myrtlebaggins

• I have a new job, hurrah!  It's admin type stuff at a charity and so far it's been really interesting.  Well the admin stuff is admin stuff, but the environment is very interesting.  Unfortunately at the moment it's only 2 days a week but I'm hoping it might increase in the future because I heard my boss has already said to someone else that I'm *a gem* and that she'd have me full time if they had the funding.  On the plus side it means I can keep going to Gibside for the moment, so that's ok.  I may end up with half a day at a different charity to sort out their website as someone mentioned something about that this week, but I think they have to run it past the Management Committee first.  I'd like to say more about the interesting bit of what I do, but it feels too identifying or confidential or something so I won't.  My colleagues have been made of lovely so far.  In fact everyone in the building seems to be the happiest person I've ever met.  I worry that I may be giggling too much with my new colleague.  Am Serious Lady Of Business now. Must reign in the daft.
• I have a plan for my vegetable garden.  It has been re-drawn many times and called off, and called back on and called off again but last night I bought the wood and tonight JB came over with his fancy pants compound mitre saw wiv a laser onnit tonight and we cut it into 58 boards ready to knock them into beds tomorrow.  WOO!  Although sometime between now and then I have to find some soil to fill in the hole that the chickens dug under the run over 3 years.  It looks like a grave.
• I have been making some very nice ice cream lately. 
• Most of the people I know seem to be having a really crappy time so far this year.
• Due to new job being Out In The World, I've had to rush out and buy some office wear.  I haven't worn office wear since 1996 -I feel like someone else.
• I've just started playing the Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party that I got for Christmas.  I LOVE THE DANCING BIT.  
• I should never switch the shopping channel on late at night.  Last week found me phoning Ideal World (not even QVC mind you, Ideal flamin World!) at 1am to order a bonkers exercise machine type thing.  It hasn't arrived yet, but I'm already wondering if it really is going to magically reduce my unwanted wobbly bits.
• I went to see Khalyn and Oddbodd's panto last week.  It was teh lols :D 
• Which reminds me, In the office next door to me works SOMEONE FROM THE INTERNET FORUM I POST ON.  It's a little bit weird but I'm getting used to it.  I bump into him at the photocopier sometimes and I met him and his girlfriend (who also posts on the forum as it's where they met) in the cafe the other day so we had a natter.  Small world.  (Black Winged Angel and funbunny, for those who know them)
• I had a lovely meal at the Ravensworth Arms the other night with my family.   We very rarely go out for a meal together and we should totally do it more often, it was great.  A whole lot of lolling was had.
• The eglu lady and her boyfriend came up a couple of weekends ago and it turned out they were really lovely ackshully.  They were pleased with the eglu and we waved it off.  It's mad that it's living down in Oxford somewhere now.

• Betty is still ill.  I can't believe she is still with us - yesterday she came into the conservatory and spent most of the day lying down asleep in her box looking like she was at death's door.  She didn't eat anything until 5pm and didn't drink until 7 at which point she jumped up and went out into the garden happy as a happy thing to run around until bedtime, leaving me stunned.

Today she spent the morning in her box again, but I think it was a bit too warm in there for her so she spent most of the rest of the day standing under a tree looking sad.  She hasn't eaten or drunk anything today, despite my attempts to get her to and it's been really hot so I don't how she is keeping going - she's a little soldier.

The new stuff from Omlet came today so it's nice that she gets to see it although I don't think she'll get much use out of it.
They've started doing the sunshades in colours to match the Eglu now and they say they are stronger than the others so I've replaced the ripped and faded green one that was there before:



They are also now doing plastic bars to replace the wooden ones - WUHOO!  They were the only part of the thing that were difficult to keep clean, and I always kept two sets in so that I could use one while the other set was drying.  Now I can just...dry them.  I wonder if they'll be as warm for their little feet in the winter though.

