What have we been up to in the past two weeks ???

Once again, the days are just running away with us.In brief here's what has been going on at Llaingof in the past two weeks.
The chickens have been playing chicken with me. They wait until I am busy, then dash into the poly tunnel, grab a mouthful of lettuce and dash out again. I am pretty sure they understand " Humba", though maybe not quite the urgency of the occasion.
The days of the week must still be muddled up, our 4x4 Hilux was due to be delivered on Tuesday, its now Thursday, and still no sign of it.Must be being delivered by the same company as Mattress Next Day.
I have found out that some of the local men ( not David, he knows that I would reap revenge with his credit card) call the patchwork class the " Stitch and Bitch Session ". Luckily I don't know any one well enough and am not sure who knows who, and who is related, so I only join in the stitch part of the class.
David and I have thrown the ball at least 200 times a day each for Ruby, she still has more energy, so now gives the ball to any one visiting, even Brian the fence man.I think I am even getting repetative strain injury in my elbow, or i am a sissy.
We have realised our security system ( the dogs ) are useless, as on Tuesday, David and I were both home all day, indoors as it was a bit damp outside, and Brian managed to enter our fields from one of the gates down the lane, pull out some gate posts, collect a new gate ( from near the house ) and install it, and we never heard a thing.
Gooseberry bushes are very prickly, and gooseberries taste much nicer cooked into a jam rather than eaten raw.
Baby nettle plants still have a BIG sting. Thistles are very resilient, in face indestructible.
The single parsnip plant I have been nursing along for a whole month is actually a weed, and I have probably pulled out any parsnips that grew mistaking them for weeds.
We have had a visit from a very dear friend of mine, formally from Rhodesia. We had a wonderful evening remembering all the fun we had in by gone days in Bulawayo. I have just remembered that the caravan park in Bulawayo had an outdoor black and white televsion, which we loved to watch, usually in our pjs. Come again soon Jenny and Ray.
I have contemplated world matters and decided that we would all do a lot better to just mind out own business and enjoy what we have.
We have been surprised at how easy every body else sees the solution to our plumbing problems. ( a long sad story, but lets just say I did not find having the lounge flooded twice in one week as amusing as some people did)  We have decided to put in two en suite bathrooms in the old cottage, with a view to possibly using them as B and B rooms later on.Problems that we fore see include drilling through the 2 foot thick walls so we can have proper plumbing, and trying to avoid digging up any part of the old house floors/ foundations to put in drains. We have had two architects/ surveyor sort people around too look at what we could do, and they both reckon the job will be quite easy.. we shall see,first things first, drawings and proposals to be submitted to the local council. David could do these, but it is a right bummer of a job as nothing is square. We have spent two days measuring every aspect of every room in the cottage, and doing all sorts of calculations with measurements ( David not me, I always thought geometry was difficult at school, and so far it hasn't changed for me ). Now we have to do the same on the outside and then David will be able to calculate the actual thickness of the walls .. or something like that.
Today I have had my hair cut for the first time in six months .. I just seem to have been to busy, but enjoyed having it sorted out today. Looks like the hair salon is the hub of the village in Velindre. In my 45 minute visit today I learned quite a lot from the hairdresser , Kate and her mother Gerty. They were trying to persuade me to have an all over spray tan as well. I was trying to explain politely that I am usually covered in so much dirt mud, you wouldn't notice whether i had a tan or not. Anyway, I could just imagine them having a laugh when I left, saying something like" you should see that new women from Penboyr, shes got lumps and bumps all over the place " I was also less than impressed when the apprentice hairdresser asked me how many grandchildren I have. Cheeky monkey.Anyway Kate did a good job, and I enjoyed the chit chat, so will probably be back for another cut.
I had a turn at playing Cake Fairy. Our friend Teressa ( from two doors down) was walking past with her dogs the other evening, and mentioned that she had been unexpectedly invited to an open house the next day. Once she had walked the dogs, she was going to have to go and bake a cake to take . Seeing as I had just taken two fruitcakes out of the oven I popped one in a cake tin and left it on her doorstep with a note that it was from the cake fairy. At least that saved us having to eat   that one as well.
The chickens are laying really well, must be all the greens they steal, between sixteen to twenty eggs a week. Seeing as I actually do not eat eggs, I am having to try and give them away, or bake with them. I have even had a go at making creme brulee for David. Hope it tastes OK, it used plenty of eggs.  I have also had a crack at lemon curd, which was rather nice, but does not have a long shelf life.
We have added comfrey leaves to the water butts, apparently this makes a great liquid fertilser, for free. It seems to makes the plants grow, but goodness it smells unpleasant.
We have  some butternut and melon and squash plants growing in the poly tunnel, and they seem to grow before your eyes. Heaven knows if we have left enough room between the plants.
At present, the weeds are winning.They seem to sprout before your eyes, but it is very pleasant sitting pulling them up, and making a nice big pile. Makes me feel like I have worked really hard, when actually its just an excuse to sit in the sunshine and enjoy all that is around us. I have been trying to make myself wear gloves to work in the garden, as my poor hands always look such a mess, but it just does not feel right. I like putting my hands in the warm crumbly soil. So guess my hands will continue to look like they are doing hard labour. They are happy hands.

I have been having a go at pieced patchwork, which requires a great deal of accuracy, in cutting out the pieces, sewing them very acurately with a quarter inch seam, and a lot of fiddling around. Needless to say I have not got on very well with the technique, i am too slap dash, so will have to go back to doing things by hand  and using a technique that I enjoy. The ladies at the sewing group were quite intrugued with my 20 year old sewing machine, which has held me in good stead. they are trying to convince me that I now need  computerised sewing machine. they have each let me have a turn on their wizzy models, which are certainly Ferrari compared to my Morris Minor,but I actually enjoy sewing by hand. No doubt they will think I am really very strange. Oh well, I am foreign.
Well its almost midnight, so I had better be off to bed before I turn into a pumpkin. Night night.