Isabelle, Andrew & Mo!

Friday, 4 June 2010

Chickens enjoy some corn...

Each week our chickens get a treat... this week it was a corn on the cob..

Ian was very inventive and put a tent peg in the cob so we could hang it from the mesh of their pen to save it from getting covered in grit and muck.

Any way, they love their corn!

Sunday, 18 April 2010

The Good Life ... it's happening!

A bit of a retro-blog because lots has been happening in the garden and by the time I get home I'm too pooped to blog!

Anyway, we've been and got the chickens!! Last Sunday actually so they've been in residence for a whole week now.

Well, before we got the chickens we had to build a nice safe enclosure for them to free range - I say 'we' but really it was Ian and Andrew who did lots of hard work. This is only stage one and a temporary measure because they've got a grand design for the real enclosure.

So, last Sunday we went to Outgate Poultry and bought

four chickens; a blue, a speckledy, a sussex and a black. We brought them home and got them in the coup, we were all giddy but the chickens were really shy. They took a couple of days to find the confidence to come out. the blue one was the first to come down the ramp and into the run.

We haven't officially given them any names yet but I call the blue one Bluebell and I think it suits her.

They've had a lovely week settling in to their new home, they've entertained us with their antics... a couple of escapes, standing on the roof of the coup.

But today was the best antics of all... Bluebell laid her first egg!!

Who's a clever girl?

Later on when we went round to the garden we noticed that there were actually five chickens and not four. A little bantam black chicken had appeared from no-where. It had a very lovely day being part of the flock, eating and scratching about. Anyway when Ian went to close the coup for the night it had disappeared! Let's see what happens tomorrow in the crazy garden!

Update.... the bantam (seen here on the left scurrying away from the camera) had returned this morning after obviously roosting somewhere else last night, so let's see if she gets accepted as part of the flock and decides to stay, or whether she is just here for the free lunch!

Oh, in between chickeny things we've also been planting things (shallots, beans, peas, potatoes, tomatoes, a whole range of squashes, cucumber, sweetcorn, courgettes, onions, cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, leeks, parsnips... the list goes on and on).

Sunday, 4 April 2010

First trip out in new caravan....

.... not as planned but hey!

Planned to go to Hinderwell with our good friends Mark and Michelle for the Easter long weekend.

Isabelle was just getting the caravan packed up when Mark phoned to say that the site was flooded and we had been cancelled - nightmare! We knew we would never get another booking so late in the day with it being Easter so we were all feeling a bit down to say the least.

We all started ringing round every site we could see that looked half decent to no avail, everywhere booked up. We were gutted. Then, Michelle rang to say that a site in Thornton le Dale had a pitch for one van for the whole week and should they take it - we agreed that they should take it and we'd stay at home. We'd just settled down for the rest of the evening when the phone went - it was a chap ringing back to say they'd had a cancellation at their site if we wanted it! So we jumped at the chance..... it was all the way to the other side of Howden!!!! (about half an hour away). Didn't matter that it wasn't a long journey, it would be just a good chance to test out the new caravan and find out how to work every thing.

So, we packed up and went to Brenda House caravan site for three nights. The great thing was that we got to explore some places which are on our doorstep that ordinarily being busy people we wouldn't have done. We had some lovely walks with the dog right from the site and we also went to Wheldrake to visit the nature reserve but it was flooded. The caravan is fantastic and we had a very relaxing and peaceful break. Just missed Mark and Michelle, but we're really looking forward to May now.

Wednesday, 31 March 2010

Malteser Tray Bake

Here is a recipe for delicious, scrummy Malteser tray bake. We used to go fishing in Northern Ireland and they sold this in the shop in the village, it was like waiting for an annual fix going there!!

I searched the web and found this recipe.

100g butter
200g milk chocolate
3 tbs golden syrup
225g crushed digestive biscuits
225g maltesers

Melt butter, chocolate & syrup
Add crushed biscuits and mix
Add maltesers and mix quickly
pour into a lined swiss roll tin
chill in the fridge until it is set
drizzle with melted chocolate if you want to be posh - or just cut up into squares and scoff!!

tis yummdiddlyumptious - enjoy!

Wednesday, 24 February 2010

Frustrated by the weather!

Well, it's ages and ages since I posted on this blog. This year we are going to be doing lots of stuff outdoors as usual but not all walking up hills..... because we're going to be gardening and growing our own veggies!

We have decided to help out our good friend Ian with his very large allotment plot and share the efforts of our labour. We are doing lots of talking about it and planning at the moment as the weather seems to be against us. So far though we have purchased some second hand water storage tanks and put them into position, bought and almost assembled a chicken house and run and we've started some potatoes off. Ian got some beans growing nicely in the potting shed but the mice helped themselves to them, so he's put out traps and started some more beans!

