Where has the handbag gone?

Well retail therapy opportunity on Wednesday when I went on a course to Cardiff where the UK's second largest John Lewis is. Fab - an opportunity to utilise the late night shopping and pop in for a few hours. So off I went, tolerated the course and then shot off to JL. Not quite sure what was wrong with me - I allowed myself several hours before the train home, but well I was killing time...... yes that is right I was killing time in JL. I wandered around and looked at things and thought I don't want them, what do I want that for? I don't need that. I thought we have so much stuff that we need to sort out we don't need anything else, I even, wait for it, this is the most shocking of all........
walked past the handbag section!!!!!! yes that is correct I WALKED PAST THE HANDBAG SECTION.....without STOPPING!!!!!!
How times have changed over the last 6 months, you wouldn't have caught me doing that back last year. I did purchase of course but look at what I bought:
4 x serving spoons - Essential Items
1 x jar of sweeties - Essential pressie for Son
1 x lined pad - Essential purchase for Son's school project

THAT IS ALL!!!! well I did manage to have a latte - they don't call me the Latte Queen for nothing!

Black Friday: Cheese is hard

Well the idyl of country life has been shattered, and I have been slapped in the face with a very large book of reality. My Chooks, my girls are dead! Luckily for me I slept late this morning so Hubby went to let them out, he rang me in work to tell me that a fox had got the lot of them! Well I tried to hold it together after all they are only feathered birds that lay eggs, a little tear trickled out of my eye but then I had a meeting with my boss so I had to hold it together. I was also in shock I mean all four of them what the hell happened. Hubby informed me that the fox, who must have been in the SAS with extra safe cracking skills, had not only managed to get into one door, but had also managed to lift the other door and climb into the house. He killed all four of my girls, leaving two behind. My lovely Hubby cleaned everything away so that I did not have to face it when I got home, although he has warned me that it looks like the chainsaw massacre inside the house. So am I a softy, well not really, I realise life in the country is hard and that it is the circle of life and all that crap, but well they were my girls. In the morning I would let them out and they would come clucking out and follow me around. As the sun was setting and the haze shimmering over the fields, I would cluck at them down the garden and they would come running out, following me down the garden, pecking at my ankles....sorry got a bit Mills and Boon then didn't I?! So what did Son say? he said well the next lot you should not treat so much like pets, Did my Hubby bury them on no he chucked them over the hedge!!!! Country life is hard!

Can you teach a cat to hunt?

OK the outdoor killer cats, who are now indoor cats, are not killing rats! They are not doing what it says on the tine. The rats seem to have gone but no sign of any dead ones recently, however Eric (chief hunter) has managed to kill/catch the following:
one blue dead - dead
one robin - dead
two blackbirds - one dead one rescued
one bat - rescued
too many shrews to count - all dead
one mole - dead
one mouse - dead

Can you train them with pictures or photos of rats with the word food printed on it? Can you tell them that they are eating rat Whiskas when you feed them? The thing is birds are lovely and it is the winter and we are trying to feed them to keep them alive - it appears however that we are simply luring them down to Eric's banqueting table. OH well - it is nature after all!

Who needs a 4x4? Have a Yaris or a tractor

Well I did raise a few eyebrows with my little Yaris in the country but it has done me proud. I have drive through floods, ice and now snow blizzards and still it got me home. Last night it took me 4 hours to drive a 25 minute journey, cars were abandoned on the roadside, BMW and Saab' stuck my little Yaris kept going - personally I think it was down to my driving skills!! Son got stuck on the way home in the school bus and had to be rescued by a neighbour in his tractor. How cool is that? So off to play snowballs and build snowmen in the field. Happy Days