• Got up at the crack of because Betty is poorly again and the vets do an hour open surgery on a Sat morning and I was meeting up with K at ten to 11 so it was panic stations.  When I got there it turned out everyone else was up at the crack of for the doors opening too so it took ages AND some unidentified creature did a really cheesy fart and I had to not breathe for a couple of minutes. Vet said it was fine to keep feeding her toast if that is all she'll eat and I had to go home and wait for her to poo then scrape it up into a little bottle for testing.  She obliged as soon as she was out of her box at home.
• Met up with K - I still managed to get there before him - HAH :D  and went to see Prince Caspian.  THAT IS SO MY KIND OF FILM!!!  I loved it.  About halfway through it starts to differ from the book but I thought the film was better than the book and it's not often that happens at all.  The only tiny thing I didn't like was that at the end there is a song that seems really out of place.  After the film we called at Dalton P for shopping and eaty things.
• When I got home Betty had perked up slightly so I took the Eglu to bits and did a big old clean and disinfect and covered the inside with mite powder as I'd seen a few red spiders kicking about and thought I'd better, just in case.
• I made friends with Mrs. Blackbird by throwing bits of toast for her.  Mr. Robin was trying to screw up his courage to come over too but he'd get so far then have a panic attack and fly off.  Betty was all *EXCUSE ME, that's MY toast thankyouverymuch*
• I watched Doctor Who and got a bit annoyed with it.  The Doctor story was good but the Torchwood/Sarah Jane stuff felt like it wasn't aimed at me and tbh I was kinda hoping they'd be exterminated early so we could get back to Doctor Who.  I think I was supposed to care about them, but I dunno who they are.  Maybe next week's will be more doctorific.  I'm also quite surprised at everyone being all :O at the regeneration thing as I'd just assumed they'd find some way to fix it at the end - they did do a random close up of his hand-in-a-jar at the start.  Overall I was very *meh* about the whole thing.
• I'm sure I did something on Saturday night but I have entirely forgotten what it was...

• Slept in like a sleeping in thing on account of being very tired.
• Discovered Betty and the Eglu all covered in egg yolk.  I wonder if that's what this has all been about?  I've tried to find out what happens when chickens hit the menopause but to no avail.  She's now gone off toast and onto pasta.
• Went out furniture hunting and then for a drive around.
• Faffed about on the internet
• Cleaned and mite-powdered eglu AGAIN on account of Yolk Incident
• Harvested some potatoes for dinner
• Ordered a new shade for the run because mine is all ripped and they do them in colours to match the eglu now, and they've started making plastic roosting bars now  so I ordered some of them at the same time.  They'll be much easier to scrape egg off than the wooden ones.
• Brother is considering getting married up a mountain.  I may be barking up entirely the wrong tree as regards suitable wedding clothing.  Perhaps I should be looking in Millets.

• I was listening to another audio play yesterday while baking (Blueberry and lemon drizzle cake. Big, not cup) and this time a character was trying to remember what he had a memory like and I SWEAR as I lifted a mini sieve out of the drawer he said 'sieve'. 3RD TIME!!
  
• Also, as I was listening to the play (Shada) it really reminded me of a book I read in March (Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams). I have googled it today and it turns out Shada was also written by Douglas Adams and he re-used parts of the story and some of the dialogue for DG'sHDA, replacing the Doctor with Dirk Gently. See? I liked that book.  Didn't think much of the sequel.
• Betty was at the vets again yesterday for her follow up injection. I'd been dreading it because I didn't know how I'd get her into the box now she's lively again, and how I'd get her to sit still in the vets, and how I'd get her back into the box again.  I went for the 'oh LOOK Betty!  Sunflower seeds!' *whips up and into box before she realises* approach, which we managed with only a little bit of protesting.  The box was cute sitting on the living room floor with periodic 'Broo?' noises emanating from it.  By the time we got to the car park she looked like she was having a panic attack, all lying in the box being gaspy but luckily there was no-one else in the vets at all so we got in straight away.  I dunno where everyone was, it's normally mad busy on a Monday.  We saw a lovely lady vet and Betty was GOOD AS GOLD for her injection and no-one got at all scratched.  She didn't want to go back in the box much mindyer, but I managed.  She has to finished the bottle of antibiotics now and then we see how we go.  When we got home I gave her a little bit of toast and she made her 'THIS IS THE BEST TREAT EVAH!!!!' noise for ages.  She doesn't appear to be a grudge bearer.
• Telly Doctor Who was v. good on Saturday, but I'm a bit *meh* about the next two parts on account of it being infiltrated by the Torchwood lot.  We'll See though, I was wrong about Donna.  LOVED the crap looking beetle monster thing.  That's a proper Doctor Who monster.
  
• I really must get on with sewing The Dresses.  My embroidered flower bits arrived last week and I want to see what they're going to look like on the spotty, plus I keep seeing cardi/bolero things I like but until I finish the dress there's no point in getting one.
• A combination of my brother, Mr. Khalyn and gingerelanor's recommendations and dabbling in Wii Fit have made me really fancy trying a Yoga class. I'm not sure I'll find it relaxing, but I could do with the toning aspects.

