Singing Chicken

We had friends over on Sunday afternoon. I ‘only’ did a two course meal because we were a bit short of time and the visit was quite short, but I forgot to photograph the leek croustade. My followers who are vegetarians are always telling me there are lovely veggie dishes out there, as I know, and I meant to photograph it for their benefit. Sorry. I did remember to take a pic of the lemon posset with raspberries though, and it happens to be vegetarian. This was my best lemon posset ever, if I may say so.

Actually I was a bit frazzled before this visit because they had rung late on Thursday night out of the blue and said ‘We’re going to be on holiday quite near you next week so could we come and see you?’ We hardly ever see them as they live a long way away so were delighted at the prospect, but when you lead a busy life, don’t clean your house regularly or have food for four already in, you like a bit more notice. Well, I do. We were at work all Friday and out at an event all day Saturday. That left Friday and Saturday evenings to clean the place, cut the grass, weed the garden and get some food together. I don’t like spending precious Friday and Saturday night time doing jobs either. They must have known they were going on holiday weeks, if not months, ago, so they could have given us a lot more notice. I suppose I could have let them take us as they find us, but I just don’t like to do that, in case they think we live like pigs all the time.

Anyway we pulled it off. It was a great time, the sun shone and we sat in the garden, went for a walk, and ate our meal al fresco.

Oh nooooo!!!! Why did they have to do that? All the crispy bits have been moved from the top to the bottom of the bar and they have been chopped up all tiny. You don't get that lovely knobbly top any more.


See what I mean?

The chocolate coating falls off as you bite it, as I used to find with Cadbury's Boost, so you end up having to shove more in your mouth, so it doesn't last as long. GRRRR!!!! How dare they?

On takeover from Mackintosh by whoever-it-was there was no change that I remember, but now Nestle are making it, it's way inferior. What will I find next?

I hope you agree (if you were familiar with TC before). Should I write to them?

Here is a photo of Mrs. Swallow on her nest in the new hay shed. I forgot to use the red (white) eye removal function. I crouched in the same place where I crouch twice a day to get pony things and used the zoom. She sat in her nest, as she does every day while I am there, so taking her photo did not disturb her. She is still sitting.


Another day, I looked out of the window and saw a pied flycatcher feeding her chick in an ash tree. Here's the mother bird on the washing line. (She is a pf. The bright sun hides distinguishiing features but she is a regular and I know her)

[Further on birds, I can't get comments onto Bernard's blogs, but I thought his birds on his hiking post from Tuesday 21st were quails, so I went to google images and the quails I found looked mightily like Bernard's birds, but the consensus is red-legged partridge. I had a lovely, memorable plateful of quails' legs in Limoges in 2008, followed by greengage tart.]



Here's a family of Canada geese just up the road.

Who heard that thing on Radio 4 last week about women finding it offensive if men hold doors open for them or offer to carry heavy bags etc? There are indeed lots of ways in which making a distinction between men and women is offensive, but surely not things which are acts of politeness and good manners.
I found it annoying, for example, when a male colleague said to me 'You
parked that car well' because I didn't think for a minute he would have said it if I had been a man. I didn't say so, of course. Being well-mannered I just said something polite back, but I perceived his 'for a woman' in parenthesis. The tendency of men in an office to look to women to make tea and tidy up is another annoyance too.
I am very grateful for the gallantry of one young male colleague in particular. On a Wednesday night I always used to heave two large crates of files down 2 flights of stairs and one further flight of slippery outside steps. I would go back for my quite heavy laptop and heavy bag of fruit and veg (Wednesday is market day). On Friday morning I would return and do the lot in reverse, minus the fruit and veg. Male colleagues would stay in their seats and say 'You alright there?' I would pant back 'Yes, thanks!'. But since this little well brought up lad has been here, I don't even have to ask and I am so grateful. I don't mind admitting that I find the boxes very heavy and that he is stronger than me. He also holds doors and walks on the outside of the pavement. The radio person described those kind acts of gender distinction as benevolent sexism. I prefer plain 'benevolence'.


I too hold doors for people, male or female, old or young, and give up bus seats to older or infirm people or those with cumbersome bags. It's not as simple as men v women.
Men and women are not the same physically and if someone is nice to you I think you should accept it with good grace instead of looking for some non-existent insult. If we just scowl and growl 'sexist!' we will lose those lovely, endearing, old-fashioned ways. The poor polite people just won't know what to do for the best and we will all end up not having those nice social graces and just leaving pregnant women standing on buses and leaving doors to slam in peoples' faces for fear of offending them.
Hope I haven't rattled any cages!

