another week in the wild west (yorks)

There are no photo’s of our lovely afternoon up at Sarah’s because although the day started out sunny, the heavens opened and it was grey and wet for most of the day and we ended up going in the car. It did clear up a bit later on, fortunately, as Tom and Fergus were making far too much noise inside and we managed to get them all outside for an exploration of the fields, while Sarah showed me round the top garden and demonstrated how to work the Rayburn, as I am looking after the place while she goes away. Freddie fell over in the mud, I think while he was running away from the geese, but otherwise everyone seemed to have a great time.

I spent the weekend feeling quite spaced out. This is probably the result of doing Tai chi while I was still recovering from the lurgy, which I finally succombed to last week. Yesterday I had a slightly surreal experience, unwittingly finding myself in the midst of the Calder Valley Organic Garderners’ annual Potato Day (full of beardy people jostling for the best Maris Pipers), whist trying to buy some miso and Floradix at The Bear. (This is a picture of a previous potato day: imagine all this crammed into the middle of a small wholefood shop where you are trying to buy stuff). I did get what I indended, plus a few brown paper bags of tubers (first earlies, second earlies, and main crop), which I’m not sure where to plant, but, hey, I can chit them anyway and see what happens.
Back to today: The electricity went off while we were out and it was almost dark when we got back. (It was off all day Saturday, too, but came back on before dark. A line was down, apparently, or so the neighbour said, who came round to ask me to move my car which I had abandoned at the bottom of the track on Friday night, due to excess snow). So anyway, I cooked a meal of brown rice and aduki beans by candlelight. The kind of food I would prefer to eat all the time, if only the children weren’t so fussy. It was going to be pasties, but we have an electric oven. Joy liked it, anyway. I had to get the fire going, too, as no electricity= no heating. The breadmaker had stopped partway through baking, but I managed to bake it in the oven later when the power came back on.

I quite liked the power cut. I had to find a radio with batteries, as they did get a little bit bored not being able to see to do anything much. Maybe I should’ve got my guitar out! Well, I’m glad it’s come back on for now, as I said Sarah could come round and used the internet and washing machine in the morning. Freddie was a bit confused about how many things wouldn’t work without electricity: not only the internet, but also his CDrom, or in fact anything on the computer, wasn’t working, and all at once!

I’m also relieved that the rabbits haven’t managed to chew right through the internet network cable, although they have tried. They have organic kale, but, no, plastic is tastier, obviously. Can’t wait till it’s warm enough to put the little blighters outside as they are getting a bit annoying now. I need to get some sort of run for them sorted out, too, as they just cannot be trusted not to get into trouble; one of them nearly fell in the pond today. And we have enough rodents running about the house as it is: someone left crumbs on surfaces at the weekend, when I wasn’t here, and mice have been about.

O this is all starting to sound decidedly crunchy granola...