All the most important things in life :).
We slept in this morning and once we’d dealt with chickens and ducks and breakfast and I was sitting down with River Cottage family cookbook and debating yeast starters and home made bread when I got a text from Bid to ask if we were free today. We decided we were so arranged to meet him and the boys on the beach with picnic at lunchtime. Davies and Scarlett took the two injured hens round to the front garden for some grass grazing. One seems totally recovered today, the worst injured one is much better and all the swelling has gone down and the bruising come out so she has a spectacularly colourful neck and I think her sight is a bit compromised too as she was injured in the eye which was fully closed yesterday but it open today.
I threw together a picnic and grabbed swimming stuff and the collection card for a parcel which had been returned to the collection office yesterday as it was too big for our letter box. I called to the kids to put the hens back in the back and Davies brought one through fine but Scarlett managed to spook the other one (the colourful neck one) and she flapped up onto the garage roof. I tried to encourage her down and she flapped up onto the house roof :rolls: I figured if she could get up there she could get down again so got the kids loaded in the car. I then realised she was no longer on the roof so went to check and she was back in the henhouse looking a bit fraught but okay. She is one of our original bantams and I’m hoping she’ll recover but I imagine adventures like that won’t do her much good :(. On the plus side seperating the ducks seems to have been a winner – they are a bit quieter, the cockerels have calmed down and are quieter and although a couple of the hens flapped into the ducks area today but could flap back out again and escape. I’m quietly campaigning for keeping them for now on the basis that there is every chance all the birds will be rehomed in a few months although I’ve not told Tarly that yet. So fingers crossed the seperation continues to stop any problems.
This made us rather late so a quick dash to the post office for a parcel which delighted Scarlett (thanks again Alison :)), the petrol station which delighted my thirsty car and then to the beach. Bid and the boys were already down there. Davies and Archie headed off in one direction, Scarlett and Eliot stripped off and headed for the sea, Bid and I stayed put and chatted. We had a very lovely few hours soaking up the sun, chatting and catching up on each others news. D&A loved spending the whole time out of sight, wandering far from the rest of us and staying in touch by phone. S&E stayed in sight but far out of hearing range and once they’d tired of the sea they rockpooled, played games with digging sand and found all sorts of sea creatures including crabs and shrimps. It was all very perfect :).
We had to leave at 4pm to get to swimming lessons. Thanks to Circus last week and Davies arm the week before he’d missed the last two, Scarlett had missed the last one and thanks to a whole hosts of reasons including my allergic reaction I’d not been in the water for weeks. It was lovely after the heat of the beach to be in the cool of the pool. Scarlett had a good lesson and came and joined me doing lengths for a while and managed 3 in a row straight off – 100m – and a further 3 a bit later so a fairly speedy 200m from her :). Davies had a really good lesson too, didn’t mention his arm and was all happy because they’d been practising breast stroke which he enjoys. And me? I managed my 50 lengths in the hour which I was pretty chuffed about given the lack of swimming recently. My knees protested and are still a bit achey so I’ll know I did it in the morning probably but I’m pleased I’ve not lost the level I’d built up.
Back home the kids had an eclectic mix of things for dinner and then went back outside. Ady came home and we chatted about our respective days and plans ahead. Ady and Davies took some plants to two of the neighbours, both of whom were telling Ady how lovely it is to hear the ducks in the garden 😯 then the kids got ready for bed and I read a couple of chapters of ‘Alone on a wide, wide sea’.
A catch up on the news for Budget stuff, dinner, more planning chat and I drank cider rather than wine, while it’s still cheap :).
‘Beach, friends, sunshine
All the most important things in life :)’
Just missing the beach!! Sounds like a lovely day 🙂
Comment by Kirsty — 23 June 2010 @ 6:48 am