myrtlebaggins

• 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.

• 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 had the weirdest dream last night. It sounds very silly now but it was terrifying at the time.
  ( Dull Other-Peoples-Dreams stuff )

• Yesterday much fun was had putting together Great Aunt Fred's new TV and stand and taking her through the basics of how to use it. It's right snazzy and does all sorts. I love a flatpack. Great Aunt Fred is the coolest. I'm off to install and teach her how to use her new dvd/hdd/recorder later on in the week.

• I went searching in the loft for my knitting stuff earlier in the week so that I could try and knit some of these. I thought I'd have to ask someone how to knit again but I seemed to manage ok. I did these two: and another one last night which is flat on the top and has a little red flower and leaf on it and I think I shall have to stop there because my thumb has gone numb. I'm not one of nature's knitters stroo.

• I've had my budgie Kowlaski for 6 years and while he was friendly for a few weeks when he was a baby, since then he has earned the nickname 'The Assassin' from my uncle who he stays with when I'm away. He rarely flies and is content to sit on his open door most days playing with his toys (the budgie, not my uncle). He will try to bite if he sees fingers anywhere near him. (although he does like his head tickled as long as you use a toy to do it with). Yesterday he suddenly decided to become friendly and hopped on to the arm I offered him as I was passing the door of his cage. This has never happened before so as a reward I took him to the treat box to get some millet. Now, he's had millet before lots of times. If you are holding a little bit of it for him to eat it is the only time he won't attempt to remove your fingers. After his millet I took him back to his cage door and he jumped down. He spent the rest of the evening hopping about and at one point flew onto my mother's head. (She wasn't best pleased)
  Today he has been very active and eyeballing the treat box. For 6 years the treat box has been in the same place but he seems to have only made the connection now. He kept taking off and flying over to it then coming back, then jumping onto me. So we went and got him some more millet and he was all *YEY!*. I wonder if they laced this particular batch with acid or something. He seems to have gone back to his chickhood. :s
  
  ( *budgie video* )
  
  
  

• It's tomorrow now. Why does it take me so long to write these nowadays? Last nights dream featured me working in a restaurant with Gordon Ramsey. Ew, tbh.
  


• After being on an economy drive for several months I decided to cheer myself up with a treat and went shopping yesterday. Sadly I came home with pants (not even interesting ones), socks and a concealer stick. I don't feel treated and now I have no money left with which to get anything else. Le boo.


• For future reference: I am now 7st 3.5 underthings-weight, which has never been seen since early September last year. It's taken a hell of a lot of effort, and a bit of luck and some happy timing. I'd like to reach 7st 8 or 12, just to see what it's like, but I seem to have stuck fast at this weight as it hasn't changed for a week and a half now. But I'll stick with it and see what happens. At least I have a little bit of a buffer zone again.


• Last weekend I went to a craft fair at Newby Hall in North Yorkshire. OH how I wish I had a garden like Newby Hall. Without the tourists traipsing around it, obv.
  
  ( *photos* )
  

• It is now day three since I started writing this entry. Good grief. Maybe I'll never actually press 'submit'...

• I wish it would stop smelling of cows outside. I think the farmers must be putting something on the fields in the area. The whole area absolutely reeks something chronic. I hope it stops reeking before gingerelanor visits. Or at least I hope she realises it isn't me.

• Yesterday I had a Catch Up On Some Jobs day and managed to cross a few more things off my list. Although I did find myself adding new stuff to the list just so I could cross it off. 13 things left on the list now.

• One of the things on yesterday's list was changing the bedding in the Eglu. Elsie makes me larf muchly. She ALWAYS has to inspect at the point the new bedding goes in.
  

• 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.