• I won on both the premium bonds AND the lottery this week. Which was nice. (The little prizes, but still. It shall go into the holibob fund)
• I made heart shaped choc chip muffins with double the amount of egg by accident. Still et them. I listened to a Doctor Who Audio Play called 'Assasin In The Limelight' while I baked which was most enjoyable (and perhaps the reason for my lack of concentration, egg-wise)
  
• I made an Ood T-shirt, despite deciding I wasn't going to:
  
  
  

• I spent a bewildered half an hour in a cake decorating shop on Saturday and came out with some rolly icing (pink and chocolate - was going to get white and colour it myself but lady customer I asked in the icing aisle - whole aisle for icing - said that you have to get the coloured pastes to mix with it and the colour liquid doesn't mix well with it. The colour paste was 'spensive so I just got the two pre-coloured ones. Does anyone know if that is true?), some sugar flowers, marzipan carrots, a flower cutter and some farmyard animal cutters (although when I've opened them and read the instructions, I bought the wrong kind of icing for them on account of being bewildered by the icing choice. Still going to try them though), and a tube of white icing that as it turns out is much cheaper in Tesco. I *nearly* got sparkly sprinkle things but it was £2.25 for a tiny tub that would do about 4 cakes or £4.95 for a ma-hoo-sive one that would do about 4000 and wouldn't fit in the cupboard, so I didn't.
• From there I went to the Metrocentre for some glue (for notebooks and cards etc, not cakes) and came home with glue (hurrah), more paper for notebooks, a new guillotine because mine isn't straight any more (Till lady asked me if I was sure I was 18. I think she was being sarcastic, but I'm pretending she wasn't), and two cupcake books. I meant to make a note of kittyalex  's books before I went book shopping, but as it turns out I chose the one she has anyway + one that has nice basic recipes in it.
  
  
  

• Watched Doctor Who. GOSH that was that was a bit dramatic and scary. I really liked that we never found out what the creature was or what it wanted. I really liked that they were on a different planet - they need to get out and about more tbh. I liked that I remembered where I'd seen nasty married woman before JUST before the credits rolled (Eastenders, Bianca's Mum). There seemed to be unexplained things about Skye though - why did she think the Things were after her? Lesley Sharp had a bit of a job to do. I bet that was hard, all those lines, getting the timing right with no facial expression.
  

• Today I made carrot cakes from the pink book, listening to the first half another DW audio play 'Bride of Peladon'. The cakes were Very Nice Indeed, but the recipe had a cream cheese topping and I'd rather have had buttercream. With buttercream they would have been GOOOOOOORGEOUS. I am totally making rosewater and pomegranate cupcakes next.
  
  
  

• Unfortunately most of today was spent worrying about Betty Chicken. Her eating has been a bit off for the last few days - I realised I hadn't seen her eat her chicken food for a while and she wasn't interested when I handed her some. Then she went off bioyoghurt-y porridge, then raisins, which have been her treat of choice for almost 3 years. She was still getting all *oo what am I getting? What am I getting?* if I went out carrying a treat, but when she saw it she'd be *Oh.* She is also having poo issues that I won't go into. This morning I offered her plain porridge and water which she et all up but then a while later she was under her poorly tree - where she goes when she is under the weather or sad - all hunched up and ill. Her eyes kept closing and she was making a noise a little like a high pitched purr, but quiet, and then she would stamp her foot every so often. I made up the sick bay for her and she came and stood in the sick bay box in the conservatory of her own accord for a while, then went back to the poorly tree. At one point her tail was down so far she looked like a big black football on legs :( I popped out and got her some cat food and grapes and she was very happy to have some of the cat food but then went and stood in the sick bay box again :( I walked over with her to the Eglu at around 9:15 and tucked her in for the night. I hope she is feeling better in the morning, but the way she looked today I doubt it. So it looks like we're vet-bound in the morning. My poor little lambkin :(
  

