 lb of where I wanted to be but now the eating times are here again. Family birthdays, anniversaries, holiday .... My little stash of small eggs that has been in my work drawer for weeks now is now beckoning. Look. And what's that other big thing behind it all? It's a chocolate hen. Not just chocolate. It says "British extra chocolatey chocolate"! It comes with eggs and ....wait for it.... edible straw! It was a surprise sent by a friend.
Time to get munching now.
There's also a packet of pickled onion Monster Munch but I got there first.
Yum! Munch! Slurp! Gobble!

British chocolate. Yippee for British chocolate. It's grrrrreat! Don't let these Euro types take it from us.

Oh and by the way, the hen doesn't look like that now, poor dear.She has no head, neeck or tail and half her eggs have gone and half her straw (which tastes like flying saucer paper with a hint of vanilla). YUM YUM!!!

About my computer problem, well I took DD's advice and got rid of toolbars but it's still happening. I forgot to tell her that in my second comment but don't want to bother her a third time.

About my bigger probelms about which I was so angry, I am still angry. People are ignoring me as well so I am all the more angry. It's part work, part to do with a society of which I'm a member and it's all supposed to be about having fun. Huh.

Sorry folks. There's no point in posting today. I am too ANGRY.
I have been overlooked for no good reason for things I really very much wanted to do. I want to know who's at the bottom of it and why they made that decision but I can't.
I am being treated like a dogsbody here AGAIN and getting other people's menial work to do.
I am being blamed for clients behaving contrarily when it has not been any fault of mine.
A wronged chicken is a very upset chicken and a very angry chicken. Heads might roll.

I went to my blog, saw there was a comment, but it isn't anywhere to be seen. Did reject it by mistake before I even read it, or did I accept it but it was on such an old post that I can't find it? So, to whoever it was, I am sorry. I'm not being rude or ignoring you, I just don't know where your comment has gone.

The computer did that thing again so this time I hit it before I switched off. But not hard. I wish they would either get it fixed or buy me another one. Maybe I could just sort of drop it.

Right. I am fed up with this. Do you see the thing that I think is a toolbar? It has lots of little boxes which say either "Blan" (ie blank) or "Conn" (ie connecting)and beside the last one on the right is a highlighted double arrow meaning there are more and yet more little boxes, reaching to infinity I suppose. I think this means that there are multiple screens open. Well the computer is doing this by itself. If I touch the 'X' at the very top right, to shut down the internet, it just does nothing. It will respnd to nothing. It just freezes, and all the time it just makes repeated clicking noises. The only thing I can do is hold down the "Off" switch then after a few mooments turn back on again. It is infuriating. It does this increasingly and it's always just after I have posted a comment on a blog, be it mine or someone else's.

This computer belongs to the office. if I say "It's only when I'm blogging" then the answer will be simple: "don't blog on our computer".
We have a contract with some computer engineers who are supposed to sort out all our technical problems. I told them about it wjen they were her oon a rare trip last week. The answer I had was "Well you don't need that Google toolbar" and the man took it off! So I put it back again ahen he had gone. His other answer was "That's not a fault with the laptop, that's the internet". I should have pushed the point but I'm ignorant and he's supposed to be in the know. I MUST be the laptop. This doesn;t generally happen when one is on the internet. It's only in the last few months it has happened to me and it's happening more and more. Will the whole laptop just seize up in the end?
Should I take away teh Google toolbar and see if the problem goes away? How do I take it away? I don't know what the man did.



Oh, GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh dear. Blogger's Block strikes again.I have started two posts, one on Google Earth but it wasn't interesting enough and one on Easter chocolate but I thought it wasn't close enough to Easter for it, so what do I talk about?



It's going to be lighter at nights in these parts from next Sunday which is great but that's nothing we don't know already.

