What Katie Did

Swapping and The Garden

Glorious sunshine today. I have weeded the peas and planted the cabbages.

I know all those Southern Gardeners will be eating their peas by now, and my brother and his wife in France are probably sowing a second crop! But up here in the Frozen North, we have to wait until the last week of May to be sure of frosts - and one year we had snow on June 6th. Its a hard life up here you know!!

I called by Cafe Nero today (home of the Wonderful Knitters of Hexham - Thursday afternoons from 2.00 - Hexham Branch only as far as I know??) I came home with all their coffee grounds to use as slug repellent. Not sure if it will work but worth a try.
 
It is a wonderful day for gardening.
Here are our potatoes - just popping through

the herbs are all thriving

flowers too

unfortunately though - so are these

so I am going to get the strimmer and the mower out and tackle them next.
Zoe organised a book swap - a very cunning one that has had me frantically reading pre 1960's books for knitting references. I was paired with Mary and her swap package arrived yesterday.

Lucky me!
I'll leave you with the hens free ranging in the wilderness patch in front of our house

Happy Hens! (Despite what Tash says - I still maintain there is very little room for a brain in there - a beady eye and a lot of instinct - but not much between the ears!)
and Geoff's arty supper last night - all his own work - the rest of us just had bangers and mash and peas

A Visit From Gloria

Art Tour is nearly upon us which means some - many - hours spent in the shed making things. it also means another Big Shed Tidy Up and I wasn't looking forward to it one bit. The shed had become a messy place full of scraps of fabric, piles of papers and all sorts of 'things' that may come in useful one day. With the first Art Tour date being about a week and a half away I was putting off the Big Clean for when I was in the mood.Well - forget all that because I had a visit from Gloria. Now the shelves are tidy

the drawers are too

and the fabric is all colour coordinated  - nice ... the books sorted by category ... what?

the carpet is clean and the strawberry rug had a beating

and we are nearly ready to go.
But I think we may have peaked too soon - open studios are 8th June for four Sundays and this is still May. I think Gloria will have to come again and check that I have not messed the place up! Everyone needs a friend like Gloria.
Thank you - for you and for anyone else who needs a bunch of virtual flowers

OK - hens!

First - lets get one thing straight - you eat chickens, you keep hens. So I haven't got chickens, I've got hens. Is that OK with everyone?
We kept hens years ago in the shed my Dad made for us and so when I decided it was time to have them again there was some renovation work needed. The reason I stopped keeping hens was because of the rats. I can't bear them - it verges on a phobia. So I have had to take measures to ensure rat exclusion from all hen areas.
First was the rat-proofing of the shed. I decided against my Dad's suggestion of covering the outside with metal and hooking it up to a battery ... I could see me forgetting one day and getting zapped instead. No - I lined the bottom half of the shed and the nestboxes with wire netting and Geoff edged the door and pophole with metal. Then we thought we should put up a sign to the nearest Rat Dentist - out of compassion for the rats.
Next, I had to make the shed ready to receive hens. Not just a matter of chucking a bit of straw in - oh no - Hen Heaven it had to be. More Rat Deterrent included the Eye of Protection

painted on the wall to repel rodents.
Then I thought some Hen Comforts were in order.

some nice decorations

curtains for the nestboxes and a bit of motivation for the girls

I got into trouble with Lara over this one - she is worried about the hens personal development and thinks this might make them feel exploited. I'm afraid I had to point out that they can't actually read (shock!)
A picture of Jamie Oliver (the hens champion) some windchimes and dreamcatchers and I was all set.
We got the hens from a poultry suppliers near my Dad. How many men does it take to assemble a poultry feeder?

Then we had to decide how many. Geoff said - Lets get 16, so when one dies, we'll have 15. I couldn't find anything wrong with that - so we got 16. (we've still got 16)
We got hybrids - the ones bred for The Industry - all those batteries and barns you've seen on the telly lately. The white ones are Ambers and the brown ones are Warrens. They haven't got names - except for one  which John named Partario and I didn't bother to ask why.
THEY ARE WONDERFUL!



Not much room for a brain in there is there? Plenty of instinct though and they will peck at anything that might be food. I have never known hens like these for standing and pecking your feet. I can hardly walk a step without tripping over them

Thea likes them too

Kayleigh likes to put one in the nest box and shut the curtains - why not? I like to sit and listen to them and watch their small brain antics with a cup of tea - so I have a seat in the shed and a bench outside. So, while it is all about eggs, it is also all about fun and supreme enjoyment.

Only Poppy is cross as she is desperate to get hold of them! She is helpful in rat control though as she bounces round the compost heaps - where I suspect rats might be - and gives them a good old fright. So Gill - that's all the rat advice I can give you.
Free range, organic, happy. If you eat any cakes at the Garden Station you will be eating my eggs. Zero food miles too.

