One job done and one job starting ..

..and the best part is .. I am not doing any of them!

I was away all day yesterday in Leeds at the amazing charity I work for and had the best day it was great to catch up, get my work brain working and see the amazing people I work with. So I left at 6 am and was home at 9.30 pm and the little pooches came with me just in case we couldn't get back and the flooding around and about got worse and were very well behaved bless them so all in all a really good day. When I got home I was greeted with 3 tonnes of pebbles for the walk way and half a forest of wood all piled up ready for the work the next day some slight tripping involved including Winnie jumping out of the car and into the cattle grid (sensible) and then featherd chums locked away, we three into the house to eat biscuits (dog and human) and collapse into bed.

I was looking forward to a non 5 am start but it appears that the weather and Winnie had different plans when the thunder bolts and lightening (very very frightening) started closely followed by a hysterical sheep dog.. Drat!

But what a day we have had. Oil men arrived at around 8 and then the landscape gardener who is replacing our collapsing trellis work followed closely behind and my garden has turned into a complete building site but all for the long term good.

And the end result of the day is .. The oil clean up is COMPLETE Yippee and the trellis is gone and I have big holes for now instead.

Our new smart path to the oil tank!

and the new smart steps 

The lake is free the booms can come out and Yippee the Aga saga/ Oil spoil is officially done.. Now I need a new rhyming drama. 

Dear all should you EVER have issues with oil spills, environmental issues, hazardous waste or anything else remotely connected may I please refer you to these AMAZING people who,  from day one, when I was stood by the lake weeping and repeating the words " I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do" have managed to make me know what to do, helped with the loss adjustor's, chased up the resolutions, written reports, kept in touch, worked like oil hero's and been utterly lovely, kind, efficient  good humoured and most of all explained it all to me like I was  3 year old.. just as I needed and requested.. Natural Solutions... You are AMAZING! 

www.naturalsols.co.uk/

So moving on next we have the Trellis work .. it looked like this this morning .. the angle has been  helped along with gales, snow and extreme rain

falling down badly

My health and safety training says this is not good!

I may be generalising but the folks of Wales work very hard.. by the end of the day we have all trellis work out the walkway gone, the matching fences all gone, and lots of big holes waiting for the next phase..  

The Wisteria that covered the trellis is laid over the walk way  for now but has been well looked after (i confess to watching out of the bed room window in a hiding fashion to make sure) 

The clematis at the other end in a similar state. 

The poor gardeners have been followed all day by 6 greedy chickens who have been eating worms like no tomorrow .. I am worried about the taste of the eggs as a result but hey ho sure all will be well.

So all in all a busy old day.. I was doing some work indoors and so got to stay cosy and warm so BIG Hurrah to the hard workers !

Wet wet wet.. Oh and a dead mouse!

It has now rained since Friday and its not little rain its proper rain and we are now almost under water.. wherever you walk you sink.. its foul.
The dig has continued today and bless them men they were soaked but kept going .. Oil hero's!

Lots and lots of soil.. 

Mud mud and more mud

Ground water + Oil starting to be flushed.

The flushed water pouring into the lake.. Extra booms in to  catch the oil . 

.And in other news there has been a sad death.. below are the peanuts that I feed to the birds.. we did a bulk buy and put in a plastic box with the lid.. but something went wrong and this little chap ended up face down and quite dead.. Peanut allergy?????

RIP Mickey 

Big Skip.. Big Hole.. Big Mess

So oil excavation started today.. those people worked SO HARD! The weather here is dire gale force winds and big fat rain and the many offers of tea were declined bless them.. anyway they have toddled off to the pub/restaurant/hotel  down the road now for a well deserved rest and some nice food.

The skip arriving was hysterical delivered by THE most grumpy man ever who then was asking me how to turn around.. now anyone who has seen me drive my car or any car for that matter knows that I am not the person to ask.. and my flippant comment of "with the steering wheel I would have thought" was at best ill timed. Must learn to tame my mouth one of these days.

