New from Old

Well 2008 ran into 2009, we nearly missed it on account of my watch being five minutes slow, somehow we managed to stay sober and awake until the passing of one year and the start of the new catching up with the fireworks on the TV. Real party animals this year, just Tracey and I and the dogs saw the new year in.

Ben has had a good year, and next year he goes to war, hopefully a bit more organised than he is at home, this holiday he managed to put through the washing machine his brand new ipod inscribed for him by his on off girlfriend, then he lost his wallet just as he was about to go to town to say good bye to his friends. Eventually he found the wallet in the bottom of his wardrobe, this was after he had unpacked all his kit, phoned the Police Station to see if it was handed in and the Post Office which was where he had last used it. Good to see the thousands of pounds the Army invested in his training has had such an impact!

The year ended with visits from old friends, Tim and Steph have a small farm (10x the size of Rock HQ!) over the other side of the county and it was good to catch up with them. The last time they were here we didn't have the stables, kennel block, goat houses in fact not a lot was here. It really felt like we had made progress when they described how Rock HQ has changed since they last came to view. Bad news on the cow, Pat, she wont be joining the gang at Rock HQ as she has moved on to celestial pastures, well she was a really old one so no surprises there. Mind you having looked at how complicated the rules are for keeping cows, passports, TB checks etc it probably wouldn't be worth the hassle for one beast. Having said that there were some Frisian bull calf's for sale from £25 the other week, perhaps two of them might make nice steaks. For now we are sticking to pigs, as you can see from the picture they are growing, Patches is such a friendly piglet so she is definitely staying at Rock HQ as a breeding sow. We are currently looking at the possibility of buying a pig roasting kit so all the spare pigs can be sold as pig roasts. This would mean all the piglets born here could have the happy life they deserve rather than being sold to a commercial fattening unit. We shall see, one of the resolutions of the new year is to try and generate some form of income from Rock HQ to try and pay for the animal feed at least!

Tim and Steph tried the obligatory bacon sandwiches and after sampling the Christmas cake they left, hopefully it wont be a year before we see them again! Time does fly though.

Jack and his girlfriend Amy also called in, primarily to see Trevor, Jack is his number one fan and inspired Trevor to open a facebook profile after he saw his picture on Jacks page. They were treated to the tour of the hill and waited oh so patiently whilst Ben had a panic attack over his wallet before very kindly taking the eejit to town for us.

So, resolutions for the new year, most relate to Rock HQ, most are along the lines of being more organised and efficient whilst still enjoying the life of the incompetent smallholder. The day has got off to a flying start, we only wasted about an hour wandering around looking at the beauty of the frost, minus 6 here today. Still, theres no point living here if you don't take time out to enjoy it!