Or is it great? Now, there's a post idea. Some people prefer the nights to be dark so they can just close the curtains and shut themselves off from the outside world. I must admit when the clock change comes in late October I do welcome it for that reason - shut curtains, batten down hatches, get all warm and cosy and put the lights on. By the time late March comes though and the growth starts (or does it? Hmph. Bare trees, no daffs) I just want the light back and to be able to go out on a



spring evening and hear a blackbird and see the blossom and get that misty effect before the sun goes down (when there's sun. Hmph). Many don't welcome that. Some shut their curtains in the summer at 7 or 8pm in broad daylight, just wanting it to be over. Some say the light nights make them feel inadequate because they aren't out doing things



and having a great time barbecuing, just because it's light. It makes them think they are missing out, but they aren't.



Nobody really is barbecuing because it's usually cold and wet and anyway not many do it on a week night. So I just want to tell these people It IS for you! I wish you did like it because it's beautiful and to be enjoyed. It'll be gone soon enough.

To people not from the UK, these pics are of typical British barbies.

Some were saying on the radio this morning that history should be taught differently in schools, with less about Hitler and enemies and more of a general overview. I would have welcomed that at school. I found it so very "bitty" with nothing about how real people lived their daily lives or how all those isolated episodes related to one another.
I wonder if everything I would like to see taught could fit into 12 years or so. All the nations or countries or whatever they are that form the UK I think should get to know a bit about each other's histories and I feel more should be taught about social history and how people farmed, lived, what they ate, how they procured and made what they ate, what they wore and what they did when they weren't working. I suppose wars and politics would have to come into it but they wouldn't be given more attention than the social stuff. This should all also be set against a more general overview of what was going on in the rest of the world. There would also need to be in-depth analyses of selected bits of history, especially in more senior classes, but at the same time still looking at the more general timeline. Maybe that's all a bit too much to pack in and that's been the problem all along.



Now to little birdies. I heard my first chiff chaff yesterday in a leafy bit of a place away down on low ground. My first spring migrant. Yippee! Then I went riding to the windmills (pony very frisky even though windmills stationary whereas the other set some miles away were whizzing round)and saw some little brown jobs (birders refer to lbj's when they can't see well enough to identify them). I think they were skylarks because the meadow pipts maybe haven't moved up yet.



The pied wagtails are very much in evidence. Of course lots of birds I am just starting to notice again do stay here all year but you just don't see them as much in winter because it's dark more when you are about, or the birds are just not busy nest building, pairing and raising young, they are just existing.



Oh, and I saw two yellowhammers.

It was about 3 weeks ago I think that I remarked on how 'spent' everything was looking. Scoured and sucked I may have said. I wasn't actually disliking it or bemoaning the look; it just struck me how barren it all appeared, more than late February/early March had struck me before. I've worked out why now - drought. How long is it since we had rain? It was the middle of January. It has been beautiful. Very cold frosty days with bright blue sunny skies for weeks and weeks on end. I went to "my lake" last Thursday and took this picture. Since then we have had another week of dry weather, with frost sucking the life out of everything so it's probably even browner now. Just look at it. If I hadn't admitted I lived in the UK you might think this was Afghanistan, as in those TV news pictures of big brown desiccated hills.
About two weeks ago I opened the door on one of those freezing sunny mornings and thought I noticed the birds more. Later, I went up to hang washing and saw some midgies dancing in sunbeams. When I stepped out, the warmth struck me. I thought I could almost have sat on the patio (in a fleece). On 7th February (not March, February 2008) I remember doing exactly that, and falling asleep!



I have now noticed more birds pairing up. There was a pair of singing stonechats (pic above - not mine) in the gorse above the same lake on Sunday, jackdaws making nests in the chimneys, sparrows away in the town disappearing into stone walls with nest materials. I heard a mistle thrush here at home every morning from that day and now I hear them in stereo.
It's less cold, the days are longer. It isn't winter any more.Phew!



I keep forgetting to mention the lambs but I have seen them on the lowlands away, away downhill from here and I see them higher up the hills every week. I have now seen local daffodils this week - I mean down in the low areas. They will gradually spread up here too.
Some horsey bloggers have noticed shedding of winter coats but I haven't seen that yet.
Now we did get a bit of rain yesterday and I could swear the pony fields look greener for it. After only a bit of rain on one day? Well it does look greener today. It only takes a little. We could do with lots more but please not at the weekend!