Two colleagues said to me before my long walk on Saturday: 'Will you take a stick with you?'
Me: Oh, I don't know. I don't want to look too much as though I am pretending to be a serious walker. Others will be doing over 20 miles, others again will be doing over 40. I don't want to look as if I'm a sporty walker like them.
Colleagues: I wouldn't worry about how it looks, so long as you are safe. It'll be safer for you with a stick.

So I took my trusty twig (above) which I picked up in some woods in the Vale of Porlock some years ago. I wore my Exmoor pony sweatshirt. Lucky mascots I thought. I also had onthe trousers that that dog bit through last week. I got nettle stings through them on Saturday and began thinking of them as 'the wrong trousers'. Oh yes, indeed. Unlucky trousers.

There were lots of gates to open and close. I got to one gate about 2 miles from the finish. It was tied with string, as some are. I undid it but needed two hands to tie it up again. I put my coat on the gate and held the stick in my mouth, the thick end of it just dangling from my lips. I tied the string. The coat fell off the gate. I bent down to pick it up. Yes, I forgot about the stick in my mouth. It went straight across the roof of my mouth, skinned the soft palate and stabbed me in the back of the throat.

Everything went hazy and I staggered around. My head hurt, my ears hurt, my throat swelled and my breathing was constricted. No one was around. Was I sorry or relieved? Both. Well, I had to get on with it so I just picked up my stuff and staggered on, groaning and holding my head. When I got to the finish, I declined their kind offer of a drink and a snack and told them why. I was able to laugh by then, as I am now. What an idiot! Safer with a stick???!!!! I shouldn't be allowed out on my own.



Here's a view to brighten up this colourless post. I took 56 pics altogether, but I will spare you most of them




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I know why last Friday went wet and cold – because it was shearing time, and that’s what always seems to happen just after the sheep have their coats removed. Ha ha ha! They always look a bit daft with the big score marks form the shears and big bright writing on them.

Helsie tells me that in Australia they only have Merino sheep and they absolutely have to be shorn because they don’t shed their fleeces.

Over here, they do get shorn so that the farmers can make money out of the wool. Or so it used to be. Now, the sale of the wool doesn’t cover the cost of shearing. If they were left unshorn, it wouldn’t be so bad because the fleeces of our native sheep will start to fall off anyway. Then they can look just either ridiculous, pulling their fleeces behind them, or very fancy,


like this one doing its French poodle imitation!

But the trouble is, the shed fleeces would just coat all the gorse bushes and hedges and litter the fields so they might as well be given a clean job of it.

I went on a long walk on Saturday to get into practice for next Saturday. Hub was heavily involved in guitar and folk music stuff so it was a good chance as he doesn't like long walks. The morning had been dull so I took Quasar for a ride, staying close to home, then it got sunny so I hung out the washing, made a picnic and set out. I thought I would go to the source of a local river - or as near to the source as you can walk anyway.

In the distance, at the top, (top pic) there are the headwaters. It would be possible to walk nearer to it than this but you aren't really allowed. Hmph.

I thought to myself as I heard the cuckoo in the garden 'There'll be none of those where I'm going. It'll all be silent and bleak'. Well, it was largely treeless but the little plantations, such as they were, were buzzing. A cuckoo was one of the first birds I heard. There were chaffinches, mistle thrushes, pied flycatchers, pheasants, willow warblers and goldfinches.


I saw a grey wagtail on the rocks. Near a lonely barn the air was full of swallows and house martins. I saw a swallow and a house martin having a fight!

On the open hills, skylarks, all kinds of pipits and of course wheatears.

I actually met somebody. She looked as surprised to see me as I was to see her.


There are little huts dotted around where water authorities are doing lots of investigations into the headwaters of this and another nearby river source.

You might say it was a 'green desert' in many ways. It is bare and there are no obvious signs of wildlife at first glance. However it was very much alive. There were wild flowers amongst the grass and lots of lichens. I can't say it was all that heavily grazed by sheep, which does help matters. The birds were there. Bleak, well maybe, but there are features. The streams, the rocks, the unfolding slopes and the little huts. I enjoyed it more and more the longer it went on.

It was nearly 9 miles in the end. Just over half the length of next week's walk. I was ready to finish and my feet were weary. It took 3 and a half hours with a quick picnic stop. As I can only start Saturday's walk at 12.30 I will be walking until about 7, if I hardly stop at all, so it will be tough. It will be a lot more hilly too. This was gradual. I just hope it doesn't rain!