Does it get any better?

Dusting off the cobwebs

Well - thanks to Martha. In her defence though Maddy, (see comment) the Dyson tools are missing because she 'hoovered' the stairs when she was home because I didn't feel like doing it. She and Matt cleaned the kitchen too. I need her to come back and do it again now!
Just as an aside - isn't it funny that we say 'hoovered' even though that is the brand name and not 'dysoned' - is it possible to hoover the carpet with a dyson? Hey ho.

So!!!
The giveaway I promised a million years ago.
All the last posts have been about my travels with my 20 year old son round Europe earlier this year. It was an amazing trip and I want to encourage all you waverers who might be thinking of doing something similar. Check out the Eurail people because you really can get a number of amazing deals. John and I got the Global Pass. if you are under 26 it is a really good deal, and if you are an old crusty like me it is still much m-u-c-h cheaper than getting individual tickets.
With a Global Pass the list of countries you can visit is really long. The way it works is simplicity itself - you write the date you are travelling on your ticket and get on any train you like (in a participating country.) It really is as simple as that. You can get on and off trains all day long if you like on the same day. For sleepers, the 'day' starts at 7.00 pm the night before!

BUT - bear in mind a few very important tips!

1. Check check and check again to see if you need to book a train journey. This may be the case for a long journey or one where you are travelling between countries - crossing borders I mean.
2. Some journeys require not just booking, but an extra booking charge - I was amazed by how much extra we had to pay to travel from Barcelona to Milan. (Then the guy told me how much the ticket should have been - it was more than the Global Pass - so i was happy!) Sleepers always carry a surcharge - but you won't have to pay for accommodation that night - so it works out ok.
3. Keep your Ticket as safe as your passport - you are stuffed without it! Obviously.
4. Spontaneity is great, but so is forward planning - I think we should have gone to Budapest instead of Salzburg. But we were faced with a five minute decision - and my weariness won over my spirit of adventure. So a bit of forward planning eh?
5. Go East - you won't regret it!
6. Take FAR LESS than you think you need - I thought I had been ruthless, but I ended up carting things that I only wore once or twice and things like books which were really heavy. You can always find the English shelves in bookshops and pay a bit for the luxury of only having one book with you - when it is finished, leave it on a cafe table - we loved doing this. And lucky for us - we both really enjoyed the same books!
7. A pack of cards is a useful thing - we played on trains all the time - when I won - I must have cheated - when John won - it was because of his skill... interesting that!
8. Keep a journal - and take a roll of double sided sticky tape - really useful if - like me you can't throw anything away!
9. At the front of the journal I made a chart with the dates and what number day we were on, this was the most useful thing when planning where to go next.   
10. Going with someone you love is a really good idea - John was the perfect travelling companion - we had a really good time.
11. Mobile phone calls cost a fortune - whether you are making them or receiving them - I got into a real mess when Geoff had to try and top my phone up so I could receive important information about one of our journeys (Split and Hvar) on reflection , I think we should have got an international SIM card.
12. I took hundreds of photographs - but I think I should have taken 5 times as many! Having a spare charged up battery in your bag when the other one runs out in the Alhambra gives you a very smug feeling. So the battery charger and a plug adapter were essential .
13. That will do!
14. Though - here's another - I took knitting - but hardly did a stitch - i thought I would knit on all the trains we were going to be on - but in the event I just didn't - your choice - but that was another bit of excess baggage!

Now - if you need any further encouragement, leave a comment saying which of these you would like and i will send them - and if there are more takers than two, I'll do a wee draw - lets say by midnight (GMT) on May 20th - because that is my brother's birthday. (good enough reason for me)

A word about each of these - Europe By Eurail was great but a bit frustrating - for some reason it does not cover all the countries that the Global pass does - so for some places we were on our own - though this was always fine - I can honestly say we never had any bother finding the trains to where we wanted to go. It is a bit heavy though.
The phrase book we didn't actually take - so this is in pristine condition - we got by. In Slovenia they spoke better English than I do. In other places - we managed by being friendly - it always works.
So - I will post them to anywhere in the world.

Then this part of my blog posting will be OVER and I will tell you about Art Tour, my wonderful hens, my mum's quilt show, the garden, my knitting, and probably ... the fairy capes!
Thanks for reading - thanks for leaving comments if you do, thanks for sticking with me while I was too long over doing all of this -
Thanks

just in case you don't read my comments

A new comment from No. 1 child.

'Dear readers of my mother's blog. My mother is still alive. I know, she phones me. I can't phone her because she may quiz me more deeply over the missing hoover attatchments that were last seen in my hands. apparently. Anyway, her hens are laying well and she is very busy making fairy capes and other things. Worry not. She is still mint.'