The Sixth Sense

No, not that film with Bruce Willis.  I mean what chickens have.  Today I got back a bit late because I was out seeing a friend who has just had a baby, enjoying a baby cuddle and a natter (with my friend, not the baby).  I arrived home at about the same time as the chickens go to bed.  In fact, they were in the pen, just about to go up the steps.  I came into the kitchen, without switching on any lights.  Within 30 seconds their heads went up (like meerkats) and they had all run out and were congregating outside the kitchen door.

Perhaps chickens should be employed in the military.  They would be able to pick up really well on any intruders, even when they were trying really hard to remain under cover.

Ooooh, muscles .....

.... are fine, surprisingly.  Does this mean that I am getting fitter or that I didn't work hard enough?  (Dad, you are not allowed to comment on that one because I know what you are going to say).

However, my brain muscles now hurt because we sat in a meeting for two hours today.  That's a lot to concentrate on.

Trips into the wardrobe again

Mum rode Narnia again today.  Well, technically, riding is not the correct term since Narnia decided today that she didn't really feel up to it so kept stopping rather a lot.  But when she was working, Mum did some more trotting over poles and also trotting without her stirrups. She thinks that tomorrow will bring lots of sore muscles because of that ....

Hugs all round!

An egg today from not one, not two, but all three girls!

Celebratory strokes in order for not just one, or two, but all three girls!

For those of you that know the girls, you will know that these two events, together, could almost be constituted as a miracle!

Happy Mummy.

Ice-cream anyone?

How very Rosie!  It was the celebration of her life today and she had an ice-cream van outside after the service.  That's just fabulous.

Why does it always rain when you have cleaned up?

Today it has been raining all day.

On a positive note, it means that the girls have not been able to poo on the clean decking.  On a negative note, I might just as well not have cleaned the decking because the rain would have done the job just as well as the jet wash.

As usual, the girls have spent most of their time underneath the bbq.  Hopefully it will stop later so that they can come out, but to be honest, I don't think it will.  Sorry girls!

Things to do

1. Buy cabbids.  Check.

2. Buy grapes.  Check.

3. Jet wash house (chickens' not ours).  Check.

4. Jet wash decking.  Check.

5. Jet wash patio.  Check.

6. Get covered in muck.  Check.

The last one wasn't quite in the plan, but seems to be a normal by-product of 4 and 5.

7. Chillout.  Just off to do that now.

When does 'coming soon' become 'now'?

I think I must be living in some strange time warp.  Trailers appear for TV programmes that I would like to watch saying 'coming soon'.  So I keep it in the back of my mind that I need to look out for when that is so that I can watch or record them.

Somehow (and I have yet to understand how) I seem to be transported into another universe where the 'coming soon' has become 'now' and quite often 'sorry but you missed the first episode already'.  I know that there is that funny green button on Sky that enables you to be reminded, but that also appears so quickly that by the time I remember that I should be pressing it, it is already next week.

This has happened a few times over the last few weeks.

I am determined that this will not happen with Merlin, which I happen to enjoy, despite the fact that the storyline is pretty much the same every week.  It is worth watching for Arthur, who despite his arrogance, is quite good looking.

Merlin is currently at the 'coming soon' stage.  I reckon that once Dr Who is over, Merlin will appear, so I think I might be better prepared this time.

What is the similarity between fishnets and baked ham?

I did also find some pictures of fishnets but to be honest they were a bit x-rated so I decided not to post one.

I also can't really tell you what the story behind the similarity is but suffice to say it had me cracked up laughing for a fair amount of time.  In the middle of a very serious presentation evening at school.

To Del, who shared the tale, thank you.  Belly splitting laughs are exactly what is needed from time to time.

I'll never be able to look at a Baked Ham again without sniggering a little.

Bacardi anyone?

No, Mum is not turning to drink in the middle of the week.  This is the name of another horse that she was riding today.

She very much enjoyed her lesson today and would like everyone to know that she almost got into a canter.  Bacardi thought better of that.  But they did do some jump trot things over a pole and the circle things again.  

On the down side, she has discovered that she is, in fact, allergic to horses.  So she has had to go and buy some magic pills to take to stop her itching and sneezing.  She's not going to let a little thing like that stop her!

Fried, Egg and Spoon xxx

P.S. It is getting so dark at night now that Mum puts us to bed before she goes for her lesson.  We set the alarm especially so that we could write this post.  We are going back to sleep now.

How to impress your students

Drive your boyfriend's car to work (and park it right in front of the building).

They like the jagwaar!

Where are the fiss?

Mum told us at the weekend that she was going fissing today.  We thought that this was a nice thing and hoped that she would bring us some fiss back or at least some maggots.

She came back with no fiss.  Or maggots.

She told us that it was too wet to go fissing.  We don't really understand that.  As far as we know, fiss live in water and so it can never be too wet to go fissing.

She also told us that even if the weather had been nice enough to fiss, apparently you have to put the fiss back after you have caught them, and so she would not have been able to bring any back.  Again, we don't really understand that.  If you catch something, surely you would want to keep it?  It's like going into the supermarket and picking something up, paying for it, and then putting it back on the shelf.  That's just stupid.

