Feed The Birds Day

This weekend we've been out in the garden and got loads more done. We've moved all the rose bushes that were growing in the lawn up to their own rose bed in front of one of the sheds. This has made it much easier to mow the lawn, not having to slalom round all the bushes and spending ages strimming while trying not to take out the roses at the same time. The rockery has gone which was also in the lawn, we won't be getting that awfull grinding noise from the lawnmower any more! After the mowing, Debbie did some weeding in the flower beds and I've got the roots from one of the old trees dug out.

All that remains to be sorted out before winter sets in is the pile of tree branches at the top of the garden. Our neighbour has lent us a metal bin to burn them in, however, for two nights runnning we had nothing but rain so we've not been able to make a start on that yet. It looks like for the first time ever we'll be having a bonfire on Bonfire Night, we're even tempted to go out and get a few fireworks!

Saturday 28th October is Feed The Birds Day, organized by the RSPB. I'm really going to give the bird feeding go this year, we do already feed the birds but all we ever seem to attrract are starlings and that's only if we put those fruity suet sqaures out, the peanunts and sunflower seeds are never touched.

While working in the garden I moved the bird table a couple of metres away from the fence because I think the smaller birds may feel threatened being so close to somewhere cats could easily get to. We picked up a couplpe of new bird feeders on Sunday which we've filled with peanuts, black sunflower seeds and sunflower hearts. I'm also on the lookout for a bigger bird table, the one we've got is a little bit on the small side and it's does look a little bit cramped with all those feeders hanging from it.

Today we’re finally having the roof sorted out, from tonight onwards, it can rain all it wants!

Lucy is just chilling out on the sofa waiting for the roofer to arrive.

I couldn’t resist popping my head out of the door with the camera to catch the gorgeous sunrise this morning.

Paul

Cleaning Is Bad For Your Health!

With the problems with the roof over the last month or so some water has made it's way into the bathroom and created a couple of patches that need cleaning on the ceiling. With that and the shower looking like it could do with a good once over, out came the bleach to get everything looking shiny and new. We've used the same stuff before but for some reason last night, the fumes were unbelievable, they were everywhere and even when we had every window in the house open, we could still smell the stuff, even outside!

By bed time, I was feeling worse for wear and Debbie wasn't feeling too clever either, I think we just inhaled too much of the stuff and if anything it was worse downstairs than it was upstairs. Once we got upstairs and shut the bathroom door it wasn't too bad, but the headaches and feeling light headed continued into the night. It was quite scary, you hear about people being overcome by fumes and not waking up, but we're still here to tell the tale and next time we'll use a bottle of shower cleaner!

Paul.

Slow Cooking For Tonight

Tonight's tea is looking rather tasty, it'll be simmering away all day ready for when we get home.

Tossed in the pot this morning were...

Casserole veg selection
Diced carrot & swede
Casserole sauce mix
Aduki beans
Pinto beans
Mung beans
Mixed country soup pulses
Garlic
Pepper
Pork loin

Paul.

Wobbly Tap

The mixer tap in the kitchen has come loose, in fact it's been loose for a few weeks now, it's just another one of the those jobs I've been putting off. I need to get it sorted out before it comes off in my hand and we end up with a water feature where we don't want one.

It looks like the washer where the base of the tap meets the sink has eroded away, I've never dabbled with plumbing like this before so this could well turn out to be a disaster when I tackle the situation at the weekend armed only with a spanner and a brolly.

Paul.

Desperately Need A Holiday

Having so much to do in the garden and in the house, we've not been away on holiday at all this year, settling instead for the occasional trip to the coast or the peaks. Next year we're hoping to get away to somewhere nice, probably a midweek break in a holiday park. A flyer came through the door the other day from Haven Holidays which got us thinking about where we wanted to go and at the moment we're torn between Scotland and Cornwall.

We've requested a truck load of other brochures which we'll be thumbing through as they arrive. All I know for definite is that we won't be staying in no rickety cabin, miles from anywhere, in the middle of a forrest!

Paul.