• Desperate for clothes that fit (cos size 8 T-shirts on my new size 12 body are feeling the strain a bit tbh) I went to Tk Maxx on Saturday. They have a new rack called 'Young Fashion'. I avoided it for a while, knowing in my heart that I am no longer either young or fashionable then realised that it could just as easily be called 'Mutton Dressed As Lamb', which I DO qualify for and that is where I found my new Kermit The Frog hoody. (I did try on a Kermit T-shirt but found it to be a Step Too Far) I also got a couple of tops and two pairs of tracksuit bottoms that need shortening, for badminton. Then I popped next door to Peacocks to see if they had any of their cheapy vest tops in, and they did - hurrah - so I got 6 of them in size 10-12. Sadly they are ENORMOUS and will have to go back in exchange for an 8. Weird. Am now skint again.
• Also on Saturday I went to the sports centre in the next village to ask about badminton. It's on the outskirts of a roughy-ish estate and you have to walk down a little secluded ramp to get to it, which is probably unnerving of an evening and then when I came out and crossed the road I heard a car peep behind me and then the blokes in the car threw a glass bottle out which smashed on the road just behind me. Lovely. I think I'll give that sports centre a miss as well tbh.
• We had another Elsie incident on Friday. I opened the back door to give them some treats and they both came running over, but Elsie was hopping along hunkered down like she wanted to poo. I told her she wasn't allowed in the conservatory if there was imminent poo-ing and gave them the treats in the back yard. She ate them, then squatted, ejected something and Betty promptly ran off with it :| When I got it back from Betty and had a look it was a sort of lump of rubbery stuff - almost like chewing gum, around 2 inches in length. Not very pleasant. I took a photo of it and put it on the chicken forum and now know that it is known as a 'lash'. A chicken forumite told me ' Occasionally they expel a bit of gubbins from the laying tackle and it looks like a bit of cooked chicken or an eraser. She may have had some sort of infection and the body has dealt with it.' Good grief. She's been completely fine before and since it happened but it's nice to know what it was. I'm thinking she's probably finished with egg laying now as she still hasn't laid one since last year. We had to actually buy actual eggs the other day.
• Yesterday I went out to do some work in the garden and ended up spending the afternoon making silly videos with the chickens. We had lots of fun but didn't get much gardening done.
• The mouse (who has been named Alfred McWhiskerson) was kind enough to pose for me last night. You can't really get a sense of scale on these photos HE IS SO TINY but here he is in all his boggle eyed, satellite dish eared glory:

• I made the Snape is my homeboy fake screen print thing and did a test version a few weeks ago. There must have been some tiny bubbles in the glue though as there were a couple of teeny splodges. It was ok though really. Then I tried to wash the screen and the glue went all slimy and came off a bit, and the test print gave me the horrors a bit so I chucked it out and give up on the Snape T-shirt idea. Next time I will use a brush to stipple the ink through instead of a sponge, and I will not attempt to wash the screen (or I will use washable fabric glue). I might do the Seal of Rassilon on a T-shirt and Beaker from the Muppets instead of HP. We'll see. Here is the new Dalek one I did with a good old fashioned stencil:
  
  
  
  
• Other crafty things I've been up lately to are : this birthday card for my boy cousin (identifying name and car reg removed) and this notebook request from my girl cousin - new, improved, with pink sparkly spine and blue sparkly sonic screwdriver.
  
  
  
  
  and I'm currently busy with a cross stitch ruler thing of all ten Doctor Whos which was supposed to be a surprise for gingerelanor  but I kinda ruined it in a moment of self doubt. Well, to be fair I'd shown the design to my mother who was all 'yeah, I don't think that's going to work'. Anyway, I went back to it and I quite like it ACTUALLY. Although Patrick Troughton needs more work. I think I'll have to unpick and redesign him. Once finished it may appear on crafty_tardis  because I haven't posted anything there yet.
  
  I don't think I ever posted the gift vouchers JB asked me to make for him at Christmas.
  
  
  
• Speaking of JB, he told me last night that Michael Bublé is touring again AND he's coming to Newcastle. HAH, crawling back is he after missing us out? Well ok then. I *might* go ;) I'm planning on rescheduling my working day and heading to the box office at 9am tomorrow to get us some tickets. WOO-HOO!
• I went out with the kite the other day (not when it was 75mph winds) for the first time since last June I think it was. I had to hop a bit when the wind gusted but all in all I wasn't too scared and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
  
  
  
• Hurrah my books have JUST THIS MINUTE arrived from Amazon. Inspired by gingerelanor  's list of books she read last year I'm going to try and read more this year. Not that I know how much I read last year because I didn't keep a record. BUT. There are lots of books that I'm supposed to have read (Wuthering Heights, Pride and Predjudice, Catch-22 etc) but haven't so I'm going to try and read more of them using the BBC's The Big Read list as a starting point. There was a feature in the paper recently that listed 100 books children should have read and it made me want to a) re-read the ones I'd read already and b) read the ones I hadn't so I'm going to read some of those too. In today's parcel we have *opens parcel* : Moonfleet (oo this one looks nice and short), Stig of the Dump (I remember loving this when the teacher read it out to us in primary), Pride and Prejudice (coo these £1.80 Penguin Classic Covers are REALLY cheap looking. Lolz) , Cranford inc. My Lady Ludlow, Mr Harrison's Confessions and The Cage at Cranford (cos I love the TV adaptation) and The Worst Witch Collection. (Which I think I read when I was little, but I'm not sure. Oo it's in seperate books in a pretty blue cardboard sleeve.)
  
