I wish she had skype

1.3.2011

BUILDING NEWS

Edd spent Monday in the trenches trying to repair the damage done by the weekend floods. He needs to get the back trench cleaned out and the drainage pipe laid before the walls start to go up. The heavy rain is making this almost impossible but at least we can check the levels easily.

The builders arrived early this morning and are doing their best to ignore the mud and drizzle. Today’s job is to wire vertical rods onto the steel sticking up from the foundations. Edd is trying to keep working on the drainage and the plan this week is to start building the blocks on Thursday. We have noticed that the local weather forecast on the Internet changes every time we look and is not a good guide to what we can do when.

OTHER NEWS

India came to stay this weekend and picked lots of beautiful black berries. She also unpacked the new apple-coring machine I had brought and got it into action. As a result of this marvellous effort we dined on delicious black berry and apple crumble and are eating the rest of the cooked fruit with our muesli for breakfast ever day. Come again India.

No news from the UK, so I am just hoping that no news means good news. It was lovely on Friday night to hear the cheerful voice of my cousin, Judy, announcing the she and Mum were going to have fun during her visit. Now that I no longer have an excuse to phone each night I rather miss the communication with my family. Chatting with my mother every evening is something of a luxury with us living at the opposite end of the earth. I wish she had Skype.

I have been trying to get our accounts up to date and that means sorting out piles of messy bits of paper. Not my favourite job. I am enjoying the cheese making better and am gradually getting to know my new equipment. Today I am back on cream cheese and yesterday it was Chevre. I have not attempted a hard cheese since the fires.

I have opened the gate so that the sheep can graze with the horses but I had to put up a slip rail so that the horses could not get to the big dam and the sheep have not spotted the new opportunity yet. The goats would have worked it out in a few minutes but most sheep are not like that. It is really hard to keep up with all the animal and garden work as well as the building. If I had more accommodation I would get in Wwoofers but we will have to wait for that.

Next week I have another old friend staying who has lived most of her adult life in Hong Kong. We stayed with Lucy and Ronald years ago when we dropped off at Hong Kong on the way to the UK. I just wish the weather was better. The forecast says it will be next week but do I trust the prediction?