Mother Nature's Sense of Humour

Mother Nature certainly has a very funny sense of humour!

Why on earth did she make West Highland Terriers white, when their sole purpose in life seems to be to get as black as possible, as quickly as possible !

Grow Your Own Drugs

Has anybody seen the trailer for this new series coming on BBC2?

It starts on the 2nd of March and is presented by James Wong. Its all about using herbal and natural remedies for treating ourselves.

As somebody who already uses quite a few natural and herbal remedies I am really looking forward to this show - should be really interesting. I cant find out if there is going to be a book to accompany the programs yet, but there will be a BBC website available nearer the time of the first program.

Its time for sowing.....

My fingers are itching to be opening the seed packets, but I am still away from home most of the week. For a compulsive gardener like me this is torture! I want, I NEED to be in the greenhouse right now. I need to feel the compost, I need to lay out trays, I need to sprinkle seeds and cover them over, I need to clean and switch on the propagators........

Being stuck on a building site in a small caravan is not where I want to be.

Hubbies job seems to be safe, for now....but because the company in its wisdom has not decided to get rid all its labourers, forklift truck drivers, banksmen and assistant managers, the managers that are left (only 12 out of 38 who were employed before xmas) are having to cover everybody else's jobs. I know, I know we should be grateful that Himself is still employed, but this is really difficult and I know I am going to be spending far more time down here than I usually do.

I wont be working myself in my own capacity for another month, so I wont be at home much.......and I wont be in my beloved garden and greenhouse. And even though I am getting to visit quite a few garden centre's (am not spending though as have more than enough seeds, trays ect to set up my own shop!) its more frustrating than anything else.......

Ho hum......moan over. Need to find away to feed my gardening needs. Only another gardener will understand this :-)

I am a very lucky lady. Truly I am.

I grew up on a smallholding, with parents who had coped well with wartime shortages, who knew how to make just about anything from anything.

We had chicken, pigs, the occasional duck (another story there for another day, rabbits and just about every vegetable and fruit that could be grown then (many of the so called tropical or more exotic fruit weren't grown as they just weren't available over here then - it would have been unthinkable to try to grow kiwi fruit when I was little !

My mom cooked everyday from scratch, she made jams, pickles, chutneys. She bottled fruit and vegetables, she dried pulses, she preserved in salt, she sewed, crocheted, and knitted pretty much everything that we wore. She decorated, she looked after the animals and she helped with the vegetable garden which was mostly under Dad's control. She also grew flowers to sell at the front gate - lupins, hollyhocks, gladioli, lillies and many more.

Dad had two huge greenhouses, both built by himself. One was always full of tomatoes, the other, red geraniums. I cant to this day look at a potted geranium and not think of him. The smell in the two greenhouses used to hit you as you walked in the door - fresh ripening tomatoes and the unique smell of the geranium leaves.

Dad was like Mom, he could turn his hand to anything and in fact had built the brick bungalow where we lived, by himself. He bought a set of drawings, found the acre of land and built our house, the pig stys, the sheds, the chicken house, the two huge green houses and the rabbit sheds all himself. His original idea had been to be as self sufficient as possible, but apparently swine fever hit his pigs early on the venture and he had to go out and get a full time job to rebuild the herd and supply an income to keep the family going.

I came into the equation very late in the proceedings. Mom was 44 and thought she was going through the change of life. To her understandable horror, she found out that she was five months pregnant! Dad was 50. My two sisters were 18 and 20 when I arrived on the scene, and as she had had what was known as 'white leg' after my next sister was born (thrombosis) and had spent most of my sister's first year in hospital, at 44, she was not very impressed to find out that she was going to be a mother again. (I do believe my father was threatened with castration round about this time.......)

Anyway, I appeared on the scene on my mothers birthday, a mere scragbag at five pounds in weight (damn well made up for it since ) and grew up with two of the most wonderful parents a girl could wish for. They were very different in personalities and seemed terribly 'old' to a child to a girl who's friends all had very young parents, but I loved them with all my heart and I know I was loved too - the little mistake who should never have been.