• Something else to arrive today was a potato barrel. Immensely jealous of lilbebebaby  's vegetable patch I have decided I am most definitely going to grow something this year. This thing is tall enough to keep the chickens out of it (and if it isn't I'll make a little barrier thing for the top) and I love potatoes. I chose King Edward seed potatoes free with it but I see they won't be ready to plant out until April and I won't get my teeth into them until at least September. I'm considering a Strawberry pot as well, but I've never really had a lot of success with strawbs in the past. I'll probably grow some radishes in pots instead of flowers. I'd love a proper vegetable patch but as I've already caused so much damage to the garden with the chickens I'm not allowed to do anything else drastic with it.
• Elsie seems to be much better and most of her feathers are long enough now to make her look normal. She is also back to being inquisitive and doing the crouching thing so I can pick her up/pat her again which I'm taking to mean she might start laying again soon. Yesterday I found something the size of a mini egg in the droppings tray which on further investigation with a stick turned out to *be* a mini egg of the actual egg variety. I don't know who laid it but am choosing to believe it is Elsie gearing up to lay properly and not Betty coming down with something.
• For the past few weekends I've spent my Sundays visiting farm shops. I had no idea there were so many in this area! We had some lovely ham from Low Fields Farm and very nice beef from Blagdon. Next on the list to visit is Burtree House Farm and Brockbushes Farm. Is there some law that says they have to begin with a B round here? Anyway, I recommend this site to find local farm shops: http://www.farmshopping.net/
• I saw a mouse again the other night in the run. It is the most adorable creature in the world ever. I think it's a field mouse because it fits the description (big ears, big eyes, sort of a tan colour with a white tummy, hops along rather than runs) but it seems really small for a field mouse - I'd guess at 6cm in body length - and I didn't notice a really long tail, but I suppose it was moving rather fast.
  
• I'm considering taking up a Sport of some kind. Badminton or something. Do I have to know the rules for that?

• I finally got around to finishing my new laundry bag which didn't take long at all - it's pure laziness that it's dragged out this long.  I copied gingerelanor's incredibly neat method of doing seams as seen on my ducky mobile phone case (originally a sunglasses case but when I got my new phone I saw lots of warnings about it scratching easily and it fits it perfectly, and is the same blue, hurrah!)  No photos of the laundry bag because it's got my laundry in it and I can't be bothered to empty it for photos at the moment.  Also, it's a square bag so not all that interesting.  The fabric has trees on it though, which is kewl.
  

• OH, I had some more blood stolen this week to test for what I keep calling celeriac disease.  Pretty sure that will come back negative as well.  I got the Lovely Nurse again who took it out of my other arm this time and I didn't feel a THING which was much better. Weight is still shockingly low despite me eating a lot more normally again.  Stoopid body.

• I did my first sewing repair job this weekend when JB ripped his trousers at work.   He ripped the seam of the back pocket, ripped another pocket right off at one side, and put a hole in them.  I was a bit nervous about it because I've never done repairs before and I know what a perfectionist he is with he DIY.  There may have been a touch of grumpiness and sewing rage when I was doing them because the material was reeeally thick and the machine was complaining.  I fixed the back pocket, cut the other pocket down and sloped it to match the one under it and reused the label that had been on the ripped pocket as a patch for the hole.  The stitching was a little wonky because of the thickness of the material, but it wasn't tooo bad.  He said he was happy with them anyway so YEY.

• I won £10 on the lottery yesterday.  That was nice.  Well, £5 cos I split it with Mum.  I'm Putting It By until I decide what to splash out on.

• It has rained a LOT here lately and the garden keeps flooding.  The chickens have finally worked out that it's a good idea to head back to their run when it's tipping down.  They stand there looking all depressed.  I went to Chester Le Street yesterday to get some thread and after meeting 2 big floods (wimped out of one, drove through the other) on the way when we got there half of the shops were closed and mopping up, including the thread shop.  :(  I noticed the charity shop were using their stock as sandbags. You'd be a bit upset wouldn't you?  lol.