No news for a whole year – seems like we must have been busy, but I’ve actually been doing practically nothing. We’ve welcomed lots of lovely visitors and shared life stories/photos of grandchildren/pictures of pets – it’s been great.
The shower cubicle in the Lodge has been given some lovely new waterproof wall boards, meaning there will be no more nasty black stuff in the corners.
We have a new Sky satellite dish. The old one was too far away from the box, apparently. The signal seems more stable. There’s half a chance we might get faster broadband sometime this decade. We’re not holding our breath.
We lost most of the doves to some revolting pigeon disease in January and February, but the numbers are on the increase again. It was odd for a while… But the pheasants and the partridge bred really well this year and seeing the babies has been a delight.
The grey squirrels have vanished. None of us have seen any for 6 months – we have no idea what’s happened to them.
Our last chicken is now completely free range – we don’t have the heart to keep her in the paddock by herself, so she spends her days hanging out with the wild birds. We have no idea how old she is, because she was rescued. She just does her thing, and begs anyone she happens upon for food. Like she doesn’t eat us out of house and home.
Our Aga runs on wood pellets. I had no idea that wood pellets come from the Ukraine. So the Aga hasn’t been lit since the war started, because the pellets that are available are three times the price they were last year. On the other hand, we got ourselves an AirFryer and are now wondering why we need an Aga anyway 🤣
I had put my back out in November 2021 (lifting a very heavy box of tiles (37kg)), and by February was at the doctor’s whining about how bad the pain still was. Got an MRI in July, and in August was told I’d bust my back. That explained everything. My back still hurts but physio is making it better, if more slowly than I would like. So, no builders this year, but with a little luck next year will see the house finished. Properly finished, 5 years later than anticipated, but worth waiting for.
Andrew’s mum has just turned 102 years old, but has recently been laid low with a cut on her leg which is refusing to heal. The car (new to us, because the old one decided 250,000 miles was enough) already knows its own way to Sheffield and back.
We’ve lost family members to cancer this year, about which enough said. As soon as I can walk more than a mile without crying we’ll be back on the Cancer Research fund raising trail.