Birthday!

It was my birthday recently.

I was given a beautiful Skeppshult bike by my family.  She is Swedish, and in the spirit of naming inanimate objects I asked Ned (who sits on the back) what we should call her.

Say hello to Neta (he can't say Agnetha)!

Pests and poultry

Post has nothing to do with anything really, except I am angry and need to vent.

We inherited some ducks and chickens when we moved into our current home and despite various fox attacks we've always managed to remain philosophical about things.

Until now.

I was given 3 white runner ducks a few months ago, they were lovely and funny. Then one day they disappeared. We told the kids they'd 'gone for a walk'. It's a reason we use lots!

Just over 2 months ago I was given 2 more ducks - Aylesburys I think. Maisie named them Sarah and Abigail.

Mr Fox came last week, took 3 cockerels, 3 chickens and the lovely Sarah and Abigail. Gutted. Me, and them.

Then on Thursday Jim procured 2 free cockerels - they reminded me of Foghorn Leghorn.

Which brings me to this evening. Jim found our remaining 3 chickens on the garden table, so shooed them home and discovered the cockerels were dead. 

Then moments after putting the kids to bed (7.15 and still very light), a hen sounded the alarm.

Rushed through the house, nearly fell over each other and the dogs (very excited by all the activity!) in our haste to get out - we found one little bantam hen going mad on the pergola.

Our other 2 chickens are no more.

Here's the only photo I gave of the cockerels. Maisie hadn't even met them yet.

PS - Jim went to feed our solitary chicken, named Polito after El Macho's chicken in Despicable Me 2, he found that the other 2 had returned!

Big smiles this morning.

....And we're off..... Grand national weekend

Well we have a decent house offer - yay - and this week we've also sorted out a small investment property to buy in braunton - double yay. 

I feel slightly nervous though, as unlike in norway when you make a bid on a house it's legally binding, in this country you can dick about or be be dicked about right up to exchange. So although this should be a 'it started with a minion' moment it's currently more of 'jim on telemark skis' moment. It should be cool but somehow isn't - no whether it's due to a lack of technique, ageing knees, or inabity just to be cool, who knows but one thing is for certain we're going to keep trying :). 

Fingers crossed for us please people .

As an aside  a 25-1 outsider trained by a dr won the national today. So you see with enough effort and bit of luck you be successful at anything you put your mind to.......now bend zee knee and tele, bend zee knee tele......

Hemsedal

We went to Hemsedal in February for our winter holiday. Jim and I first went there back in 2007, pre children! 

We took Maisie there in 2010, and then Neddy got to join in the fun too.

Not having skied for a good few years, I think we were both slightly scared about the prospect, but thankfully had the perfect excuse for not going all the way up the mountain straight away, as Maisie was having ski lessons so we wanted to be close, you know, just in case.

Thankfully she didn't need us and took to skiing really well, and skied with us for a bit after her lessons which was lovely.

Neddy meanwhile was at the fab childcare facility being looked after by some lovely girls. So he was a happy boy.

The weather was good to us - sunshine, snow, temperature not too bitingly cold, although we did ski through the cloud one day.

We had lunch one day in one of the little huts with an amazing fire, which we cooked our sausages over. Having been to Scandinavia before it's one thing we try to do, and this trip Jim proved his fire making skills are as good as any Scandinavian (especially as quite a few of them borrowed our matches!)

Of course the drive back to Gardemoen airport was fraught; Maisie was travel sick; we were rapidly running out of time to drop the hire car off; the car hire man pounced on us before we could tidy up and get out; we missed the floor on the lift for departures; a lovely lady directed us to the family security check lane where Neddy didn't like the customs chap and so wouldn't walk throughout the metal detector on his own; and then there was the very long long walk to get to international departures and the debate over whether or not to go through the very final security check to the gate.

Still we made it.

Daytime telly

Urgh!

We went to Norway in August for our summer holiday and Jim was quite poorly.

We went to Norway in February for our winter holiday and I was ill, Ned was ill and Jim was very ill.

It's now a month since we returned and I'm ill again!  So in between bouts of napping I've also been watching lots of crappy daytime telly.

I have come to the following conclusions:

1) Millionaire Matchmaker is hilarious and I like Patty;

2) Real Housewives of Vancouver is better than Real Housewives of New Jersey;

3) Whilst Kirstie (Allsop) needs Phil (Spencer); Phil does not need Kirstie;

4) Allo Allo is still funny.

Jeg kan ikke help deg

It's about one of the only Norwegian phrases I can remember.

I can not help you.

It might not be one of the most helpful phrases when our adventure gets going. I mean it might be something people say to us a lot, but it won't get the electricity or wifi connected will it.

Think we need to up the ante really.

New Nordic Noir

How did we miss the brilliant series The Killing? 

Having run out of Nordic drama on the tv, I bought the box set of series one of The Killing to take on our recent Norwegian trip. 

20 episodes 5 disks and 1100 minutes of telly!

I was only going to take the first disk after all the Winter Olympics were on, and it being Norway there'd be lots of it on tv.

Jim persuaded me to take all of them. Glad I did, as after the first episode we were hooked.  We managed to watch 11 episodes whilst on holiday!

Haven't got the next 2 box sets; need a bit of time off traumatising Nordic dramas...... Although there is a new drama called Mammon starting soon........