So we have lost out big time, and are soaking wet into the bargain.  Not a good day.

Fried, Egg and Spoon xxx

P.S. Perhaps we should not seem so hard done by.  We were given worms this morning, and some apple and Mum just gave us cheese.

When is a fireguard not a fireguard?

When it is a plant protector. 

The girls in their wisdom have decided to go for a plant that they have not even been remotely interested in in the past.  This is a problem on two levels.  One; I have grown this particular plant from a baby plant that my Mum gave me and I quite like it.  Two; it is poisonous to chickens.  I have cordoned it off with chicken wire but this doesn't look very nice, so I thought that a fireguard around it might do the trick.  Someone from work is bringing one in that she doesn't use any more (and doesn't mind me using in the garden) (she's got chickens too so she understands).

When said guard is in place I will take a picture and post it since I know that readers of this blog will be desperate to see what it looks like.

I'm back!

I really have no idea why Mum is fussing so much.  Or why Egg has been lording it over me for the last few days.  Just because I decided to take two days off laying it doesn't mean that I have stopped.  Or that I am broody.  As a female it is my prerogative to do exactly what I like.  So I decided to lay an egg today.  I might do the same tomorrow.  But then again, I might not.

Spoon x

Why were Granny and Grandpa disappointed today?

Because there were not enough eggs for Mum to take down to them when she saw them.  As the chief egg layer at the moment I feel that I am best qualified to explain this.  I have been laying one egg a day for ages (well, at least since I gave up being broody the last time).  Fried is, as usual, a law unto herself and has stopped laying solid eggs again, but will sometimes lay softies.  Spoon has not laid an egg for the last TWO days.  Well, if she has, Mum has not found them because they are certainly not in their normal place.  Thus, there was a shortage of eggs to take to Granny and Grandpa and Mum is concerned that there may not be enough eggs for her to have her usual egg salad each day next week.

On the positive side, Mum came back with a plant to put in her classroom.  Unfortunately we were unable to see it since she has left it in the car, but she says that even we can't destroy this one.  Apparently it is a fake plant.  She explained to us that this means that it looks like a real one but needs no maintenance at all.  Which given Mum's track record with plants is probably a good thing.

Egg x

Does anyone have a spare hoverboard available?

I could really do with one so that when I open the kitchen door in the afternoon to give the girls some treats I can hover above them to the garden to put the treats out rather than having to take cumbersome steps rather like someone walking in very heavy mud to avoid stepping on them.

Alternatively I could sew some velcro onto my shoes so that I can attach them, carry them up the garden as I am walking and then peel them off when we are at our final treat destination.  At the moment they are practically attached to my feet as it is.

It's nice to feel so loved.  Even if it is because I am the great treat giver.

Does everything really have to match?

According to Mum, it does.  Which is why we have matching sunshades on our house; why the plants are in some kind of alignment with the lights in the garden; why there are two of the same tea towel so that they can hang on the two bars of the range cooker and why she has a number of pairs of sunglasses that go with the outfits that she is wearing.

This is why, when she went to the Radley VIP event this evening she had to buy a new pencil case because it was the same colour as her workbag.

We are reliably informed that she already has a pencil case in her workbag.  But since it didn't match, it just had to be replaced.

Fried, Egg and Spoon xxx

P.S. She has just told us that not everything has to match.  We don't really co-ordinate well with one another (everyone knows that ginger and grey and white don't really go together).  She says that we are the very special exception to this rule.  Our cuteness overrides the matching rule.

An update on Mum's riding lessons

Mum had another new horse today.  This time she was riding Lucy.  This is not really the best picture of her.  She's a really nice chestnut colour.

Today she and Lucy have been trotting over poles.  We think that this is a little bit like us trotting over the railway sleepers in the garden when we are going down to the kitchen but we are not really sure.  She has also been riding in small circles around her instructor (as opposed to big circles around the arena).  We run circles around her all the time.....

Perhaps we should give her riding lessons?!

Fried, Egg and Spoon xxx

How to make people at work jealous

1. Drive your boyfriend's car to work (and park it right at the front of the building).
2. Have egg salad for lunch - and be able to identify who had laid the eggs and when they laid them.
3. Who needs any more reasons?

Another important message for today

We never met Rosie, but we think that we would have liked her (despite the fact that her catch phrase was 'winner, winner, chicken dinner').  An inspiration, and we are sure that she and Baked are having a great time getting to know each other.

Rosie would always look at the positive in life.  Hers was not a long one, just 19 years, but she did so much in that time to help others.  She was always looking for the best; aiming to be up and on her feet even when it became difficult for her to breathe.

Mum likes to remember her with her quirky hats that she took to wearing when she lost her hair and for persuading her to part with one of her favourite sticky bugs (all for a good cause).  She would also like to thank her for being the inspiration to start writing a blog.

Rosie Kilburn

You will be missed by so many

A bright star in the heavens

An important message for today

Having just spent about twenty minutes sitting in the middle of the road supporting the head of a motorcyclist who had been knocked off his bike by a 'sorry mate I didn't see you' idiot (not me), please make sure you double check when you are driving.

