January 2007 - This year is going to be 'fun'

With Christmas and New Year and Dermot's standby out of the way we really knuckled down to work on the cottage before it all kicks off with the Piggery. Our builders came in and started various jobs - we have a lovely new gothic arched window to go in downstairs, cupboards to be fitted in the spare bedroom, floor boards to be laid all over the place, ceilings to be reinforced upstairs, new frame and door to the downstairs bedroom etc etc. Pity only some of it actually got done but it gave us some encouragement and it can be returned to when the Piggery is done - (months away yet!!!) This is how we are living at the moment though...could be improved upon!

My birthday happened in the middle of all this and with the house being in such a mess we took ourselves and friends off to The Forge, the holiday let I manage, for a lovely night. Dinner and Ukkers - what more can a girl ask for, especially as the dinner was cooked for me whilst I was out hunting at South Repps! Then a good dog walk and tea and cheese on toast the next day.....I know how to enjoy myself!!. I had some really very lovely presents - very grateful to all for all of them - really.

We had some work done on the flat in Stalham to get it ready for the new tenant, a work colleague, and then I had to divert the builders after a particularly windy night to tieing down the stable roof and pulling one of the barn doors upright!!

The pigs went towards the end of the month and I am grateful to Mick and Pauline of Mallow House Organics in the village for helping me load them. I have loaded two before but somehow three seemed more of a handful. They took about 20 mins to go on the trailer and they had to stay on overnight as I needed to leave at 7am to get them to Wells. They had thick straw bedding and water (which of course they kicked over!) and the cleaning out at home the next day took quite a while! Arthur and his team were as fab as ever - I got the trailer backed in for me and help getting the pigs off. It is so hard to do that bit. They don't really want to get off as it is yet another new ennironment for them. I really hate the unloading and leaving in the pens as I know only too well what the next step for them is but I am happy that they have had a good life, good food, natural environment, visitors, stimulation etc.

I picked the meat up a week later - full of flavour, generous of fat and I am really proud of how we reared them. The boys done good - full of locally grown apples, barley, peas, potatoes and beet.

In the back ground, Dermot, quite apart from flying round the world has been sorting out all the rainwater collection tanks, ground exchange heat pump system, windows, electricity, water supply and all the rest for the Piggery.

He managed a day out trail hunting at Gimmingham in the pouring rain. Maybe next season we can loan another horse so we can go out together.....??!!