Home alone

It is mountain crisp this morning, so snow must have fallen in the Pyrenees, and the first heavy frost of the year was upon the car this morning as I waved Lester off to the airport. I am home alone. Only for two days though. But I am in charge. Where is Lester off to? Paris. But not to have a jolly time, but to work having been sent there by the UK office he works for. Two days of working with French people whilst grappling with the internal plumbing system of their computer software data programme. Wouldn't swop places with him, not at all. 

Now at the moment I am covered in splashes of white emulsion and look, quite frankly, a state. 

But heyho, I’m top honcho for two days so I can have all the windows and doors open, which Lester will not let me do because of the flies and mozzies coming in, and I can make a diabolical mess as I now move onto the very tall at one side sloping ceiling in the Half Barn, using my roller on a roller pole, dibbing it into a big bucket of emulsion and then aiming it heavenwards hoping to meet the ceiling en route. 

The fallout of splashes is spectacular, and yes, I have covered most of everything over with tarpaulins, but not all surfaces, and these are the bits that the paint splots tend to aim themselves towards. But I have until tomorrow evening to get that end of the Half Barn done, or rather, done sufficiently enough for Hubs to take over to do the bits which require the mounting of a ladder, the ceiling being rather high on one side....

...and because I am home alone I can make a stupendous mess, which anyone who knows me well will testify to.....

.....it is a curiosity to me that I can't do anything and be tidy at the same time. Full steam ahead is what I do when the mood takes me, disregarding any sensible thoughts about preparing things properly first. But I did cover the table with a tarp, and a bit of the floor is also covered. Hubs would have had a fit if he had been here, but not to worry, full steam ahead it is. I am running on banana and chocolate cake, milky coffee, banana and jam on toast, banana and yoghurt in a bowl. Ought to cook something, but hey, I am home alone and don't have to! Will get back into the saddle with cooking tomorrow. If I have time. Before Hubs gets back from Paris I will have to clean up some of the mess. He would have been in tidy environments for two days, so the mess I have so easily created might shock him. Or perhaps it wouldn't. If everything was super duper tidy then that would perhaps shock him even more. 

And, bless him, our mutual exasperation about the endless treadmill of unwashed dishes which is a bain to both our lives, has resulted in a promise from him of a dishwasher, to be bought next weekend. I have not asked him for one. Indeed, I have continually said I could cope with lack of proper kitchen facilities, but, to tell the truth, I have been getting very irritable of late which is unlike me. Cruddy, yes, a bit, but not downright irritable. Hubs knows not to come near me when I am at the sink. It isn't a proper sink, it is a melamine bathroom vanity unit donated by a neighbour, and it doesn't have any draining board, and I don't have anywhere to put the dishes needing to be washed up so they just lay all about the place until I get into washing up mode, which is only about once a day because I am busy doing other preferable activities, like scything, digging, writing, knitting, etc......

Anyway, this battle with trying to keep the washing up under control has finally got to me. Every time I get near the sink I get miffy. I can't help it. I just do. So Hubs, bless him again, has finally got the message that I am under workload stress and has offered the buying of a dishwasher to me yet again. This time I accepted. We are both fed up with my hissy fits when I have my hands in a bowl of washing up water. Is it my age? Am I getting cranky? Or is it because my efforts at multi-tasking is getting too much even for me!

Oops, gotta go. Forgot that we are getting into the dark of evening an hour sooner, and as I am head honcho I have to go and feed all the animals. Wish me luck, especially with getting Elise into her Tall Barn bedroom. This morning she frisked herself over to the others in the Sheep Paddock so fast that she towed me along. Last night she declined to have her rope put on her and headed in the opposite direction when everyone came out of the field and were supposed to into the paddock. They all did except her. Was impressed by the fact that she obviously has learnt that she is to separate off from the others at night because she has a special place to go to, but was not overly impressed by the fact that she did not actually head for that 'special place' but instead headed out down the drive. She didn't go very far though, and Hubs was here to head her back down the drive. With him being in Paris for ce soir, me and her are going to have a good old game, of that I am sure. 

The Chicks: Just over four weeks ago, these little fluffy creatures delighted us. Eleven there were, and eleven there still is, for the moment......

...... because they are out in the world now....

...... they have been in the portable run for all of their lives so far, but we saw that they were getting stressed, that they didn't have the same air about them as did the other hen and chick families which we have had here, who have enjoyed total freedom from the moment the eggs have hatched. But then, the other hen families have suffered from being predated on. 

It's difficult to know what to do sometimes. To keep the chicks caged, then they are safe, but they are unhappy. To let the chicks be free, then they are not safe, but they are happy and the days that they have in life, whether it be one day, one month, one year, or more, will be spent joyously doing what chickens do. For today, we still have eleven.