Anyway with a bit of drama.. a major huff and some gentle coaxing from the oil men at last the skip went down.. missing ducks, chickens and most importantly the car of Mr Waen (phew). He is not with me this week so I won't tell him how close it was.. Yikes! Nor will I tell him how I managed to get the 4x4 car stuck in the field which by anyone's standards is hard to do .. its out now so Shhhhhhhhh.

I have had the whole excavation procedure explained to me and it involves (clears throat and tries to recall anything technical) some digging, tunnelling,  flushing, big pipes, little pipes, pipes which make sure it never can happen again, some new soil, a drum (assume it not to be a percussion instrument ) and a path being made... In what order all that happens I have no idea .. I have let womens lib down again the only question I asked is what the path would look like.. Yes I know sorry independent women everywhere but I did bake 2 mince fruit loaves to take to my lovely work in Leeds on Wednesday.. oo oo and started sewing some curtains.. stereotype who?

 So the photo's from today;

Contaminated soil.. and a lot of little rubber gloves

BIG skip

very muddy pathway to he oil tank.. some reseeding required me thinks 

So the ducks don't fall in.. they are a bit dense

 So the dog doesn't fall in.. he is old and a bit senile 

A bloody big hole and a lot of welsh rain 

Weekend news from Waen

1. I have finished the wall papering in bedroom 1 (pictures to follow when curtains are made and room is "dressed").. OK ok so Mr Waen helped a bit.. but I did the really really most most.

2. Don't hold you breath for those photos.. the big news is the world of Wales has gone GREEN again.. whoop bye bye snow! Beloved garden let the makeover continue!

3. Tomorrow the men move in to finally clean up the rest of that oil.. A skip and everything is on route to Waen. I am a bit scared of the state the land will be left in but going with the flow.

4. We went to the Bee Keeping dinner and found out lots of useful Bee information (and also had a good laugh).. it all sounds very complicated but do-able me thinks.. will wait for Bee classes before we decide.. they are booked for February.  Seems like a good thing to do.. the Bee crisis is really serious people. Even in such times of recession the Government last year TRIPLED the Bee Grant budget and anyone who has ever worked in the voluntary/ public sector knows that just doesn't happen.

That is the end of the news.

Good night, lots of love.  xx

Ice skating Pheasants

Enough said. Cute and whilst they are doing this they are not eating the duck, chicken and bird food!

Archie the ornament..

There are lots of empty spaces in our house still as we have just not got enough stuff to spread about yet .. however given the fact we have 12 animals this could be the future..;

Look Mam I can pose like this 

or like this.. 

and I can stay dead still!!!

Chickens escape the snow;

Today the chickens decided enough is enough and ventured in the house.. now satisfied to just potter around the kitchen they decided to come into the snug where the log burner was cheerfully burning away.. At all times Winnie closely monitoring...

And the best of good news today too.. firstly I finally finished stripping the superglued on wall paper, got the ceiling painted and tomorrow its wallpapering. Secondly Sophie and Blueberry put themselves to bed.. thank goodness for that!!!

MORE SNOW!!

The news say its moved north and we are done here.. the weather forecast says the same.. My spidey senses say not..the big clue being that it's snowing outside.

Oh well.. have had another totter to the post office to pay for the parcel postage (on way to getting decent legs at this rate). When we got home Winnie decided that the lake was a good place to play it was funny as she went whizzing from one side to the other chasing a pheasant.. would have been less funny had we had to launch the rowing boat in a rescue operation but thankfully it didn't come to that.
Sadly not all of the lake has the dusting of snow so didn't get her whizzing along print.

My new favourite game is who has been where.. today pheasants have visited the little lake island! I do worry that I am going slightly snow mad now.. Mr Waen back today so I can stop talking to the animals like they are real .. thank goodness for the phone.

Kindly country folk.