When will I start seeing the hares I usually see in the big pony field? They usually appear about now.

Helsie at Lady Helsie's Happenings has challenged us to post the 4th picture in our 4th folder of My Pictures. I only have 4 folders. Above is the 4th pic in it. It's Porlock Bay in Exmoor, one of my favourite places ever. I would have posted it before but I am very disappointed that I chopped the end of the headland (Hurlstone Point) off. In the back of the camera I just can't see the picture but I know it's wider then what you see in the viewfinder so I try to compensate and I overdid it.

Out to sea a short way is a pre-historic submerged forest. Behind the shingle beach on the landward side is a marshy area which occasionally gets breached. I believe they are going to let nature take its course from now on and not try to remedy it when it happens.



Inland from the bay stretches the Vale of Porlock, which used to be famous for its barley.Maybe it still is. And it's a good route for migrating birds. Here is a pictire of said farmland, sloping down from Dunkery Hill, Exmoor's highest point.

About a mile inland is Porlock itself, a most delightful village of twisty streets and thatched cottages with flower tubs and flowers frowing over them.



By road from Porlock to the sea you follow a little river valley (forgotten the name.I am doing no research - no time; this is all from memory) through Allerford, Bossington and Lynch which are quintessential English chocolate box villages if ever there were any. There are flower-festooned cottages built of cob and thatch with external bread ovens, walnut tress on the green, little narrow packhorse bridges. The above is Kitnor's tea room, Bossington. Again I have overdone it and chopped the chimney! Grrr! See the external bread oven? It doesn't mean you go outside to the oven, I think you access it from the kitchen but for some reason it sticks outwards from the kitchen. I like the way it has its own separate slated roof. Sometimes they are thatched.
You can sit in the their luscious garden and take tea and a light lunch or a cream tea or cakes and gaze over the thatch and across at Bossington Hill, which is facing you in the top picture.



And finally....an Exmoor mare and foal somewhere in the Porlock/Dunkery Hill area. Those indigenous pony herds are not wild because they all belong to someone and are managed and watched after, but basically left to themseves to graze, roam and breed. They are not feral, nor are they pets. The term is "free living".

Hi pals. First of all, sorry I have been quiet. I wasn't kidnapped or anything. If ever I disappear without a word it's usually because of internet or computer problems, and that's what it was. Got to work on Monday to find server switched off. We're having a new one, but not until Thursday. How daft is that??!! It has been rather difficult to function. Anyway I decided to bring the laptop home tonight so I could check in online for our trip to Prague from 31st to 5th, so of course I can do some singing chickening now.
Well, Saturday was great. She loved the egg cosies and the cakes.



I also have been enjoying the eggs she brought me from her chickens. We're going to meet again in about 6 months, somewhere between where we both live, as this time, for the day.
We didn't speak about the bug altercation. Some say that is a bit odd but I didn't want any repeat. We have referred to it once, on the phone, when she made her sort of admission, so it wasn't as if we just brushed it under the carpet. But can you see why I didn't want it raised? It would go "I only said A, B, C because X, Y, Z" Then the reply would be "But there was no X, Y, Z. It was X,E, F!. Then "Oh, but if E and F then P, Q, R" "Oh no. No way P, Q, R..." and you see how it mght have gone?In public, miles from home? I didn't want to "go there".



So... we met, we talked, we had tea and toast and teacakes, we walked, we sort of shopped and browsed, we ate sausages in onion gravy with mash, we walked, we browsed, we had tea and scones and chocolate, we walked, we sort of shopped, we talked then it was time to go, all too soon. So we're pals again.
It was a great day. The sun shone, it was warmer than at home, the journeys there and back were beautiful and scenic.



About 100 miles fromhome I saw my first daffodils!
Now the trouble is, I have no difficulty thinking of what to write, it's photos that are the problem. I won't put my own photo up (yet) so why should I be allowed to put up hers? I don't think I'm going to say where it was or you might measure a big ring round that place and draw conclusions (except it wasn't exactly 100 miles, it was more). Soo I'll put up photos of eggs, tea and toast ( except I don't take milk in mine) and daffodils.

