Sunday, August 20, 2006

Our on-again, off-again stream!

Hello everyone!

This is just a quick post to let you know that we've had a fair bit of rain over the last few days and the stream has come back temporarily a couple of times. Unfortunately, it has disappeared again now, but we continue to hope!

By sheer fluke we were actually looking at the stream bed when the water started to flow down it. It was lovely to be able to hear it burbling away again. I really miss it when it's dry.

Last weekend, Barry and Sheila visited us. We had a very nice day at Ludlow, visiting the market, lunching at the Unicorn and walking around the town and then in the evening they took us to the Studio for a wonderful dinner. On the way home we heard Irish music coming from the King's Head so we went in for a nightcap. What a smashing day!

On Sunday it rained a bit as we managed to get lost on the Mynd, but still had a good walk up Townbrook Hollow and back down Ashes Hollow for lunch at the Green Dragon in Little Stretton. We all had faggots! As usual, they were delicious. For those of you who don't know what they are, they are a VERY LARGE meatball made of liver, onions and other stuff. They were served with lovely brown gravy, root mash (mashed potatoes, carrots and other root vegetables) and peas - YUMMY! The walk home from Little Stretton to Church Stretton was a bit fraught as we'd all managed to get stiff and sore from our walk, but we made it and spent the evening "vegging out" in front of the telly and watching the badgers.

On Monday, B & S left and we had major hedge work done along the stream bank. It looks a bit bare right now, but it'll soon grow and it's inspired me to do a bit of work outside. Margaret arrived the same evening for an overnight stay. We had a lovely visit, catching up on the news and doing a nice short walk on Tuesday morning. We took Margaret up to the Long Mynd Hotel where she and John and all the other first year geologists had their field trip back in the mid-60s. The place rings no bells with either of them. Either it has changed beyond recognition or they were having such a good time that they failed to notice any architectural details!

Wednesday Dave and Pam had us up to their house for dinner. It was steak and kidney pie and absolutely fabulous. Ella was very pleased to see us, offering up some of her favorite toys for inspection - yuck.

Thursday we had a real sustained rain for a while and it's brought us some much needed moisture. Hopefully some of the plants that were wilting will now perk up a bit. I spent the afternoon drawing the Blist's Hill waggons. I posted a photo of them earlier on. Here's a copy of my drawing:


On Friday John went off to the Bird Watching Fair at Rutland Water. I think he had a good time looking at all the displays, buying books and a birding vest and other goodies and attending lectures. He got back at about 1 am on Saturday morning. I'm glad I didn't go with him, I would have cramped his style! Instead, I had a neighbour lady over for what turned out to be a very boozy lunch. Really enjoyed it and the left-overs have been splendid all weekend, too!

Got out into the garden today and started some tidying and clean-up. John is beginning to look at books about ponds - I can't decide if a pond will make more or less work in the garden. I don't know if this will end up being a major engineering work or just a wildlife "puddle". Of course, we do have a great resource in Nick, our nephew, who now has his own landscaping business. We may well hire him to do all the work and help with some of the planning.

John has been working on our taxes this evening. He consulted with Sheila about it last weekend, but had pretty much worked it out for himself anyway. So far, he's pleased that the forms are very well set up and quite easy to follow and I think he's pretty well done with it for last tax year (2005-2006). We have now renounced our American resident status and will only have to file UK taxes next year, so there will be one more mixed filing and then it should all be a lot easier. We have to set up some sort of savings account so we can save our tax money as we transfer our income over from the States. Otherwise we'll be stuck with nothing to pay the bill with at the end of the year.

By the end of next week we'll have been living in the UK for a whole year! I think John is planning some sort of celebration. I'm planning to do a budget and expenses calculation and make sure we can still affort to continue in this life of luxury! I think we've been spending rather more than we expected to, but some expenses were due to moving and so I'm not quite sure how we're doing at this point. I'll feel a bit better once I've sorted it out and categorized it so we can see if we have to cut down on drinking or whether we can continue to live like profligates!

On the subject of greedy buggers, the badgers have continued their nightly visits, but have been coming earlier. They're also back digging in the lawn and tearing up my plants for bedding. GRRRRRRR!

We've got loads of baby birds about - especially large flocks of blue tits, chaffinches and green finches. There are at least 10 species that we know nested around here and have brought their babies to feed: blackbird, songthrush, robin, greenfinch, chaffinch, bullfinch, blue tit, great tit, coal tit, dunnock. Some of the youngsters looked very confused when it started to rain. If they were from a second brood, they wouldn't have seen any since they were born! In addition, there have been crows, magpies, house sparrows, wagtails and an immature female pheasant around. The local buzzards wheel about over head and scream a lot and we've heard tawny owls at night on several occasions.

Well, that's all for now. Take care of yourselves and please stay in touch!