Bedroom ceiling progress

Doug slaved away while I was away enjoying myself in London, and has nearly finished putting up the plasterboard. Still needs taping filling and sanding, then painting then lots of other things before we can move in. But all progress is good progress!

It is starting to look like a real room now.
The pink plasterboard is more fire resistant than the other and there is going to be a corridor of it to allow safe exit in the hopefully unlikely event of a fire. It is too expensive to use everywhere.

I didn't get great photos of this room when we looked around the house because the previous owner kept beehives in here so it was rather dangerous.

This window is now floor length and the horrible cladding was taken down some years ago by Rob. Looks a million times better now even not finished.

Rhoda went to London

I made what is hopefully my final trip of the year to London, to sort out emptying and renting the flat.
It was hard work packing as stuff seemed to have accumulated somewhat since the time 3 years ago when I started the job and I was staying in Aidan's (and Kirsty and Helena's) tiny tiny spare room.

I went to a Toastmasters meeting (though I thought the one I went to 3 weeks ago would be the last for a while!)

There were some things from Lorna's that had to be gone through. Will post some photos once I scan them, but in the meantime I found these... cute huh? Hopefully will survive the shipping to France.

There were many many boxes

Had to go to the British Museum

 Love this cow

Went to the Scythians exhibition - if you are in London well worth a visit. It is lots of things grave robbed by Peter the Great. Lots of interesting information too.

Huge (and ugly!) gold brooch - it is something like 20cm across!

Looked at the Assyrian stuff too of course. We might need a pair of bookends like these when the house is finished.

Also went to the new Postal Museum where they have a tiny tiny dinky train that used to carry post around under London. Like a mini tube.

You can go on it. Loved it!

Quick visit to Habitat to buy cushion covers for the flat.

Went to university round here, although that was a long time ago it is all still very familiar. This is Tottenham Court road with Center Point in the distance

Limehouse basin from the DLR.

The flat looks lovely and empty and clean now. It always seems a shame that flats look at their best just as you are moving out - you then regret not keeping it cleaner and better maintained while you were there!

Toastmasters - Topics Master

Why do we do table topics?

To practice impromptu speaking and coming up with an answer quickly to an unexpected question. This can be useful socially or at work.

How do table topics work?

I give a topic then say the name of the person who needs to stand up and talk about it. The time allocated is 1 to 2 mins. So the green light will come on at a minute, the amber at 1 minute 30 seconds and the red at 2 minutes.

So now on to the topics:

This evening I need your help. Part of the dictionary has been lost! It’s the longer version that people don’t normally use all the words in. We found someone who remembered some of the words but none of the meanings. It is very important we have the meaning and usage and history of these words just in case someone wants to look clever. 

I’ve come here because it is a place full of clever linguists, some of you here have agreed to help and gone off and done some research and now you are here to present your findings

They are going to come and tell us about their word when I say the word and call their name. They will cover some of the following:

The meaning of the word

How it came by its meaning (from the latin, come in to common usage on the internet etc)

What research they had to do to find this word

I expect some of them, being so clever, will cover other points too.

I repeated each word several times before naming someone to allow people to have some ideas and remember what the word was.

Ultracrepidarian - One who gives opinions on something beyond his or her knowledge.

Chiasmus - Rhetorical device: Repeating some or all of the words you used in a different order (ask not what your country can do for you, rather ask what you can do for your country)

Callipygous - having a beautiful bottom

Flahoolick - generous with money

Synecdoche - A figure of speech where part is used for the whole (eg more mouths to feed).

Persiflage - Frivolous lighthearted talk

Aeolist - A pompous person, pretending to have inspiration of spiritual insight.

Panglossian - Characterised by or given to extreme optimism, especially in the face of unrelieved hardship or adversity.

Prolix - Of a person given to speaking or writing at great or tedious length. Or of a piece of writing or speech of great, boring, and probably unnecessary length.

Dunandanate - To overuse a word recently added to your vocabulary

Petrichor - The pleasant smell that accompanies the first rain after a dry spell.

