Chirpy Chirpy

Feeding the birds doesn't come cheap cheap...

They definitely have their favourites in the bird food offerings, starting at the most expensive. Have you seen the cost of mealworms? I'll leave those for others...

I could barely keep up with them on the sunflower hearts front, having to refill the feeder every day and sprinkle some on the wall for the blackbirds. The 1.75 kg bag did not last long. Expensive taste at over three quid a kilo at the local farm shop...

Number two on the list was the peanuts. These lasted approximately a day and a half between refills, but that may have been aided by them jamming in the feeder and me having to periodically give it a shake. I also rescued the broken mesh peanut feeder and improvised a lid from an old jam jar and threaded some garden string through it to hang it up.

My home made fat/bird seed coconut refills also went down well - the blackbirds could get at them. I also ran out of bird seed...

But the nyjer seed has been given a good ignoring. Although I saw finches they were the wrong kind (chaffinches) and were happily going for the sunflower hearts. I have on occasions seen green and/or goldfinches but not at my feeders.

I had hung a lot of the feeders on the railings outside the sunroom, but as we were hunkering down in the sitting room I was not getting to see the birds very much. I decided I wanted a bird feeding station. So I went on-line before the new year to investigate.

I eventually decided on this site, Wild Bird Direct, where I could also bulk buy bird food at more reasonable prices. Feeding station, ground feeder, 25kg of sunflower hearts, 12.5kg of bird seed and three packs of suet balls later...

It all arrived just over a week ago. The garden was still covered in snow and the ground was rock solid. Paul suggested I tried to see if it fitted in the parasol base, but the pole was to thin. I then decided to see if I could get it into the fruit-tree-bed-to-be.

Big mistake.

The paving slab on to the lawn was covered in ice. My legs went straight out in front of me and I went down on to my coccyx. The only thing that slightly aided my fall was my right thumb.

Not only costing me an arm and a leg but also a thumb and a bum!

The pain was excruciating if somewhat brief - I think I went in to some kind of shock. Luckily I didn't seem to have done too much damage and was able to get up. My thumb subsequently swelled up and I had an impressive bruise all the way around it. I still have a small bruise under the nail. Luckily, it hasn't stopped me knitting...

I thought the other part of my anatomy had escaped as I could sit down with no pain. However, I have since found that sitting from a prone position in the bath almost caused my to scream with the switch of weight on to that area. I am now feeling slight pain when I bend down :(

Anyway, over the last couple of days the weather has changed allowing all the snow on the garden to disappear. The ground is now very soft and the bird feeding station has been erected outside the back sitting room window. It hasn't taken very long for the avian population to find it and I can watch them from the comfort of the sofa...

Ice Chandelier

Men, Who Needs Them?

Paul departed early Wednesday morning for a bridge tourney in apparently snow and ice-free Iceland. He gets home some time on Monday. The bridge tourney is being broadcast on BBO, but I suspect Paul's team will have to be performing very well to be featured...

This is my sixth scrabble-free day in a row. Chip's Challenge has taken over. I reckon another two or three days before I finish it, and then hopefully I will have regained some enthusiasm for studying.

But today I have done other things despite not sleeping well thanks to Jen and Poncho deciding to howl like the hounds that they are in the early hours. And then this morning Jen decided to have a strop and not come and get her coat and lead on for the morning walk. Normally when this happens she comes running when you open the front door, but not today. So I called her bluff and just took Poncho on a walk. She had obviously done what had needed doing when I had thrown them out the back when I first got up...

Back home and switch the TV on to watch the tennis. Disaster - no satellite signal being received.

Oh well, I had another job that needed doing so no excuse now. We may be having a big thaw but not on our driveway, which still has a couple of inches of ice covering most of it. It was treacherous. So I have now cleared a narrow track from the top to the bottom. I knew Paul's spade was a great birthday present...

Back in and gave the dogs breakfast.

And then set about sorting the TV. Okay - most advice was to put sky+ box on standby. Wait a bit. Power it off. Wait a bit. Power it back on. Hmm - the good old switch it off and on again. Works for most things.

So manual out to check which cable was the power cable. Sorted. Now do I just pull it out of the box or turn it off at the socket. A lot of faffing to determine which of the multiple plugs/sockets/wires/cables at the back of the cabinet was the correct one, involving having to move the TV so that I could actually lean over the cabinet whilst waggling the cable to trace it back to the plug. Right. Pull out what I hoped was the right plug, count to 10, plug it back in. Press TV guide on remote and Hey Presto we have a picture.

Unfortunately I had missed the tennis so TV is switched off again...

Coffee Flavoured Ice Lorries

So it took the delivery men over an hour to get their lorry off the ice with the aid of a borrowed shovel and spade from us and Paul going out there a couple of times with a kettleful of boiling water. We can now see about a 4-inch deep rut in the ice where one of the back wheels was.

