Sad times

I've lost my chicken Nugget. She would have been nine years old in June. She was an old lady and liked to take herself into her nestbox and have a nap in the afternoons. One afternoon she simply did not wake up again. At least I know that she was not ill and did not suffer. She was a real character and I will miss her dreadfully. My husband and I have this dreadful virus and I did not see her for her last week. But she was still laying three eggs a week for me which is pretty good for an almost nine year old Buff Orpington.

Just stay away from everybody and stay safe and healthy

Strange times - week 1

We, like everybody else, are trying to keep away from other people. It feels really strange because we lead really busy lives with the church and suddenly not seeing people is just weird. And no coffeeshop to cook for, do shopping for etc. I am going to have to do some cleaning and housekeeping because I have no excuse not to : )

We (and others) are trying to sort church out. Most of the congregation have computers so we will have a service on /Sunday morning which we will follow along on the computer. Some of the oldest folk won't be able to join in but it is the best we can do right now. And of course there are the finances. Sunday giving will drop a lot but there are still salaries to be paid etc...… Hum...….

Like many people, I have quite a good stock of things in the house but we may have some quite creative meals because I can see now that there are a few gaps in my stocks. We'll cope, though : ) I have always bought things when they are on a really good offer and stashed a few extra away. But if things did not come up on offer, or at least, not for a long time, that is when the gaps happened. I called in to Lidl yesterday, my first time in a shop in over a week and the shelves were not as empty as I had expected. Of course, they had none of the things I wanted, just the things that I would not have bought anyway.....

My grandchildren are all gutted. Their parents are key workers so they will have to go to school when all their friends are off. I suspect that they will really enjoy it once they get used to some of the differences. Five months is a long time to fill. Not all parents are able to help their kids learn at home. I saw one parent of a primary schooler on the news looking at the sheet of work and saying "phonics? what are phonics?" Hum.....

17th March

Happy St Patrick's Day to everybody. He is my patron saint, not that I am doing anything to celebrate. They used to read us the story of his life every year back when I was in primary school but we did not do anything much else to celebrate even then. I have just had a load of St Patrick's Day recipes pop up on the computer but they are all very American (and very green coloured) and nothing at all like we would have had back home. We would not even have known what some of the ingredients were let alone where to buy them so the recipes made me smile. But I am happy for people to celebrate how they like. With all this corona virus stuff going on, there is little enough to celebrate so enjoy anything you can find to celebrate : )

Time is Marching on

Here we are in March already. Hopefully some of those March winds will dry up the ground a little because my hens are not happy hens at the moment. The runs are just waterlogged and the poor little things are just paddling. Ducks are happy with their feet in water but hens are not. We have put down what wood chips we have and all the leaves that we had gathered up in the autumn in an effort to have their feet up out of the water as much as we can but it is not working because there has just been Too Much Rain.

We have been to a funeral today for a work colleague who taught history for 50 (!) years at the school we worked at. He was a lovely chap and I remember him fondly. There were about 400+ people at the funeral so you can tell that he touched a lot of lives.

I think we have reached the age now where we go to more funerals than we used to. I was thinking last year that I need to have a couple of "funeral-going" outfits so that I don't wear the same thing to every funeral. With church and being in the worship group, we are often called upon to provide music for funerals. So every time I go into a charity shop, I have got my eye open for something funereal as well as everyday stuff. So far I have one outfit of trousers, top and soft jacket with a second top to ring the changes a little bit. Another jacket type thing would be good so I need to keep looking.