20 January 2009

Australia

On Monday night we went to the cinema, with Annette & Clive, to see "Australia", a film that seems to have divided critics. It didn't seem to appeal to the filmgoers of Wadebridge as there were only about a dozen of us altogether. We happened to enjoy it and although nearly three hours long, the time went quickly. To my disgust, I did not know of the Japanese attacks inflicted on Australia. Well I do now; there is a good deal of information on the internet and this link is just one of them.

Bradford Visit

Last week we paid a visit to Bradford to see my Pop in order to help him sort out his Christmas Card list. He was very concerned that he had not felt well enough to send any cards, not surprising since he spent 11 days in hospital over Christmas. Prior to that visit I must just mention that we finally relocated a total of nine mice. We haven't had any more for over a week now so hopefully they are gone for a year or so.
On Wednesday 14 Jan we had an uneventful journey to Bradford; traffic was comparatively light and there were no accidents to hold us up. The only slow part of the journey was on the M1 because there are miles of roadworks with a 50 mph speed limit. We started the job of replying to Christmas Cards on the Wednesday evening and spent all day Thursday doing the same, finally finishing off on Friday. As a result of all that work, I now have a list of all the people, and their addresses, to whom Pop sends cards. This means that I can contact people more easily should he not feel up to sending cards on future occasions.
As well as doing that we spent hours sorting out piles of mail, mostly begging letters, and "returning to sender" those that I felt were definitely not wanted. We also sorted all the bills and sent off a claim for his time in hospital.
Maria spent hours sorting out cupboards and wardrobes and did several loads of washing so that when we left on Sunday, almost everything was up to date, beds changed etc.
We managed to take him out to lunch at Asa Nicholson's on Friday where he proved that he has a superb appetite. On the other days, Joan at the Friendly Cafe brought lunch to him. This is a tremendous help to him and a very generous task, most willingly done. Thanks are due to Joan and her staff.
On Saturday afternoon Maria and I went out to lunch at Murgatroyd's with Maria's brother Paul and his wife Bev. We had a lovely time and sincerely hope that the plans for their business are completed very soon. Good luck with that folks.
We took our leave on Sunday morning at about 10:15 and got into our house at about 16:30, having stopped briefly twice. It was a lovely dry and sunny day with no hold ups apart from the M1 road works. The sun was a bit of a problem since it was in my eyes virtually the whole way. South of Exeter we ran into some rain but, fortunately, it never amounted to much.

That's all for now.

06 January 2009

Twelfth Night

Last night, being Twelfth Night, all the Christmas Lights and Decorations were taken down and now, although we did not have all that many up, the place does look a little barren. Anyway, everything is back in the attic until next December.
The weather has been cold (-3 in the garage this morning) but beautiful during the day, so much so that Maria and I went for a walk up to the top of the quarry path this afternoon.
I released our sixth mouse this morning, or is it the same one six times? Perhaps they are getting back to the house before me!
On the bird front, a few days ago Clive saw some Long Tailed Tits on one of the feeders, birds that I had never noticed before. Well a couple of days ago we had a flock of eight of them and today six so perhaps the very cold weather has brought them out looking for food. I had to use a hammer and chisel to unfreeze the bird baths after breaking a garden trowel first! They will be frozen over again by now.
Oh well, back to the Family History and photograph sorting. Still a long way to go.

03 January 2009

New Year - 2009

Whilst preparing for having the wall built, and tidying it up after it was completed, Clive and I moved a lot of foliage, turf and miscellaneous items into the lower field; this was done as a temporary measure because the ground was very soft and muddy and therefore difficult to use my little tractor to move anything. Now however, we have not had any rain since goodness knows when and the temperature has dropped, making the ground fairly hard, so I decided to shift the rubbish to its final resting place in the top field. I took this photo just after I started:


About ten trailer loads of earth, turf and foliage later and the removal of a bicycle wheel, several bottles, some unidentifiable metal, a couple of concrete posts and several large and smaller rocks, the field now looked much tidier and my shoulders ached!


Mouse update:

One more mouse has been relocated from the garage but there is at least one more because this morning I found the trap empty and on its side so they are getting cleverer by the day.