Gloomy Weekend

The weather this weekend has been totally none descript, we managed a tiny amount of sunshine while we were out shopping for more clothes on Saturday but on Sunday, it stayed grey and gloomy the whole day. Having a hangover the size of the Emire State Building, at least we didn't feel too annoyed at not being able to go out with the cameras and capture some of those wonderfull Autumn colours.

Paul.

Wowzer!

Debbie's gone sailing past the 3 stone mark and the weight still keeps on tumbling! The dramatic change over the last 4 months has been amazing and I think she's finally starting to believe me when I say she's looking absolutely fabulous!


Paul. 

Aduki Beans?

We've been out and bought a slow cooker, it's ace, just throw the ingredients into the pot in the morning and by the time we get home from work, it's ready to eat.

We'll see how we get on, hopefully this won't end up in the kitchen gadget graveyard!

On the subject of slow cooking, one of the ingredients we're missing are aduki beans, in-fact we're starting to wonder if Debbie's sister wasn't pulling our leg when she told us about them!


Paul.

Shop Till Yer Drop

We've been shopping, serious clothes shopping! Having lost all this weight, nothing fits anymore! One downside is that we've been barred from Evans so we we're at a bit of a loss as to where to go for Debbie's new wardrobe. For the first time ever, we actualy bought something from Next, not just one item but loads!

We've celebrated today by sorting out the back bedroom which has been a dumpit site since we moved here over a year ago and we've also changed the bedroom around.

Now all we've got to do is finsh off the changes to the blog after upgrading to Blogger Beta, while we try and figure this out, have a butchers at these shots Debbie took in the garden a few days ago.

Many more photos on our Flickr page!

Paul.

Upgraded To Blogger Beta

Just a quick message to say we've upgraded to Blogger Beta! There weren't too many problems and the page almost looks like it did before, the only missing bits are the snowman that should be in the header and the banner that should appear inbetween each post, this may take a while longer to fix!

Paul.

Google Everything

Google seems to be on a bit of a surge towards world domination at the moment, in the last couple of days I've become more and more Googlyfied.

The new Google Reader is a superb feed reader and I love the star option for going back to interesting items. Another cool facility is the sharing thing, you can mark items as shared and they appear on their own web page, although I'm not exactly sure what I'd use it for lol.

Another funky new tool is Google Notebook, I've not really used this yet, it seems that after downloading the browser plug-in, you can right click on anything on the web and save it to your on-line notebook along with a link to the page you nicked it from.

So now, instead of being tidy and un-fussy, our Google home page is now sporting Google Gadgets for Google Reader, Google Notebook, Google Groups, and Google Mail. If you scroll down about half a mile, there's even a search box!

Paul.

Is New Blogger Beta Than The Old One?

I've been noticing the option to upgrade to Blogger Beta for a while now and so decided to search for some blogs that have taken the plunge. Hearing about all these new templates and great new features, I was quite looking forward to seeing a bunch dazzling blogs thrown up by the new Google Blog Search.

Is it just me, or has every single person that's upgraded, picked an old style template? I've not seen one single blog so far that looks any different than before. Maybe the new templates look worse than the old ones or possibly it's because those that have spent time customising their blogs over the years dare not upgrade through fear of it all going Pete Tong?

We're holding off here for the time being, whatever you think about the design of our blog, we've spent a lot of time making it look the way it does and we'd like to see a couple of blogs that have upgraded to Blogger Beta, survived and actually look better before we press the button.

Paul.

Difficult Decision

We came to a very difficult decision last weekend; to find a new home for the Three Amigos; Misty, Toddy and Eric.

Over the last few months as nights have drawn in and they've not been able to stay out as late or go our at all, all three of them have started taking their frustration out on each other. It came to the point where we were almost constantly pulling Toddy of Eric, he just wouldn't leave him alone. Often in the mornings we were greeted by a pile of ginger cat hair with Misty having gone for Toddy in the night.

With the problems getting worse day by day and the fact that we just can't be there for them as much as we would like so they can go out more often, we decided that we should seek to have them re-homed.

We said goodbye to Misty, Toddy and Eric for the last time on Sunday before returning to a very empty home. Even now, when coming back in the house with Lucy, just for a second, I guard the door thinking the Three Amigos will be waiting...

Paul.