Lying down, and who is top dog?

I have been doing a lot of lying down this weekend. Spent most of yesterday asleep on the settee in the music / sitting room after having worked hard in the back kitchen trying to catch up with its messiness all morning. I think I am winning that particular battle. It's having to shift things round as Jim continues to renovate the house for us, that is what causes the tendency towards chaos. Not to worry, Lester has cleared out the lounge, and there is nowhere downstairs where things like tools, empty boxes, wood, stuff, etc..., can be put. His tools are now out in the middle barn, and there they will stay. He was going to put everything upstairs but I had a mini strop about him doing that, because last time he used the upstairs as his tool area most of the tools ended up being kept on the stairs. I am not a nagging type of person but I am quite likely to become that way if things are left lying about the place once the renovation is done to the downstairs.

As I was saying, ........ yesterday one o'clock in the afternoon came along, and down on the settee I went, there to stay until it got dark, and then off to bed I went. This morning was not any better really, but I have stayed awake, but only just. We have done some painting in the sitting room though, with Lester rollering the walls, and me lying down again, but this time on the floor as I tried to get a straight edge between the bottom of the wall and the floor tiles. Trouble was that it was slow going, and lying at full stretch seemed to encourage a feeling of wanting to go to sleep again. I didn't, but there were a couple of times when I did feel myself starting to wilt.

It has been restful weekend though, with lots to do next week.....our builder is not here so we have the opportunity to go out and about together, something which we don't do when he is working here, just it case he falls off his ladder, needs a cup of tea to keep going, or something like a chunk of wall falls on his head.....

And the view from the kitchen window:

Lester trundling to and fro with the wheelbarrow to the cow dung heap,

the piggy girls keeping an eye on him just in case feeding time has come along....

..... and zooming round to the right, and you can see the work the girls are doing to the veg plot,

and Claudine's house across the way...

she is our nearest neighbour....

after years of living close to others, first in terraced housing, and then in a semi detached house, it is so lovely to be able to make noise and do other things which a close neighbour would hear.

In other words, we have privacy!!!

Ah, and now the two rottweiller girls,

Blue on the left wearing her soppy 'I love you and you love me' look, Maz on the right in her 'What the hell do you think you are  doing!' look.

Yesterday the little brown hen, one of the two chickens who have damaged legs,

well,...there I was, sitting out in the courtyard taking a five minute break,

and up she flew onto my lap.

and what a sweet moment that could have been,

but from close right of me a mighty great paw sort of swiped the hen off my lap.

Off she went in a low arc,

yelling her disapproval,

and flapping madly so she could land properly.

The paw belonged to Mazzy, who had obviously decided that no one was going to perch on me unless it was herself. Bless....they still think they are puppies, and remain always in hope that they can climb on our laps for a cuddle, but all they can manage is a front paw, followed by the other front paw, followed by a slow creep of the rest of their body. 

It is normally at this point that we push them back down again because they are squash us with their weight, and often it is both of them trying at the same time to get up, which of course makes for double the weight.

I used to fear rottweillers, but after having got to know our girls, I find them the best of dogs to have, but maybe it is the way we look after them that helps them to have such  lovely natures.

Boolie (our male springer spaniel) has been having a moan outside the door for the last half an hour while I have been writing to you, so I had best go and walk them round the field before he drives me buts with his howling. The girls, I am sure, will be taking a nap in their beds. It is a bit of a wet day, and they don't 'do' wetness.

Hope you have had a good weekend,

Hope you have a splendid week,

Vx