Thursday evening we had a lovely meal and I was feeling well, if inordinately tired. Some time during the night I awoke with a stomach lined with concrete and passed some considerable time in the environs of the bog, or curled up in a small ball next to the bog, or writhing around going "arrrghh" and "mmmph", followed inevitably by "weh!". I don't know why this only happened to me, but clearly I couldn't blame Sid's cooking if nobody else was affected. Unsurprisingly, next morning greeted me with stomach cramps and a giant, pounding headache. I can now say with some authority that getting up to feed round at 5:30am after such an event is (a) very unpleasant, and (b) more time-consuming than could reasonably be expected. Had to stay off work and nurse myself gently through the day doing very little, trying not to be blokeish. The headache was still there late afternoon and into the evening, so an early night was called for. Except that when I went to bed and looked out the bathroom window I saw a set of headlights rather incongruusly driving about in our neighbour John's fields, opposite. Had to call him and he went out there to investigate, while Sid piled outside with an implement of Japanese persuasion, just in case self defence might be required, while I followed him out with my, erm, torch. Headlights disappeared, John was ok so we then had to check the fields, Sid with his implement of Japanese persuasion and me with my, erm, torch.
Knickers bless her took pity on me and offered to feed round this morning, which meant an uninterrupted lie in til 8am. Bliss! 8am arrives; I wake thinking "fuck! Tessa's coming at half nine and the kitchen is rancid; better get my arse in gear". Kitchen cleaned, random loose chickens restored to their pen, Tessa arrives, we catch up. Q had a bit of tightness in his wither area and Sid had his neck fixed, I made a fish stock and some bacon butties. Sent Sid and Knickers shopping while I put up a new fence line and dug a wheelbarrow full of thistles out of the girls' winter paddock, before preparing for a lesson on T with Mandy. As the weather was nice, I'd made the fundamental error of taking the boys' rugs off so that they could enjoy the sun on their backs and, inevitably, they had rolled in the muddiest areas: T was a mud monster requiring less a robust grooming brush than a hammer and chisel. We got a decent warmup in; although he was quite distracted he settled and relaxed before Mandy arrived and we had what turned out to be a great lesson. A moment's excitement when Sid was trying to cover his car with a car cover, which set T off - he scuttled forward but only to the end of the rein and that was that. What a good lad. Have resolved to have a lesson every week now so very much looking forward to that.
Afterwards, removed the harrow from the girls' winter paddock, took the opportunity to harrow their current paddock, rearranged the temporary electric fence to section it off, called Sid and Knickers to come and witness, and let the girls out into their new pasture. Oh! the big trots and tails right up over their backs, what a beautiful sight. We don't often get to see them move but when they do they really go for it! Wow. It took about 5 seconds for Q to spot the new development and about the same for T. Poor Q was doing his Best Trot (TM) up and down the fence and the girls were alternatively trotting around larging it up, and stopping to graze, ignoring him utterly and in my view, quite ostentatiously. Left them to it, went to clean out their shelter and wrestle the muck heap into submission, feed round and retreat indoors to:
* build two fires
* chop a shedload of onions
* take a shower
* vacuum
* light loads of candles
just in time for Liz and Tim to arrive for dinner. We haven't seen them for ages and it was really good to catch up over an excellent bouillabaisse (Sid), bangers and bubble & squeak with red wine onion gravy and spinach (me and Knickers) and sticky toffee pudding (Knickers) plus lashings of wine and a roaring fire. Fab night, ate way too much and had a good giggle :)
A very busy, productive and enjoyable day.
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