Sunday 19 February 2012

Mending the Tractor

A year last November we had a massive storm and a huge pine tree came down at the corner of the garden. Luckily it missed the house by inches but managed to land straddled across the tractor. We had to saw off each branch carefully to get to the tractor. Most of the glass broke and the exhaust snapped off but apart from that it was okay. Well we have not managed to do any work on the tractor itself since then and suddenly realised that plants were growing inside! It still starts okay and runs fine so we bought some perspex and started cutting yesterday.

I have just bought 3 tubes of black silicone and the sun is shining so we can stick all the panels in again!

To continue the theme of nursery rhymes I sat next to a lady at a luncheon I was speaker at the other day and she told me about Jack Horner. He was supposed to collect all the deeds of properties for King Henry VIII but kept one ...

'took out a plum and said what a good boy am I' !!!

Our barn was apparantly sold in the dissolution of the monasteries in 1540 as it was a Tithe barn and there was a large vegetable garden walled in at the front and the back was open to the valley for sheep. Now there is a 17thC Manor House built next door and they took the walled garden. The land nearby has lots of different herbs still growing wild as they used to be skilled herbalists.

My next concert is on March 23rd but I will be playing at Bowes Museum in Barard Castle on Sunday 11th March. In the meantime I have lots of private bookings for parties and as a speaker.

Monday 6 February 2012

sledging and schools

We escaped lightly with the snow but I honestly think most of it blew down into the valley! I went into Haworth this morning and it was still chaos. Every side road was 4 inches of solid white ice and every time you drove past a road end you had to watch out for out of control cars skidding out into the main road.

The harps sound superb (they love it cold!) and the phone has rung and rung this week so that's brilliant. Suddenly I have a lot of school bookings again. I still get big grins and 'you're the harp lady aren't you?' when I'm shopping. They never forget and it's lovely.

Well I made potato salad today with the tops of the chives poking out of the snow, I then struggled with cling film to try and get my masterpiece of cold meats and salad prepared for my husband's dinner tonight. Never again! I made a completely useless mess of it and had to use sellotape to rectify the edges! I then went upstairs to paint the skirting board and knocked the paint over ... arghhhh! I am hoping this break gets me in slightly more sensible frame of mind!!! Here's hoping... (Hope you're keeping warm)