Deverstation City… erm I mean Hedge :(

There has been a bit of a dispute with the farmers who own the land surrounding us and as a result today saw the hedge along the stream being ripped up

This has made me very sad for several reasons - firstly Barbara has spent lots of time (and lots of our money paying Albert) doing those hedges - they are the type where you weave live wood into each other and yes it wasn't done in a way I liked and yes she had been nuaghty and planted some things the other side of the hedge in the farmers field but the whole thing has been ripped out.

Secondly this is my main suplly of elder berries and rowan berries for the Hedge row jelly I make and force you all to have at christmas and the like. It was also the source of most of my hazel nuts and the sloes for the sloe jin (that vile purple stuff I have forced onto some of you). This will also have large implications for the wildlife.

The farmer says he does want a hedge but he is claiming back land that has been 'our' side of any boundary for at least 30 years. The land being claimed back is not really useful to either party and it has been desided that we don't want to get antagonistic - especially as they have moved the fence behind our house too claiming back quiet alot of land which I had been planing to have the ducks on (when we get around to it). I am concerned muchly over the land behind the house and am also fearing that they might decided to cut the russet tree down or something silly like that.

This all boils down to the fact that there was a 'farmers' agreement between Al's grand parents and the perants f the three bothers who now own the land. The farmer seemed nice enough and agreed not to cut down the tree that Barbara's TV aerial is anchored too (once I pointed this out to him).

He told me lots of funny stories about him and Als Dad when they were young to.

Anyway, I only went up with Barbara as I came to see how things were going to find she'd had a fall whilst putting the bird food out and has hurt her shoulder and stuff. Last time something like this happened it turned out she had dislocated her colar bone and like last time she is insisting on waiting to see if its ok in the morning etc...

I had been intending to make lunch and had been concerned about dad and told him to make himself a hot cross bun to eat. I came back in after dealing with all of this to find him in a coma in the living room.

Dad's diabetic and not very good at controlling it and I went into the kitchen to find all the stuff out to prepare a bun to eat but the bun still sitting there. I was getting absolutely no response so it was sugar solution time and then that didn't seem to be working and I started to think that it was ambulance time but then got enough response out of him to get a toffee into him (whens he's coming out of hypo/going into them he doesn't believe he needs help and gets very cantankerous).

He then came around enough to declair he wanted a burger and that he wanted to eat mini (the black cat). This ment he was on the way out of the hypo but he was shivering very badly and has been slightly shaky for most of the day.

I found today quiet stressful.

Before the Snow

Before the snow there was a storm and Barbara thought to minamise damage by leaving the green house door open - the result - lots of broken glass. She now wants Al to make some sort of supports for the windows.

The Cost of a £1 Bucket

One of Barbaras buckets had found its self lodged in the trout pond behind our house - how it got there is something of a debate. Barbara had asked Alaric to retrieve said bucket early afternoon yesterday whilst he was dealing with something on the van in preparation for us going to the bank, so he said he would putting it on his list of jobs to do that day.

Barbara went out for her meeting and due to work running late Al started his outside jobs after she'd left. These where mowing a section of lawn and retrieving the bucket. Dad asked if he needed any help and Al said it would be great if Dad could don the waders and retrieve the bucket. Then they noticed the bucket was no longer in the trout pond - obviously it had washed over the little water fall there and gone behind our house.

Normally such things get lodged in the weir but no bucket so dad began to wade upstream in search of the bucket. But alas, no sign of the bucket was there and just as he began routing around the bushes right by the water fall of the trout pond a swarm of insects started really attacking him but he tried to ignore them thinking the bucket must be stuck in the bushes. Anyway in trying to swat away the midges and fight the bush he accidentally knocked his glasses off of his face - splash.

Straight in the water - he spent about an hour and a half searching for them with a magnetic poky stick Al has. Dad needs glasses to drive and needs to get back to Essex by Thursday morning for a hospital appointment. This meant he was refusing to get out of the stream and eat his dinner - in the end I got in the stream to look for them and sent him inside.

I found bits of old barbed wire so rusted the barbs are no longer evident, bits of hinges, old nails, bits of very rusty squashed cylindrical metal, a galvanized steel sheet and a bracket but no glasses. To be fair on the magnet we have no idea what exactly the frames or screws where made out of so were sort of just hoping they were going to be magnetic.

Unfortunatley the cold water though it numbed my foot and acted like the cold treatment I've been doing to bring the bruise out did mean that I painfully collided with not only the bank of the stream down on the green house corner where it gets deep but also in the house when I first came in - mainly due to the fact my mother had moved our fold-up tables legs to get access to the window over the stream - she had put them across the path straight into the kitchen - I wasn't expecting them to be there and did not see them (I blame the stinking cold I have which is Jeans fault, which is dads fault, which is Mr Mike's fault which is Seb's fault and so on). Pain ouch - my poor right foot its really taking a bashing at the moment.