And soooooon....I will read all your posts which I have missed. Thank you for your comments about Saturday.

Look! She's had chickens! While I was hiding away being ill, Mr. Cockerel visited the henhouse.
For the benefit of newcomers, I knitted this hen tea cosy last year. Oh dear, I've left her tail out of the photo. Now look what the joys of spring have brought - 3 little egg cosies! I couldn't get the fawn wool any more but the white is nice and bright, and lots of mothers have young in a different colour.

Two of them are going as presents for my friend on Saturday; one will stay here. She has acquired hens since I last saw her. If they're too twee or she doesn't use egg cosies (neither do I) they can sit on a kitchen shelf and look daft. I wanted to bring her something and somehow a home made thing seemed more appropriate.

Saturday is the day when I meet my bad friend, S. I'm feeling very positive about it and I can't think why it would all go wrong unless she is gong to drag up anything she said from the time when she gave me the big tirade. I am not "going there" myself. I mean to be as nice as I can be, and as fun, just to show that I have not changed. It would kind of prove that, if there is any problem, then it's her problem.
I'll try to look as nice as I can too, so she doesn't think that without her I have lost the plot in any way. I won't have my hair done because it needs 3 weeks after a "do" before it looks how I want it to.
I'm feeling quite confident because I am now only 2lb above the weight I want to be. Illness has its spin-offs. Aaaaand I can comfortably wear the little black jeans which have been too tight since mid December. Yesss!!! So I am rewarding myself with the chocolate left over from making the cakes.
I do hope the glorious sunshine we've been having for weeks and weeks and weeks will keep up for Saturday too.



This is what else I'm giving her. I think her son finds chocolate a bit indigestible so I hope that making half of them with white chocolate (and vanilla butter cream icing) will be acceptable.

I hope for a complete and peaceful reconciliation. Wish me luck!

Before. Note the rusty pegs, the missing strings and general dirty, dusty look.



After. Note the clean, shiny pegs, the bright, full set of strings, the shininess. One little button had to be replaced and Alec didn't have any in a matching size, but that doesn't matter. (I took it outside so the flash wouldn't go off)



People say to me "Oh, you play the harp now, do you?" Well no, I don't play the harp and this isn't a harp. It's like a sort of push button pretend harp. the five bars with the buttons on have long pads on their undersides and these pads have little grooves cut out of them. When you push the button down, the whle pad presses on the strings to silence them - except for the ones where the grooves have been cut. So when a button is held down and you strum or pick, you only sound the notes that are in that chord. The bar pings up again when you let it go as it's on a spring.
This autoharp is pretty basic. It will play five major chords; C, G7, F, C7 and B flat. Most simple tunes have 3 basic chords so you can play lots of easy tunes and you have a choice of key to suit your voice because you could choose to play in C or in F. If the strings slip out of tune, you put a wrench round the pegs and retune them. There is no minor key but you could tune your third note in the major chord to give you a minor. That third would be under a damper in the other chords so that would work OK.
The one being played in the picture has loads more chords than mine has.

Mine has cost me £15 to buy, £250.00 to restore (including new strings and postage and packing) and the custom built tuning wrench costs £35. Quite an outlay.

At office Christmas parties I always have hopes of getting people singing carols but a guitar is too cumbersome to carry. If there is a piano where we are, I can't play that. I could sneak this in a bag then whip it out and say "C'mon!"

Yesterday, a personal triumph! That bit of land where we have been told we can't park, drive, stand on, do anything on...well, I was not happy with the Council's letter and rubbishy little plan they sent me last year saying they weren't responsible for it, so I wrote to them again. I told them lots of things and asked them lots of things and YESSS!!! they now concede that whilst it is privately owned, it does form part of the highway, it's on their once-in-a-blue-moon maintenance programme and as such must be left free for the public to do all these things on at all times. Ha ha ha de ha de ha! Ha ha ha ha HAAAAAAAA!!!!!! I don't think I feel like telling the bossy woman this. I'll leave it someone else. But that is brilliant.

The above piccy isn't quite right but I put it on because it came up when I googled "chicken celebrating". The caption absolutely does it.