I can't wait to get digging and tending the chickens. We've decided which type of chickens we want and how many, so just need to get on with it all now.

It's going to be just like 'The Good Life'!

Sunday, 7 June 2009

Isabelle and Mum go to Eden Project

My mum wanted to go to see the Eden Project as her 60th (shh, don't tell anyone she's that old!!) birthday treat.

So we flew (yes I know our carbon footprint just got bigger, but we did take public transport once we'd got there and I am growing a courgette plant to make up for it!) from Leeds to Newquay to save being on the road for 10 hours. It was great, up in the air for 50 minutes and at our hotel in time for the final of The Apprentice!

We had a lovely day at the Eden Project and were very impressed by it. It was much bigger than I'd imagined and for any plant and nature lover it really is eden. We particularly enjoyed lizard spotting in the tropical biome (big bubble thingy). It was a drizzly day when we visited but it didn't spoil our enjoyment as there is a lot to see inside the bubbles. I was really amazed how much there is to see outside too and I was really inspired with ideas for my own garden.

On our second day we decided to have a walk from Newquay to Watergate Bay along the coast path. It looks like no distance at all on the map but we reckon it was about 8 miles there and back by the time we walked to all the furthest points on the cliff tops. This walk was really lovely as the cliff tops were totally covered with wild flowers. We also did a bit of twitching and spotted Stone Chats, Wood Warblers and Mum spotted Corn Buntings. We had an encounter with a Kestrel which landed on a ledge of the cliff just next to where we had decided to have a rest, it was amazing how close we got to it.

At Watergate Bay we had a wonderful cream tea (yes I know my non carbon footprint just got deeper as I must have put on half a stone with the amount of clotted cream that was involved!). The tea room we went to was next door to Jamie Oliver's 15 restaurant which is right on the beach - sorry to snub you Jamie but the tea shop was great. I particularly enjoyed having a fix of doggie in the tea room as everyone seemed to have their pooches with them. We settled next to a wonderful couple who had an old Border Terrier girl and two lovely Italian Spinones, I was missing Mr Mo so I latched on to them!

Anyway we returned the next day with another smooth and quick flight home ready for a cuppa and a rest!

Sunday, 23 November 2008

Vorsprung Pork Technic win 3rd prize!!

As you will be aware Isabelle occasionally runs (or wobbly jogs to be accurate!). Sometimes she even enters races and such, especially with her friend Clare (who is very much into technical gadgets and measuring things like time, distance, calories burned, speed, how many kitkats can be eaten afterwards etc etc).
Well, during training for the Great North Run in 2007 Isabelle suggested to Clare that an adventure race might be fun. So, without further ado Clare sussed out the Whole Hog series and noticed that the Hog Dash would be in Sheffield in 2008.
We thought it would be fun to have a girls team, so Vorsprung Pork Technic was born. Vorsprung was going to be Julia (the Wuss) Brown - Clare's neice who wussed out in the end, Pork was of course Isabelle and Technic had to be the technical expert measuring and monitoring girl Clare.
Due to Julia (the Wuss) dropping out Clare valiantly recruited another wuss, Lisa 'from the gym, you'll like her honest'. She dropped out on the morning of the race, so it was Pork Technic unsprung here we go.
The race is described as "Each leg is a foot based adventure and involves competitors facing numerous challenges/obstacles around the course. What we can guarantee is a bit of mud, and a lot of fun!" How right they were....
We arrived at Hesley Wood for a safety briefing, at this point I was really suffering a bout of 'tummy legs' (bricking it), where we were told that the course had been changed slightly due to the amount of mud available!!!
The course was about 9k long and had more mud than you could imagine, in addition to that there were hills so steep and muddy we had to use ropes to climb up, scaffold towers to climb up and over, rope tangles to navigate through, logs to leap and water to wade through!!!

We completed the course laughing all the way - our mantra was "It's not a race, it's an event" poor Clare was not even wearing her gadgets to time and measure our progress. After we had finished and managed to clean up a bit and get changed into cleaner clothes we celebrated with hot chocolate and a hog roast sandwich. Whilst we were munching the organisers started to announce the winners (all entrants got a goodie bag but only the top 3 finishers for each category got a prize), Male individual, Female individual, Male team, Mixed team and finally Female team winners were announced - much to our shock and amazement we won THIRD PRIZE FEMALE TEAM. So, despite the 'Wusses' and the fact that wobbly jogger was not fit due to lack of training WE DID IT!!