Loom

I have been discussing with Ian the fact that what we really need is a loom. Mishearing me, he said we already one loon in the house and didn't see why we needed another.

Sadly, I think the sun has got to him. We've patently not got a north American aquatic bird living here.

Anyway, three cheers for ebay. We are now the proud owner of a 4 heddle loom. Hoorah.

It is coming from Holland and I guess will arrive when I am away. The picture is what it should look like. We'll see...

Hail

Admittedly, Ian would have preferred that instead of wandering around with the camera I helped bail the house out - particularly as we were doing it for the second time in 3 hours, however I felt that this jumbo hail deserved a pic.

Moral of the story: Ensure drains are kept clear and that guttering does not provide home to half the bird population in the area.

New Project

We're working on a new project - the aim is to collect together all the free needlework patterns and projects on the internet. The site is not ready to be launched yet - but we'd welcome feedback.

Foot and Mouth

I cannot imagine how we would be feeling now, if we were still living in the UK on our smallholding. Well that's probably not true. I think I know exactly how we'd feel.

The imagination comes in when thinking about how farmers must feel. Whose livelihoods are once again in the hands of something completely out of their control. Whilst financially farms are protected perhaps by insurance and by compensation payouts - there is the horror of facing mass culls, seeing years worth of breeding and bloodstock lines wiped out at shot. Literally.

We were living in the centre of the outbreak in 2001/2, and even without animals it was a pretty bleak existence. Our cars were hosed down when leaving and entering the area, there were many students at the school who were either not able to leave their farms, or if they were at a critical school stage, were staying with friends off the farms. The country side was absolutely CLOSED.

We heard horror stories of culls, saw the funeral pyres the other side of Penrith, saw acres of fields which were empty of livestock.

The thought of someone coming onto our land and culling our animals is desperate, I hope that consideration is given to vaccination, and that culls are a last resort.

House for Sale

A house in Villagarcia is up for sale. Details can be seen here. This is in a pretty position, it is quite close to where we went asparagus picking during the spring.

Peanut Butter Recipe

I didn't realise how easy it is to make peanut butter. Quite simply whiz up a handful of peanuts in a blender with some oil and voila - instant peanut butter. Not quite as nice as Sunpat (in the same way as I can never make tomato soup quite as nice as Heinz) but it was certainly on the better side of OK.

So ticked this off the list of things to learn to make. The theory being, if we try to make what we miss from the UK, it will save using up all 20kgs of baggage allowance with food....

Kittens

The kittens are getting bigger now, and are playing. We have quite a houseful.

We've put a sign up saying we have kittens looking for homes, and so far, not particularly encouragingly we've been told that it is normal to kill unwanted kittens.

Obviously, that wouldn't happen here, so we've been thinking of names....