A nasty little terrier bit me on Thursday! It was the first time I have had a dog bite. I was outside a gate, about to go in to hand over a key to a carpenter. Despite the barking terrier, I started to open the gate when it put its head through the bars and bit my leg just above the knee! Well I couldn’t retaliate because I had no water pistol or dog dazer on me so I just ran at the gate a few times in a threatening way and pretended to throw imaginary stones at it. I had to yell ‘Hello!’ about 10 times above the machine noise to get the man to see I was there, because I wasn’t going in. I told him the dog had just bitten me and all he said was ‘Did she really bite? Because I know she can nip’.
Oh I see. Might it ‘only’ have bee a nip then? So is that alright then? No apology either. I felt like taking the job from him.
Nip or bite, I don’t know but it was bleeding and there was a raw, dark red tear the size of a 10p piece, swollen and with bruising all round it. That constitutes actual bodily harm.
Once bitten, twice shy. I have looked into dog dazers but they get poor reviews. From now on I will have to take some means of defence with me on every walk.
The owner is very lucky it was me.

I said the swallows had been flying in and out of the new shed and I was so hoping they would think it suitable for building it, so imagine my delight at watchng this take shape. Now, when I peer throught eh crack before entering, I see the mother on the nest and the father sittingbeside her on the beam. By the time Iopen the door, I see him fly out of the wondow, but she stays still on the nest while I clonk around getting all the pony nthings together. It's great. (Sorry about the shake)



And another homely sign found in the garden. Having cosulted books, we think this is a blackbird's egg.






And in case you feel let down at not seeing any actual fauna this Friday, how's this for cute? Some very tame little mallards seen on a river bank on a recent fantastic day out.

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I have a sponsored walk on the 18th June. 16 miles. It's part of a much longer walk - still done in one day - which I felt was too far for me. Maybe next year I'll do a bigger section ie 26 miles. The 'big one' is even bigger than that.

People have said 'have you been training?' Em...no. I hadn't thought I needed to. I walk a lot anyway. I soometimes do 4 miles in an evening. It's only like doing it 3 more times in quick succession. But they're getting me worried saying things like that. Should I have trained? It's too late now anyway. I only found out last night that the 16 mile stretch starts from 12.30. Because you are joining on the 'big one' at one of its checkpoints, you can't start it at 9 and take all day, which I was intending to do. Sounds as though it will be fast and gruelling. Will I get time to pause to take photos?

More prominent in my mind is the forthcoming church walk and tea party which I'm hosting on 2nd July. Now some of the older ones are in their 80's and they can't walk far or climb hills or stiles. It's hard to find anywhere for a circular walk that is relatively flat with no stiles and where you can park nearby. I've had to drive a few miles out of the village to research routes. We could do one in the view in the top pic but it's actually going to be a bit too short. Any loop added on will make it too long. Or we could do a linear but the nearest place to accommodate about 6 parked cars is nearly a mile's walk away. Hmmmm....

I can start baking for the freezer any time. That's the easy part.

Look away now if you like staring at your mobile for long periods when in company. I don't want and to offend anybody who enjoys that pastime.

In a restaurant I watched a poor woman stare out of the window for 35 minutes while the two men she was with peered into a mobile phone looking for pictures of a car. The food was ordered, back they went to their phone. The food came, back they went to their phone between mouthfuls. I felt really sorry for her!

Our people moved us to another field because our spring went nearly dry. After about three weeks of dull weather and the odd shower, the streams are now running as they should and our spring is brimming over, so last Saturday they moved us back to our favourite field. As soon as we got in, our headcollars were taken off, and that's just what we did! We took off, down the field, because we love a good hard gallop in a wide open space.


Then we galloped round and round and round. We bucked and rolled and we threw ourseves around but they were too slow with the camera thing to capture any of that. Then we galloped back again to say 'thank you' and see them off.

Singing Chicken has been quiet, I know. Sorry. There's no reason. Not angry, not offended, not ill, maybe just a bit too busy at work and when at home I find I have forgotten to bring my memory stick with all my photos on it. I vowed never to put them on the hard drive of this laptop again, since I have had two crashes and lost lots. They were saved elsewhere so it wasn't a huge disaster, but I don't trust the laptop any more.

Anyway it's been a while since I did a food post. We had a little friend over for a meal on Saturday. I forgot to photograph the crisps and nibbles but I did remember to photograph the roast pepper soup with pesto croutons. Sorry about the blur but it was dim and I didn't want the flash. Sorry about the overspill onto the plate edge too.

I forgot to photograph the pork steaks in cider, apple and cream and all the veg but I did remember to photograph the strawberry and raspberry flan after half had been served up. This wasn't a sponge flan base and quick-jel quickie. Oh no. (Just thought I would say).


Foody's shortcake base, filling mixture of mascarpone, Greek yoghurt, lemon,icing sugar and chopped strawberries; topping strawbs and rasps and a strawberry jam ('no bits') glaze. I didn't grow the fruit or make the jam. Sorry about blur again but you get the idea I'm sure.

BTW I am in the garden and the cuckoos and willow warblers are going bananas.