Hoe Hoe Hoe!

I love these handy single portion packs of Weetabix

Now, Coco and I tend to get up quite early in the mornings, in fact It has been known for it to still be dark when we start our day.  Some days we get up before we go to bed!

As every hard working Gardener will know you can't possibly start the day without a hearty breakfast.

Coco's breakfast of choice varies between Weetabix and Cheerios depending on what I put on the table.

Today I put Cheerios on the table, so we had Weetabix.

So much to do, so little time, come on, keep up!

After our breakfast its time to give the cats and dogs their breakfast, take Nanny Southwellski her morning cup of tea (which incidentally she never drinks and just lets go cold!) before heading out to start the day by letting the chooks out.

We include the chicks as chooks now as they are really not chicks any longer (If that doesn't make sense then you really should have been paying attention earlier on in the blog!).

We've had a few not very productive days of late with work related stuff to sort out, places to go etc etc.  Nanny Southwellski has had a bad chest infection but she'll go to the doctors tomorrow.

Anyone know when tomorrow comes?

We have tried all our remedies, Thyme, Anise and Honey tea for the cough followed by an Onion poultice applied warm to the chest, in a tea towel of course, to clear the chest (the poultice should not be used as an aphrodisiac).

It's taking a while to shift but in the meantime we keep a careful eye on her, well you do when it's someone you love don't you.

The Thyme, Anise and Honey tea really is very lovely as a drink in it's own right but it makes a great cough medicine and because it's very gentle it's great for littlies too.  This is another recipe from Kitchen Medicine the accompanying book to Hedgerow Medicine by Julie Bruton-Seal and Matthew Seal.

Yuk! Chook Poo!

The chooks are grounded temporarily due to landscaping works in the house garden but this means more mess in the veggie garden.

We've had the builders in for a week and a half and they have transformed our garden and at last we can see the makings of a beautiful natural garden.

A blank canvas

The house garden has been levelled, cleared and is now having the hard landscaping works done.

We will soon be able to sit and listen to the stream trickling past Mr B's arbor before it splashes into the pool to start its journey all over again.

Our designer (Richard Wlkinson of Lotus Garden Designs) has listened to everything we said and has included it all in his design.

View from the pond

There will also be a shallow pond with a beach area.  We had Coco in mind when we asked for this as it not only gives an access point into the water, it's also a way out in an emergency for both her and any creatures that wander in.

Muddy mountain high.

Coco has had an absolute ball climbing the heaps of soil that have appeared around the garden and there now no 'hills' unclimbed. She also loves to watch the machines as they dig and dump soil all over the place and she won't go to sleep until we've said goodnight to the dumper and digger which are parked outside her bedroom window at the end of each day.

Tell me the truth, that reindeer's not real is it?

It was a very special evening this evening and Nanny Southwellski, Coco and I went to the church in Feltwell to meet up with Auntie Angela and Uncle Robin to go and see Father Christmas.

Coco was very good, but did look rather questioningly at the reindeer, it wasn't very convincing, but Father Christmas was.

We had a lovely time and Coco had as much fun chasing her balloon around as she did seeing the 'big fella' in red.

All in all it's been another great day.