Anyway we had all just given up and retreated inside the house for warm drinks and Al had taken me upstairs to try and see if we could strap my ankle up but the bruising is just too bad for me to allow it too happen - it was at this point my art teacher walked in in his wellies saying he'd just trodden on his glasses (well actually he came to say he could pick me up and take me to my class as he turns out to be one of my neighbours but then he mentioned his glasses :/ ). He then had a drink with us and offered to look in the stream as well - so off he went wading through the stream in search of the glasses - at no point had anyone seen the bucket.

The art teacher left and then Barbara came home and I told her what had happened and then found out the missing bucket had been retrieved by her that afternoon because Al had taken too long over it and she considered it an urgent job. So the £1 bucket that cost a pair of glasses, my white trousers getting mucky, lots of time and one even more screwed up ankle was in fact not missing at all and already rescued rendering the whole fasade completely and utterly useless.

I knew it was going to be a bad day when one of the first things I did was hit my forehead on the corner of the old metal vice/clamp whilst trying to move a pot of paint. I blame the cold.

Trouble up Stream

The level of the stream has dramatically and drastically risen even though it is not raining - someone up stream is doing something something like opening the gates to an artificial lake or some other man made resevoir and they did not tell us. This happened once before when a dam to the fisher broke sending a surge of water down to us nocking Gilbert (Barbaras little boy statue) off his feet. This is a slower rise as in there isn't an obvious wave of water traveling down stream but never the less something is happening somewhere. The water is still rising and the poor guys who where fixing the tunnel have got water in their wellies and all sorts!

It has also proceeded to wash away all the work they had done yesturday and this morning which of course is bad news The cement obvious needs time to dry and the such like - sigh sometimes I wonder if this is all ever going to be put right.

On the bright side however the skip has arrived for the removal of our kitchen and our plaster!! This has made me really happy as it feels like things are really moving this time.

Russet Apple Harvest

Last Sunday me and dad decided to start the russet apple harvest as Barbara had been asking for help with it and had already set up the dam in the stream to try and catch all the errant apples that fall due to the wind ect... For those that don't know the apple tree is on the other side of the stream just behind where the green house is (the green house is attatched to the building we live in (when its not flooded that is!).

The hard frosts have already reached our little valley so it is time for lots of things to be harvested at the moment!

We found a ladder and gingerlly made our way across to the otherside of the stream, we decided to jump it rather than use the ladder as a bridge as we noticed it had a rather large crack in it that would not take the strain but would be fine if the ladder were used as an actuall ladder. The back here was quiet slippery and muddy as Albert (Barbaras garderner) has been clearing it of all the scrubby grass in order to put more ornimental things there. But we made it over with no ill effects but than I realised that we had nothing to put the fruit in so had to recross the stream to get some bags!

When I returned Barbara has joined in the fun and was in the middle of donning wellies and get the 'cherry picker' now the only cherry pickers I've ever seen are those little crain things with a basket for humans that window cleaners sometimes use, I've also seen council employees use them to change light bulbs in displays in town centres and that type of thing - what Barbara came back with was something akin to what I would call a 'pruner' it was like a pair of shears on the end of a long poll with wires running down the poll so that you can move something your end and make the shears at the other end work!

Equiped with this dad scaled the ladder with much protest as a) he is scared of hieghts but was too proud to let me do it and b) there happens to be a couple of roses trained up the tree which did their best to scratch him to pieces!

Once in position I handed the cherry picker to him which he wedge by a joint in the trees branches and begain shaking. Nothing happened, no apples fell - all except one apple - which thanks to dads and mine combine bad luck feilds proceeded to hit him on the head! I'm afraid I couldn't stop laughing when I realised that the only apple to actually have fallen off the tree had managed to hit him right on the nogging!

Anyway with a bit of direction from Barbara he soon had the apples tumbling into the stream where they where neatly cuaght in Barbaras apple trap (an old wrought iron fire grate/basket thing with some chicken wire) where she was waiting eagily to extract them with a rake. I mean while I was creeping around the bank trying to retrieve all those that hadn't made it into the stream - I was trying to do this mid strokes so as not to be showered by apples. However dad decided that he needed to extract revenge for my laughter and shook knowing I was under the tree and then laughed like a drain when an apple ricochette off my back side into the water - Barbara then commented that at least that wouldnt hurt as much as one hitting you on the head :/

Anyway we got a good big basket full and the trees still laddened with fruit!