For the longest time BH has been talking me through the finest details of the drawings and plans and managed not to throw them at me when Ive drifted off under the weight of all the technical detail. It was never that I was interested but I just keep leaping too far ahead to the curtains and cushions stage!
At least I can feel confident that at last we'll have a room with a view!
This doorway isn't quite as huge as it looks - BH is stood quite a way up the hill - either that or our Yorkshire mist is making him shrink!
Despite the rumours, builders dont survive on tea alone - they quite like a bit of cake to go with it. We had a rare trip to the famous Bettys tea rooms and couldnt resist these beauties. The French fancies have gone down a storm, Mr Kiplings won't ever seem the same again! Personally I'm quite quite taken with the chocolate chestnut conkers!
We'd planned a Sunday tea to serve these up at, but alas things didnt quite go to plan, not least but because we made a discovery in the chicken coop which knocked us for six. We lost our favourite baby buff bantam this weekend to the pecking order. We noticed that the Marys (our bossy hybrids who we hatched earlier this year) were getting increasingly dominant with our oldest Buff Bantam offspring. She was beautiful and had just laid her first egg. They bossed her about but it seemed no more than that, only when we checked them Sunday teatime we found that she'd been pecked to death. I know, I know - rural life can be brutal, but right now I could throttle the Murdering Marys myself. BH is really sad too as she was the first chick we ever hatched and he had hoped to show her next year.
So heres to BB, our baby buff, we'll miss her very much.
Look at those walls go up! I share your excitement and it makes perfect sense to practice looking out the windows! LOL Hope you'll get all tucked in before winter. Those tea treats look fab.
ReplyDeleteSo much good news but ending on that sad note of the baby bantam. So sorry...
Sorry to hear about your bantam. Your building is certainly coming on well now, and those cakes - delicious.
ReplyDeleteSu
Sorry about your bantam. I dream of keeping chickens one day but this sort of thing would crush me - I have a very "Beatrix Potter" view of nature!
ReplyDeleteOh dear - So difficult to know what to say but one fact which I was told and which keeps me going in such circumstances is hens/banties have small hearts and in such circumstances would not have been alive through the whole ordeal - they would have an instant heart attack - the shock kills them more or less straight away - I have applied this in the past and it has helped me cope. (((HUGS))) Dxx
ReplyDeleteIt's sad that the bantam died, but unfortunately it is one of those things that happens. Like schoolchildren, hens can spot the defenceless, weakest one a mile off. Look at it as a learning curve; next time, you'll know the signs and be able to act quickly, segregating any that show signs of being pecked.
ReplyDeleteOn the positives, that building is coming along a treat and any trip to Betty's can't be bad...just looking in their shop window, on trips to York, makes me feel the world is a better place!! Their Easter display this year was out of this world. x
*word verification, 'evilnest'...appropriate somehow!
It's strange how much larger a building looks when the walls start to go up.
ReplyDeleteI'm so sorry to hear about your bantam. It doesn't matter how many times people tell me that it's just nature, it doesn't help. I have to turn over the tv when a nature programme shows one animal killing another as I'm so soft. Well done on the building work, it's going up so quickly and it's going to look fab when it's finished. Betty's is a wonderful place, it's a while since I've been. The last visit I made was in Ilkley.
ReplyDeleteOh my. I share your sadness over the loss of the baby bantam. I'm grateful our little ones have integrated fairly well over the course of the summer, but I still see the mean, nasty pecks from the older hens, and it tugs at my inner mama.
ReplyDeleteI can remember that euphoric feeling, gazing out of a brand new, and this will be the window looking onto the rose garden!
ReplyDeleteKris - thanks for your comment - it is sooo good to be building up instead of digging down - fingers crossed we'll have a roof on before it snows!
ReplyDeleteHi Su - lovely to hear from you - they certainly were delicious, there was a bit of a scuffle for the last conker!
Caked Crusader - How i wish it were more Beatrix potteresque - I still can't look the marys in the eye - but they do lay our best eggs so they get a reprieve! Thanks for dropping in - Im really enjoying your blog.
Mrs N - Lovely to hear from you - thankyou so much, that knowledge does help so thanks for thinking of us. hugs appreciated too :)x
Elizabeth - hi there - you are very right and im planning an extension to our run so that I can segregate them more easily. I know what you mean about the Bettys display - I dont usually get much further than looking through the windows so it was a treat to actually bring some home!
Green Lane - Hello there - thanks for popping in. It certainly does look bigger than Id imagined it. Ive been told it will seem much smaller when the rooms are enclosed and then bigger again when the walls are painted - and then smaller again when furniture goes in - needless to say Ive given up trying to guestimate the end size!
Jo - Hi there - Im with you on the being soft, all the practical knowledge in the world couldnt prepare us for that particularly grisly discovery, thanks for your lovely message.
ps these cakes came from Ilkley - its the first time ive been into Bettys in ages as the queue in York is always too off putting!
Hi Taylorgirl - thanks for your kind comments - Youre spot on , our inner mamas have definitely taken a battering!
Elephants Eye - Hi there - that feeling feels a way off yet - but as we alawyas say 'we're getting there (slowly - but surely!)