I don't think there is a day that goes by when I ask my self,what would Mom do with this, or how would Dad do that. I watched and I learned so much, without ever realising I was learning - everything was just ' how it was'. What is also so great is that I use so many of the skills I learnt then, every single day.

How lucky am I? SO LUCKY.

I had wonderful parents and I learned so much. I have two wonderful sons who are also my best friends and I have a wonderful soul mate in my husband who I get to spend a great deal of time with everyday.

Am I lucky? You bet your bottom dollar I think I am, and I count my blessings everyday !!!

Well, the stomach bug certainly wasn't fun. A couple of weeks on and neither of us are back to feeling 100%, so if anybody else has succumbed to this horrible bug, you certainly have my sympathies.

The building company that Himself works for put every one of its managers on notice of redundancy this week - it had been expected so wasn't really a shock. There are about 38 managers and assistant managers in hubbies region - the company want to slim this down to about 9 we think to continue with sites which are still at build (and more importantly selling ) stage. So he has had to fill out a questionnaire detailing why he thinks he should keep his job ect. He has an interview with his contracts manager on Tuesday next week and then there will be a second interview sometime later. Everybody should know by the 13th of Feb if they are being kept on (probably at a lower salary, less benefits package too) So we will have to wait and see.

On a slightly brighter note I have a job interview myself next week. However this is where it gets complicated, so I will try to keep this simple. Hubby has worked mostly in the Kent/London area for several years, Whilst he is working away we live in a caravan usually on the building site (or caravan site if we cant) However our home is in the midlands and I commute to be with him most of the week, coming home to see my son who lives with us and catch up with home chores, the garden ect as and when I can. However the job interview I have is for a company based in Chatham - seemed like a good idea when i applied (hubby in Kent, me in kent) now if he does get made redundant, he wont be working in kent and I wont have a home base there either (no job, no site to put caravan on...no home base in kent.....) and 3 weeks before we know if hubby is going to be coming home permanently!

So, its at that time where you drive yourself crazy trying to work out all the possible options of how to deal with something that might never happen.....or might happen...

On another sadder note, I just wanted to say that Sharon over at Finding Simplicity has sadly decided to cease blogging for personal reasons. Sharon has been an inspiration to me over the time she has been writing her in blogland and I will miss my daily dose of her good sense and sensible thoughts. Come back soon !!

I'll be back soon.....somebody has drunk my tea and I need to go and make another one !

Happy 2009 - Lets hope its a good one!

Well, after 8 weeks of working as a labourer on my husbands construction site (more about that later) I am home. We got back late on Xmas Eve and hubby decided to come down with a stomach bug before Xmas lunch - nothing to do with my cooking I am very pleased to say!!

I followed suit a day later, and one week on we are still feeling very under the weather and quite weak, - have never had a bug lay me so low before, its been quite scary.

So as I sit here at little over 8.30 pm on New Years Eve contemplating going back to bed, may I wish each and every one a Very Happy, Peaceful, Less stressful, more sensible and frugal New Year.

Hugs to everybody, will be back soon, hopefully feeling better than I do now. xx

I haven't vanished

Honest, I am still here, just about. For the past two weeks I have been acting as an unpaid labourer on my husbands building site. I hasten to add that this isnt through choice, but as there is the most ridiculous deadline for a block of flats and there are people who are desperate to be able to move in before their mortgage offers expire AND the company he works for refuse to bring in any additional staff and are actually making more and more people redundant, I offered to help because 1. I would hate to be in the position where I was worried sick that my mortgage offer would expire and there is no guarantee of another one right now, and 2. Himself had a heart attack last Xmas and I cant bear to see him as stressed as he is regarding this build.



It still looks as though he may be out of a job after this build finishes in the middle of December but we still have to wait and see. Apparently the company have said this morning that there are another 100 jobs to go in this region at Xmas, but we don't know yet what mix of admin, technical and site staff it will be.

I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Back Soon. Babs