We have chickens, we do, real live ones!
H has an allotment and in his own typical and H like way he has quietly and with determination worked his plan. I knew he wanted chickens and in my typical and Helen like way would look at chicken houses and runs and show him and he would look and say "Uh huh" and carry on.
He mentioned that he was going to build his own chicken house and he wouldn't be buying anything ready made and that's as far as he explained.
Every morning, as we leave for school there will be 3 wooden pallets in the back of the car and I will drop him and the pallets off at the allotment and day by day I have seen just what he has done.

It's almost finished now, it has the full height and a roof, it is enclosed with fences and posts. I need to take some pictures now because it is so impressive, the weather has been horrendous and still, except for the very worst days he has been there, building and making ready.
At the moment we have 7 chickens, 5 are still very young, one cockerel and one chicken are fully grown and every day our one big chicken gives us an egg.
The joy these little creatures have already given us is quite extraordinary, Isaac is particularly enamoured of them and every day before school he goes to see them and pick one of them up, the older birds are called Clarence and Clarissa and Isaac loves to hold Clarissa and she seems to quite like him.
The younger ones are still nervy and the boys change their names every day.
I am astounded at how much these little creatures eat! My goodness, all day long they scratch and eat and eat and scratch! Forget having a dog to clear the left overs, give it to the chickens! They eat everything ( apart from meat though they do love mash made with gravy in it) they love fruit and green vegetable, peelings, bread, cereal, rice throw it down and they'll eat it all.
We give them corn mix and oyster shells too and so far the eggs are pretty darn delicious.

Clarence. who is splendid.

Clarissa who gives delicious eggs.

We also have fruit trees at the allotment and at home, we have blackberries, strawberries, plums, apples, pears, white currants, gojiberries, blueberries and gooseberries.  Tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, kale and green beans.  It is enormously satisfying and it is the making of my H, he is in his element entirely alone all day with the earth and some creatures for company, he is happier than I have ever known him.

Hello blog, did you miss me? I've neglected you rather shamefully and I'm sorry about that.
I keep meaning to come and write about my life and then I realise just how long it has been since I did that and oh, it's all such an effort to remember it all ad record it and be funny and entertaining and so I go away again.
Now I am here it's all change, isn't it? A whole new layout and all kinds of new buttons and gadgets, I have no idea what any of it is for so I shall just type and post and hope it does what  it's meant to do.
Here goes.
I love my house, Oh I do. It has taken a while, I think disbelief set in, I couldn't believe that this was ours and we could really and truly do whatever we like, choose how to have things and not have to worry about moving, ever. The great thing for me is that right after we moved in and signed the lease etc the rules changed for social housing, now you are given a 5 or 7 year lease. Ours is lifetime. I love that!
The reason for the 5 or 7 yr lease is that the need for larger houses is huge, the demand way out weighs the number of houses available so now they have a set time and after that time, if your family has changed ( as ours surely will have, I hope Sophie will be off living her life independently in 5 yrs time!) then you will be asked to move to a smaller home. I understand that and think it's a great idea, I just know that for me, if that has been the case it would have taken away a huge part of the security getting this house has given me.
We are very slowly getting the house and garden the way we want it. I say slowly and my goodness I'm not kidding, I have never taken so long to do so little! The great thing is, we can. There's no rush, we have all the ime in the world to make it beautiful and the plan is, to do it well, no slap it up and painting over the cracks in this house, oh no indeed!
I had no dea just how much I would love the garden, not a day has passed without my standing and looking at this garden, I have such plans for it, they need money of course which means that again, it will take time but who cares? Just looking and dreaming, planning and imagining just how it can ( and will) be is enough to cheer my soul.
I love it when the sun goes down and I can open the curtains and look out at the river, see the lights and the moon on the water and in my own garden see the solar lights all lit up, the feelings of happiness I get from that are indescribable. I wish I had a camera that would capture what it looks like, my cheap old thing either just gets the lights so I get a picture of random glowy blobs or the flash works and you can't see the lights! Hopeless!

  See? There's no way those pictures come even close to showing how glorious a sight that is every evening!
I have become almost obsessed by the grass in the garden, it has patchy spots and I want a beautiful lush green lawn, I love mowing the lawn and looking at how lovely it looks. I can't say I enjoy all that weeding business but it has to be done, doesn't it? I really love that the lady who lived here before was here for 30 yrs and she knew what she was doing in the garden, it is planted so that as one flower dies, another starts to bloom in it's place. It's just wonderful and gives me more joy than I can begin to explain.

 

What about the inside? Well we decorated one room, it took 3 months!

3 months to decorate the littlest room in the house....I've started the hall, stairs and landing, don't hold your breath for pictures of the finished results!
I just love being able to plan and imagine and choose, knowing that whatever we do will be for us, I still feel some of that wonder that it is ours. Lovely.
Ha, I've been trying to write this for an hour or more and still haven't said anything.
It's all boring anyay...apart from dearest Lola had her frist birthday and Josh just had his 4th. They are so beautiful, Lola is walking and starting to talk, Josh is a funny, clever and delightfully naughty little man!

Life is pretty good.