Fancy A Jog In 30 Degrees Heat … Wearing A Fur Coat?

Hi All

The weekend has been quiet – and hot. Chea has spent most of it languishing in the garden – usually the neighbour’s. The one who lives under the conifer hedge. She’s a big girl now and can scale the six-foot fence and squeeze through tiny holes in the hedge without a backward glance. She has also, it appears, stopped serious lurches at the chickens, but that could just be a ‘heat’ thing and she will resume when the weather cools?

Dust still isn’t right. I think she is attempting to come back into lay. Yesterday I had to witness the despicable sight of her devouring a baby frog in two swipes.  Such cruel creatures. It made me feel sick.

Keeping cool with a dust bath!

The whole garden has been rearranged for the benefit of the chucks. Saturday saw the temperature up to 30 degrees – too hot for creatures in feathers and fur coats. If I ever had any doubt that Richard cares for the animals it was squashed when I saw him rigging up the very large, floor standing fan, in Dust’s side of the shed. There isn’t an outside run on that side and she was hot and open-beaked. It has probably cost us in excess of £20 over the weekend in electricity just to keep a chicken, that’ll probably die anyway, cool. However, I consider it worth it and I can think of little worse than an animal overheating and not being able to do anything about it.

Obviously there has been the steady stream of dick-head morons trailing by the house, dressed in shorts and vests, dragging dogs along in the mid-day heat. Can you imagine trotting along on melting, boiling tarmac? Can you imagine wearing a fur coat and running down the street in 30 degrees heat. I personally think that this is an horrendous form of animal cruelty and that owners should be shot at dawn – no – at midday, standing in the sun, wearing a real animal pelt and that way I could doubly despise them. I’d sell tickets for that. I need to move on …

We were  a little stuck for ideas on Sunday and so, with shades on the chuck cage and Dust’s fan blowing, we toddled off to a car boot which is held in the lovely market town of Melton Mowbray. Richard wasn’t keen. He loathes car boots, except for the burger bit, and he isn’t keen on getting up at the crack of dawn either. I say the crack of dawn but by the time he had surfaced from his pit I’d already attended to Chea, the chucks, washed the bathroom floor and watered the garden. He merely dragged his body down the stairs, struggled into his boots and picked up the car keys.

Two miles down the road and I enquired, ‘Phew, it’s hot already, what does the temperature gauge say?’

He blearily looked at the gauge and said, ‘eight point three.’

I turned, frowning, to look at him. He was staring  ahead.

‘Eight point three?’ I exclaimed. ‘Eight point three!’

‘Er …yeah,’ he said.

‘I think you’ll find that’s the time! You’re looking at the clock!’

‘Oh, is it?’ he said. ‘Well what do you expect. I’m not awake yet.’

This, frankly, wasn’t very reassuring seeing as how he was driving the car! All things considered I think we were lucky to make it there in one piece. It was a waste of time anyway because the stuff they were selling was stuff I wouldn’t even put in my garden shed! Not to worry – it was a nice ride out – kinda!

On the way back I suggested that we stop off at Next to see if they had any vest-tops left in their sale. Richard did at least attempt to hid his horror at the suggestion and once again we had the old discussion of, ‘what time do they open on a Sunday?’  Richard said ten. I said I thought that was wrong and that it was eleven.

We pulled up just before ten and waited for them to open. When they didn’t we ventured to the door to look at the opening times info. Eleven! I fall for it every time. He always convinces me that shops open at ten on Sundays …and they don’t! Even I  couldn’t be bothered to sit there for an hour so I had the bright idea of popping to Asda to get the sugar for the blackcurrant jam that I’ll need to be making shortly. And that my friends was the height of it for another weekend. Riveting hey? You can see now why mucking out chicken pooh tends to be the highlight of my life, can’t you?

I’m going to continue with my novel this week. Ha ha ha ha. Well I’m going to try. I bought  another plug in memory stick thing yesterday. It is in the form of an elephant. You remove his body from his feet and you have your plug in. Hey presto! I should tell you that choosing this sent Richard nuts. He stood waiting in Asda’s aisle, rolling his eyes (not literally) whilst I palmed the elephant one, and then the koala bear, and then the tiger etc. Well, it’s a very personal thing, isn’t it? In the end I chose the elephant because elephants never forget and I’ll always remember to back up my novel on him. Perfectly logical … in my mind.

Off now to write …

Oh, just need to hang out the bedding first …and THEN off to write …

Take care my lovelies x