Monday 28 November 2011

Father Christmas

We were driving through Morley at the weekend in our camper van when Jack nearly jumped out of his car seat and yelled excitedly. We had just commented that the lights were pretty poor... When we spotted, at the side of the road, Santa with a fantastic sleigh all lit up! Dave tooted and we got a big wave. He was just going to turn all the lights on!

The wind was pretty bad up here but the greenhouse survived and nothing blew away, or down! Albert tried to fly his massive stuntkite but it twizzled into a big mess! It is now un-twizzled and waiting for a calm day.

The great news is the tubular bells are finally on the harp and working! I now need to buy a further 3 sets for the other harps! I ended up using the insides of old plugs to grip the bar threaded through the bells and fasten it to the harps. Old fashioned cotton reels threaded onto harp string to play the bells with.

This Sunday I return to Wycoller Park. There is a free children's workshop in Pepper Hill Barn where they make Christmas cards and we learn carols on the cimbalas (small stringed instruments which are very easy to play). At 2 pm we all go down to the Aisled Barn and play a carol concert. 11-3 pm

Saturday 19 November 2011

magnets and daisywheels

I am in big 'trouble' ...!!! In an attempt to get Dave organised I clipped wads of papers together for him. These clips had magnets on the back and I stuck them on the side of the computer. They have been there for a few weeks. Strange things started happenning to the computer and I 'helpfully' suggested at one point that a poltergeist was playing tricks. Dave has been tearing his hair out trying to fathom out what was going wrong with the computer. I have hardly been on (as you may have noticed).

It finally dawned on Dave and he couldn't actually believe I didn't know about computers and magnets ... nope ... I have never had any computer lessons alas.

The first day at my very first job was spent on 'Yorkshire's first and only daisywheel word processor' - according to my very first 'Boss'. I was stuck in the converted attic of an old Georgian house with no windows and a long very boring report to type. I started with a Beethoven Sonata (The Walstein) and it coped very well. I thought I had come up with a solution to boredom so tried some Gershwin. Not Rhapsody in Blue but Prelude in F ... I got to the last movement and the carriage shot off across the room about 10 feet. I wasn't looking because the flames coming out of the centre of the word processor were threatening to singe my hair.

I never dared to admit what I was actually doing and the IBM Engineer quized me very puzzled as he surveyed the burnt out machine ...

(Don't tell my Boss please.)

Thursday 10 November 2011

off to market

The sheep were long overdue for market on account of Dave breaking some bones in his back in October last year and then breaking his leg, hip and shoulder this Spring. We had to catch them, check their tags and load them into the horsebox. We were dreading it! We had enlisted the help of my son, Albert to help. We made a make-shift pen with old security fences in a corner of the field and our sheepdog, Meg, rounded them all up into the Corale.

We had one black Shetland Ram with black curly horns called Tony (he was t'only one). He was very feisty. We had about 5 tups in all but Tony's main rival was a white ram with very curly horns, called Brandon. For about the last 2 weeks Tony and Brandon have been fighting - they charged at eachother and launched themselves into the air so that they clashed about 4' from the ground. I was always scared their horns would lock but luckily it never happenned.

The first job the day before was to mark all the tups, check their tags and also mark the few sheep we were keeping. Even squashed in their pen Brandon and Tony were chasing the 'women' and fighting so we decided to do them first. Meg and I guarded the opening and Jack climbed up onto the wall safely out of the way. We checked a few Ewes and Brandon was happy to go back into the field with them but Tony paced and charged the fencing right up until the last sheep was released! He would hit the metal fence at about 4' high and we would all brace ourselves to hold it in place, even with a couple of wooden posts we knocked in as well. I still have the bruise on my knee where he charged at the opening and sent me flying!

He was the first to go into the horsebox the next morning at 6 am! It was minus 3 on the thermometre in the porch and our breath still showed inside the car on the way to the auction mart.