Today I walked 1.5 miles to the post office carrying a parcel  .. not too heavy but not a box of feathers.. It was closed as the post lady had to go to an appointment (drat) but how kind was the man who was manning the shop (pun intended) who let me leave the parcel and not only that but said they would post it when the lady returned and let me pay for it in the morning.. How kind!!!!!

The rest of the day I scraped wall paper, the oil spill clean up is postponed as is the new trellis work in the garden.. rats!

Done with snow now have made snow angels, snowmen and played snow balls.. the job of snow is officially done!

Snow walking ..

Seemingly every post until the thaw will have snow in the title.. On Friday we went  out for a lovely walk in the snow to assess whether cars could go down the lane for our  trip to Chester on Saturday.. The general consensus was that it may go down but getting back up was a probable no.. So we decided to give it a whirl on Saturday and we made it down (me with my eyes closed - not driving) and then we had snow tyres fitted and made it back up again.. whoop! We had a lovely day in Chester.. nice lunch, fabulous company and  there were shops and street lights and everything! And I got my new wallpaper steamer..bliss!

Made me a snow angel!

The lovely Lolly old man of the house left the fireside to see what all the fuss was about.. here he is measuring depth of snow  with his nose!

Beautiful 

Now a chicken with no legs!!

You may have been wondering  how it went with Ducks finding their home.. well it didn't go well.. so they had to be scooped and carried screaming all the way!! Here we are calming down the lovely Blueberry before bed time!

Snowmageddon

It's crazy old weather and still coming down.. thought I would pop down the lane to collect the post. Took Winnie to run off her excessive energy. I was keen to see the chances of getting out tomorrow.. we have a fun day trip to visit Mr Waen's first born and his lovely lady .. I am still optimistic which apparently according to Radio 2 is why I will die young!

Winnie running up the lane .. she is a bit giddy!

Our garden!! .. where is it??

The View from the lane.. white!

Winnie's favourite sport.. chase the pheasant.. she scopes them out from the hill side.. 

And off she goes!!!

And back she comes.. thankfully without Mr and Mrs Pheasant.

"Sophie we have no legs!!!"

"Don't worry Blueberry neither do I" 

Lolly and Munchie have the right idea.. as the senior members of the home they thought the fire was the best plan for such best friends. 

Taking a leaf out of the old furry's book I made soup for the other senior of the house.. Enjoy Mr Waen!

Snowed in officially

Yesterday the lane was too dangerous to go out but today has taken the cake and we are under some serious snow and its still coming down! I do recall when we moved here being told that 'it never snows up here' and the lesson of the day is never say never!

Must be honest being snowed in is a strange thing.. all I an think of to do is things that need me to travel somewhere.. my wallpaper steamer died for a start off so I can't carry on with that task (and no I am not doing it the old fashioned way) and the plan today was the purchase of a new one.. change of plan needed.. I may need to start that course that I have been putting off!

I opened the front door and this was what I found.. ARRGGHH

Winnie likes to eat the snow (odd bod)

Brrrr

Its still snowing.. enough already

Pretty

snowy lake

Poor Max the monster truck is going no-where.

this much fell in the night.. about 3 inches

Sophie and Blueberry are moving house..

So they have been in the garage for some time and have yet to potter down to the lake but ducks even little ladies like these frankly make a hell of a smell so time to tip them out into the wide world. Mr Waen has done duck house improvements and now they have a door so we can close them up at night to keep them safe from Mister Fox.. they will eventually go to the island in the middle of the lake but as yet their lack of waterproofness prevents this from happening .. So instead we have just moved them to the patio near the lake .. you never know they may get the idea;

lakeside view

New door doubles as a ramp.. smart. 

Outside the closed garage doors .. they don't look very happy at their forced eviction.. 

Mind you given their breakfast was just eaten by this little old man it must feel like today is not their day!

Anyway.. the next challenge is to get them to the house at bedtime.. no doubt that will involve some sort of comedy caper in the snow and ice!