Santa's favourite

Sometimes I might be persuaded to use hyperbole in order to raise a smile, but this mornings antics where I was eventually found by my beautiful and oh so patient wife chasing a sheep that had a neon reindeer wedged on its head really needs no such exaggeration for comic effect.

Aside from this it was a normal morning at HQ, I was feeling pleased with myself at having coaxed three and a bit pints from Kayleigh while listening to Misplaced Childhood, and then in stroke of genius made a self feeding arrangement for Kurry, thus cutting 15 minutes of the morning routine.

So finding myself unable to get out of the kitchen as the pantry door was stuck fast was a trifle annoying. I had gone indoors to get Kayleigh her warm water with black treacle mix (spoilt? as if) so the door had operated normally minutes beforehand. Running through possible causes, trolls, sack of spuds falling, dog food sack falling over, possibly assisted by dog, I continued to shove the refusenik wooden portal until after one particularly good effort door moved enough to allow visual identification of problem.

FernyFern Fern from Fern town had taken advantage of the open door to the workshop, entered the pantry from the outside and was now stuffing her self with dog biscuits (vegetarian readers better stop at this point)

Several well aimed swearwords were less effective than a swift poke with the broom handle (all jokes about poking sheep are banned) and finally Ferny Fern Fern from Ferntown conceded defeat and tried to back out of the store through several items "in storage" which included my prized electric reindeer outdoor Christmas decoration salvaged from a charity shop last yule. In turning to escape the wrath of man greedy sheep shoved her brainless head through neon Rudolf and ran for it, closely followed by man with broom shouting instructions on how it would be in her best interests to stop right there.

Order was restored by patient and beautiful one shaking bucket of poultry feed, removing decoration from easily diverted sheep and threatening to take out an asbo on anyone using threatening language in the yard. Thankfully Santa's favourite survived his ordeal and was put back in a safe place until his services are ever required one foggy Christmas Eve.

I have to admit to some disappointment this morning as for once when we are totally prepared right down to the water tanks being brim full the big freeze failed to appear and the much herladed snow was 6mm rather than 6 feet. Steve the electrician appeared and delivered the bad news that because I had opted for a nuclear powered cooker the drain on the national grid was so massive that substantial new parts were needed for the already fragile wiring in the cottage. While we knew the 12 volt system was under par the revelation that an all new 60 amp rig was needed and the maximum capacity we had was one third of this. My offer of jamming half a nine inch nail in the fuse box to carry the necessary charge across the gap failed to win any support so we relented to having another box of tricks attached to the wall so we can cook without having to turn off Mr Whirlpool the freezer who will be needed to accommodate Iggle and Piggle next week.

Happy Christmas!

We left Trevor on guard in the yard and playing Little Johnny big potatoes and getting all assertive with Chester and took a trip up to see my family who have the good sense to live 120 miles away, or 178 if you go by our sat nav with its unique sense of direction. As we haven't seen them since last September we had Christmas again but with KFC instead of turkey. It was good to catch up and they got to see how the apprentice smallholders lungs had developed, he teething let the world know several times that things were not quite right in his world. He was spoiled rotten and somehow we managed to cram all little t's presents into Vic for the return journey. As an extra bonus my tech minded brother in law was persuaded to have a look at my Kindle, my Christmas gift from my beautiful and oh so patient wife, which since I opened its box and plugged it into the PC has failed to work. He looked at it, for approximately 52 seconds before it burst into life and promised to behave itself. Fantastic! How did you manage that I wondered. Apparently theres an "on" switch! Good job I asked him to look at it before taking it back to the shop. Mum asked if my very clever brother in laws intervention had re-Kindled my interest in reading. We left before Dad got his Tony Blackburn joke book out.

The very hungry caterpillar

Or how much mess can one child get into eating fruit and drinking water!

Wood, glorious wood!!

Today's dramas were a carry on from yesterdays discovery that Vic had a flat tyre. As we were in the local supermarket car park 5 miles from home at the end of a very long but productive day at Red Kite. Thankfully my beautiful and oh so patient wife who is far more organised than I will ever hope to be had put a can of tyre inflator in the boot. Vic being a dual fuel beast does not have a spare wheel but a LPG tank where the spare would be. The sound of the puncture repair escaping did not bode well but we made it back to Rock HQ.

Repairs would have to wait, the lack of oil for the Rayburn and electric to the new super duper cooker has meant the small log stash has depleted to zero as its used for both cooking and heating. Yesterdays fuel was salvaged from the lane and Bonsai Mountain by Super Grandma who collected some of Spotty's treasures from the local geography. Spotty feels compelled to pick up a log every time he passes the pile, say 3 times a day, meaning over a 1000 logs are strategically placed in case he ever feels like a piece of wood to chew.

Being short of time (cheers Vic, then theres decorating, gardening, usual routine and a massive plan to make the workshop more useful) and lacking the ability to track all our missing timber help arrived in the form of Steve the logs who dropped off a lorry load in return for half a pig, both of us sure we had got the better deal. The small mountain of wood was carefully chopped, graded, stacked and stored. The cottage is now as warm as a sauna, even with every upstairs door open. Bliss.

Attention turned to Vic, mine to fix the puncture, Trevor's as something extra to hump. The tools in the top pic were all used one way or another in an attempt to get the wheel off the stricken car. Finally I had to concede defeat and admit that no combination of Halfords pocket socket sets, garden fork, hand axe and tack hammer was going to persuade the wheel free. Unbelievably I managed to persuade Steve the tyres (yes really) to forgo a second read of the Daily Sport, leave his tyre emporium and come and relieve Vic of his damaged tyre. This may have had something to do with the fact that he wanted to witness first hand a shitland mate with a Volvo and learn how I ever thought a garden fork would get a tyre off (clue, its to do with levers)
After much grunting Steve took the tyre down town. An hour later I collected a newly booted alloy and given the post mortem results of the broken rubber, it had burst due to an impact on the tyre wall. That would be like a pothole type impact I enquired. Just like agreed Steve. Just like the swimming pool depth ones you have in your lane.

Carriageway repairs have now been added to the jobs list.

Pirelli Preview

In light of the excitement yesterdays photo of Daffodil bathed in sunshine caused I thought a few more pics of the Rock HQ flock might raise a few pulses amongst you sheep fanciers. Heres Roxy, a habitual self harmer.
Pedro, a very handsome fellow, was going to be a show sheep until he lost half an ear in a fight over breakfast with a belligerent Mangalitza.


And Berry who wins the cute stakes.

The Golden Fleece

Ryelands are Herefordshire ancient breed, so valuable was their thick wool they used to be referred to as Lemster Ore (Leominster is a local market but you say it as the old spelling) Here Daffodil recreates the Golden Fleece look in her own personal sunbeam!

We are not worthy

Ferny Fern Fern from Fern Town leads the way as the Ryelands pay homage to

Chester, a noble steed who has fitted in at Rock HQ with ease

and is developing

quite a following!