I am still not over my bug, still off my food and now my wisdom tooth that flares up every now again has flared up. I don't want to go to the dentist because I shunned the dental hygienist last time I was there. If I had gone, I wonder if this would have been prevented.
She might say the tooth ought to come out. Well I've heard things about the after-pain when you have wisdom teeth taken out and for the moment I'd prefer to put up with it doing this every now and again.



Now, not another post aaaaall about meee, please. What have I been meaning to talk about for a while? Well, one day (in a hundred years time, you'll understand) I will be an OFD and most car crash claims will be brought about because of the failings of the likes of me. Older Female Drivers. That's what the statistics say about them, and I can well believe it, having seen some of the things they do. Women do statistically live longer than men so before any of you men get on your soapboxes about women drivers, the reason will be because there are more OFD's about than OMD's. It's tough, though, and raises all the qestions about older drivers: should the tests be more stringent? Should they just not be allowed after a certain age? There just isn't an alternative for many, especially in rural areas. There's often no transport alternative. They'd have to just sit at home and knit and that's not much of a life when you could be out there cruising up hill and down dale and meeting your OFD pals.

You know when a woman goes into a care home? Statistically she will stay alive for something like 5 years whereas the average stay for a man is about 2 years.

I was to be meeting that friend, S, on Saturday, and was going to report back to my little blogging pals. Well it has been postponed to Saturday 13th now. S always does this, but this time her hubby had booked a surprise for her that she hadn't known about. As it happens, I would have had had to change it anyway because I wouldn't have felt well enough to go. I've had some sort of a fluey type bug since Thurs and have felt quite wretched. (That Friday post was actually prepared and posted a couple of days ahead because I thought I would be too busy at work for blogging.)
I did go in on Friday because a good client was completing a sale and I knew that T had booked the day off, so I went about in a daze.
It has been so beautiful outside I have been so hacked off about choosing now to be ill. Four days of it, three spent just lying around. I told myself, "Never mind, there will be other beautiful days to enjoy" but after three washout summers you can't believe words like those any more. You just never know when you will next see the sun.
Late Sunday afternoon and I feel a bit more human. I went to look at the garden and that short little walk around has left me feeling washed out - a bit like the garden. The long grasses have been flattened by wind and snow and have formed a crusty carpet with fallen leaves and other debris.



I said we had no daffodils, but now look!



This lot even has some heads!



Passing through the outbuildings I noticed two mini iris bulbs, obviously discarded inadvertently last year, lying in a little pool of water under the leaky roof.



So I potted them and brought them in. I don't feel up to being out, so I'll bring the outdoors in.

Oh - the autoharpis back and it works! Will post soon.

I was quiet yesterday because I had a lurgy. I lay around all day and did no work so if I am quieter for a while it's because I have a backlog, some of which was unfinished stuff from last Thursday. So no pressure.

What does stinking cockney eel pie taste like? That wasn't an insult to Londoners or their cuisine. I was quoting Manuel from Fawlty Towers. I couldn't find a picture of an eel pie specifically, so here are some jellied eels instead. i imagine eels tase like chickeny fish.



There was a thingy on the news yesterday about the eel population being diverted from the Bay of Biscay to China and that the eel population of some British rivers has decreased by over 90%.



What would be an effective way of getting drivers to slow down for horses and ponies (when I already am very polite and put on an amenable sort of face and always thank them many times over if they are obliging)? What would make YOOOOU slow down? How about a fluorescent tabard with a graphic silhouette picture of a rider being hit by a car? Or a hammer hitting a peach? The TV adverts of children being hit are supposed to be very effective so I'm using the same principle.

How do you type ditto marks in Word? They just come out like a pair of inverted commas. Except on blogger here, where they come out correctly! ''



Where do you buy phonecards? Public callboxes, used by people on pay-as-you-go mobiles or in places where there is no signal, hardly ever take coins but nobody knows where to get the cards. Some people say newsagents sell them, but newsagents just say "Duh?"

Finally for today, why are vitamin pills sometimes so big? I can't swallow something the size of a quail egg (almost). Why don't they make them half the size and tell you to take two?