Killing a chicken

We have a few growing cockerels that need killing and eating - as they grow they start fighting with the big cockerel which makes him all angry and start attacking us too. One of them walked over my foot while I was feeding them, so I grabbed it! Chicken for dinner tonight!

(I hope you like the hillbilly dungarees - farming chic!)
I always have trouble killing them by snapping their necks - they just streeeetch. I don't want them to suffer, so this time I pulled REALLY HARD - and his head came off. Oops but at least I was sure he was dead. I normally cut the head off before I start plucking, gutting etc, I hate the thought I might not have really killed them...

I pluck first before gutting. The pin feathers are really annoying, this is where a new feather is growing and they are much harder to pull out. The grey sheath protects the growing feather.
Some people suggest you put the chicken in warm water to loosen the feather, but I never found it to help and it just makes all the feather smelly and stick to your fingers.

I don't bother plucking the end of the wings of the tail, I just cut those bits off at the end.

Super sharp knife and awesome new chicken shears that are 100 times better than the old ones (possibly 10 times more expensive though!)

I gave the feet to the dog as I can never fancy eating them... maybe one day I should keep and at least use in the stock or something. But Poppy enjoys them, so not wasted.

I gut once I have plucked. Here it is ready for the oven (well the neck needs cutting off and keeping for the stock).

These guys are about 5 months old and they are an egg breed rather than meat, so much less meaty. But soooo much more tasty than supermarket chicken.
This one was a bit under a kg when ready for the oven. It probably takes me 30 mins to kill, pluck and gut, so buying in the supermarket is cheaper and easier, but where's the satisfaction in that?

Fencing the top field

We have only had sheep in the top field all the time we have been here. We have wanted to fence it for the cows and horses but never found time. 

It is better for the land (in terms of keeping it as grass rather than weed and scrub) to have a variety of animals over it as they eat different things.

We moved the sheep out while Aidan was here and with both of us around, now seemed like the perfect time to do it. Also pushing us to get it done was the cows not really having quite enough grassland as the herd has grown rather. Lismore is going to the abattoir soon and we will sell Bluebell, but even so more grass will be useful.

The area in green shows the area we just fenced. The red is the total land. There is a tiny other patch somewhere off the picture at the middle of the top. We have never actually identified it.

Was lovely weather

Across the top of our land there is a green strip, this is because EDF come through every other year and cut under the electricity wires. This pylon is on our land.
This bit pictured is in the new fenced area

There is some of the strip EDF clear outside the fenced area because an acacia grove grows there and we need to wait until next summer when they have been through again before we can get through it. The acacias have EVIL thorns.

At some point EDF better fix up their concrete as it is crumbling away. It would be bad if the pylon fell over!

 We took out the sheep fencing that was up there. I have mentioned before that this fencing is both genius and EVIL. It likes to get all tangled up - but does keep the sheep in whereas many other fences do not.

It was quite grown in in places, though it has been much worse as Doug had been round it all in the spring.

The dog was VERY helpful

The new area is about half grass and half in the chestnut forest. We hope the cows will do a good job clearing the bramble and saplings that have been growing up in there for years (the previous owner used to pass cows through the woods every year and keep all the undergrowth down)

Various bits of fallen tree had to be chopped up to clear the way. All good wood for the fire.

 Stopped again to admire the view

Much strimming went on. Doug did it with his uber strimmer that I can hardly lift. I have a lighter one for work in the garden etc. Doug has a metal blade on here which goes through reasonably big saplings, the smaller strimmer doesn't take one of these so struggles on stuff like this.

Driving the 2 wheel tractor and trailer along with equipment.

Dog resting after running around after wild boar

 We had to have a bit of a chat with the pump to get water up to the new field. It was doing a max of about 2.7 bar and the water couldn't get up high enough.

We finally worked out we need to twiddle these springs to adjust.

Venus didn't want to move fields but we eventually persuaded her.

Yay everyone is happy with lots of grass and some chestnuts too.