Thankfully he should be OK; he had the right gear on, and was able to conduct a conversation about BSB while he was lying there.  I am sure that he (and I) would rather have had the conversation over a cup of coffee or something .....

That's it from me.  Serious but important post.

It's always the way

You spend a fair amount of time brushing the decking and the patio until they sparkle.  (Well nearly).

Then the chickens poo all over it.

It's a never ending circle of love ...

How big is the biggest onion in the world?

We don't know, but Mum says that she saw some pretty big ones at the Onion Fayre today.  Here's a flavour ...

This is the First Prize onion in the single largest onion section.  You can see some of the other exhibits behind it.

This is the First Prize in the biggest three onions section.  They are quite big and if you used them in a curry you'd feed a fair amount of people.

They don't only do onions, they also do leeks (and garlic, but there's no picture of the garlic).

Mum liked the section where people had to make animals out of the onions.  The first prize was this rather nice spider.  If we found one that big, we'd be stuffed for ages and we wouldn't have to fight over it.

This is quite a cute one.  We don't think we'd like to eat an elephant so much though.

Mum thought this one was the cutest but was a bit confused because there isn't an onion (or leek or garlic) in sight.

Mum got back just in time because it has just started raining like crazy and we are hiding underneath the bbq.

Fried, Egg and Spoon xxx

P.S. Mum found out about the onion for us.  The heaviest onion in the world weighed in at 16.52lb.  That's a big onion.  That weighs more than all of us put together!

The return of the kitchen door issue

Chickens would appear to have an internal time clock.  It's a magic thing.  As soon as I return home from work there are three chickens waiting at the kitchen door.  In fact, they are at the kitchen door when I turn the key in the lock of the front door and I can hear them telling me that they know that I am back from work and are waiting for me to open the kitchen door as I walk through the house.  So I do.  And I am faced with three chickens falling into the kitchen in a feathery heap.  No longer do they wait outside the door, they wait pretty much attached to the door so that when it opens they have nowhere to go except in a heap inside the kitchen.

And then of course there is the issue of getting outside to give them some treats.  They know they are coming.  They know that they are coming from me.  They want them lots.  Hence they attach themselves to my ankles and it makes it nearly impossible to walk anywhere to distribute the treats.  It's cute; but a little difficult to move.

I am wondering if I should construct some kind of secret passage from the toilet round to the back of the house so that I can bypass the kitchen door/ankle issue.

The first week is always the longest

I was positive it was Friday today.  But it wasn't.

What happens when you put unleaded in a diesel car?

Well, it kind of hops when you are driving and then if you drive too long the engine goes pop and then you have to pay lots of money to fix it.

That'll be why Mum repeated diesel, diesel, diesel to herself lots of times before she took Dad's car out for a spin and to the garage to put some juice in the tank.

And when she got to the garage used the nice black nozzle to fill the car.

Fried, Egg and Spoon xxx

P.S. Has your heartbeat returned to normal now Dad?  lol

P.P.S.  We thought that this post was funny. lol

How to use a sorting hat

OK it's official.  Mum is loopy.  Normal teachers just tell students where to sit in the classroom - usually in alphabetical order.  Not Mum.  Oh no.  She feels the urge to do something 'different'; hence the use of the sorting hat to arrange her students (a move up from the magic wand used last year).  Apparently this sorting hat talks to her to tell her where the students should sit, and even makes comments on their hairstyles.  There is even a special stool for them to sit on.

And this is the woman that we trust to look after us......

Fried, Egg and Spoon xxx

Congratulations! And Thanks!

The number of blog views has hit (and passed) the 1000 mark.

We would like to say thank you to our loyal followers who have made this possible.

We think that we might go for an Oscar next.

Do they make them in a chicken shape?

Fried, Egg and Spoon xxx

What chickens do when they don't like being woken up

Way too early.  Therefore I decided not to lay an egg today.

Fried x

You know your Mum has gone back to work when ...

... she comes and wakes you up instead of the other way around.  What kind of time is 0545 anyway?

Fried, Egg and Spoon xxx

Do chickens play conkers?

Well, apart from the latest government directives that suggest that this game is dangerous and a health and safety risk, it would seem so; except with eggs instead.

In the battle of the conker-eggs, Egg and Spoon's won; Fried's lost out.  They didn't have them on a string or anything (that wouldn't work without breaking them); more that they play the game in terms of where they are laid.  Since they insist on laying in the SAME place, despite the fact that the nest box is big enough for them to lay in three separate places, when Fried tried to lay her egg after the others had already laid them, her's was broken.

Still, it does show that Egg is now laying nicely again as well.

Hopefully they will be more sensible with their laying patterns tomorrow.

I'm back!

Well, at least I think I am.  Today is the second day (in a row) that I have laid a normal egg ... not a softie; or a non-existent one.  Dad, I hope you are proud of me.

Fried x

Today we had ...

... apple.  It was yum.

Fried, Egg and Spoon xxx