They were actually damned lucky in that

1) No traffic was coming along the road to/from the bridge at the time

2) They actually managed to stop before sliding off the road into the land en route to the river

As it was they had managed to block all roads at Todheugh junction in one fell swoop...

Anyway they eventually got the lorry around to the back gates and unloaded our tables. Men went away grumbling, but it was their own fault. Not only had they ignored my directions to come via Edrom but instead had gone down the road that is clearly signposted as unsuitable for heavy vehicles. When I had pointed this out the driver told me that he ignored those signs all the time! Maybe he will think twice in the future.

We removed the tables from their packaging the following morning. The two side tables are fine. The coffee table on the other hand is not - the handle from one of the drawers had sheared in half and there was some scratching damage on the drawer. On a positive note they do suit the room very well.

So on the phone to the furniture company. Woman was very helpful - could I email her a photograph of the damage. I duly did this and also explained that there had been a problem with the delivery that may or may not have caused the damage. An email back apologising profusely - they had had issues with some of their delivery depots and my email had been forwarded. Would I accept £30 to get the damage fixed locally. I emailed back to say that was not really a viable option, but I would be happy to just get a replacement drawer delivered. Another email back saying would I be happy if they arranged for a company to come and try to fix the damage and if I was still not satisfied then to arrange a replacement. I said yes.

Watch this space...

I Deserve Another Piece of Cake

but Paul has finished it...

I was a little optimistic when I said I just had the bit of the path around the high bank to finish. When I looked in the cold light of day that is actually more than half the path :(

So back out this morning, another one and three quarter hours, and it and the remaining ice on the steps is now cleared.

Apparently our boiler is playing up and the radiators aren't working. I was totally unaware of that - don't sit around with extra jumpers on, get out and dig!!!

So Paul has heeded this advice and made a start on the drive. And now he has come back in he has turned the fire off because he is hot.

The ice that had accumulated on the roof before sliding off threatening death to anyone who may have been walking underneath at the time has damaged our gutters. A couple of slates are also down.

It could be worse. The SWOS (Sheer Weight Of Snow) has caused the roof of one of Margaret's barns to collapse. Luckily there was only the bull in the pen at the time and he was unhurt. Apparently this has been so common around here that there is a queue of farmers waiting for the insurance companies to get around to inspect the damage.

So more snow is predicted for later in the week. We have so much snow and ice piled up on the lawn that it will take a month of Sundays to clear even as it is.

This lump of ice from the steps makes my lump of rock removed from the fruit-tree-bed-to-be look like a pebble...

And just to really prove that ice is blue, not white.







Breaking news: the lorry delivering my tables ignored my directions to come via Edrom but instead came down the unsuitable for heavy vehicles road opposite Craigswalls and is now stuck at the bottom of the hill on a sheet of ice. Unfortunately it is now too dark for photos, but it may still be there in the morning...

I Deserve This Piece of Cake

Shock Horror - I am no longer cardboxing.

In fact I haven't touched it since I got back from Malaysia. I did open it up today and see 13000+ questions waiting...

I am hoping to have learned a lesson. When you are physically and mentally tired you find out if you really know the high probability bonuses beyond a glimmer, nay a nano-glimmer, of a doubt.

The problem with using the cardbox for studying is that after you have got it right enough times you won't see the anagram again for about a year and a half.

So for the last month I have been repeatedly going over the top 10000 7s and 8s. Once I am happy that I know them well enough (around 99% at a rate of 10 a minute) I will have a change.

So today I did the single solution 8s 2501-5000 (1486 questions) in 132 minutes missing 15 answers. I probably would have got those missing answers if I knew I had 16 minutes or so to spare at the time but I need to set some sort of time limit per answer. I did try setting the timer on the questions but this was counter-productive. If I didn't get the answer in the first 10 seconds I found myself watching the timer and not trying to solve the anagram!

Anyway, target met and it was time to take the dogs out for their afternoon pee break.

I don't care what the BBC weather site says - it was not 8C and thawing. There was no torrent of water from melting snow and ice down the path and steps at north facing Todheugh. The thermometer read 2C. And our path and steps are getting icier and more slippery every time we go out now.

So I decided on return to make an attempt to clear the steps. I managed to fight the shed door open and emerged with Paul's beautiful birthday present spade.

I was half successful. The ice on two of the steps decided to come away in one enormous slab after a lot of prising with the spade. The only problem was that they were so heavy I could hardly lift them to throw them onto the drive. The bottom step was less successful but I did manage to clear a small area - certainly enough to get my feet on. The top of the steps was a complete failure.

I then started just attacking the path to at least make it rough so you could get some grip on it. And then lo and behold in one place a big slab of ice broke away. This was enough to give me a weak point to keep going towards the front door. By the time I finished it was getting dark, but now there is only a small section from where it goes along the bottom of the high bank to the steps that still needs doing.

I hadn't looked at my watch until I got back inside. Nearly 5 p.m. - I had been out there over an hour and a half and felt absolutely knackered.

So now I am having a cup of coffee and eating a slice of cake that must be less calories than I have burned off :)