Greetings from the sick

Oh do stop sneezing. Bless you! Bless you again!
Now TAKE US FOR A WALK!

Perhaps it is because I said, maybe once too often, how lucky we were to have managed to avoid any nasty bugs this winter.

Yes, H9 and R7 had succumbed to the occasional bout of cold, flu, vomiting bug and earache, but us grown-ups had remained remarkably and gratefully bug-free.

Until last week.

And the week before come to think of it.

The past fortnight has been one long sniffly, snuffly, sneezy, achy, vomity blast of unfriendly bugs. We've been too grumpy, too tired, too hot, too cold and just too plain ill.

Life, of course, has carried on as normal. Animals need to be fed and walked and (at this time of year) midwifed. Children need to be fed and taken to school and parties and Adran and Brownies. In between times us two grown-ups have taken it in turns to be spaced out in bed or asleep on the sofa. At least we've had each other to sympathise.

It will pass. Today the sun is shining, more lambs have been born, there's a stable to be mucked out, lambs to move from the pen into the mucked-out stable (they grow so fast!) and things to sow and plant.

The F1 lambs #1

In previous years we've had half-hearted or accidental themes for the names of our lambs. We've tried the practical such as cuts of meat (we still have the cuddly Chops) - and we've had spring flowers (Daffodil, Snowdrop etc). We've had the whimsical Baary and Woolly and we have used identifying marks such as Patch, Red Dot and One Spot. We've had Horse (because she was huge) and Peanuts because she had little horns like... well, I'm sure you get the picture.

This year, however, we are organised. This year the lambs are being named after Formula One drivers in the order they finished in last year's world championships (I'm a bit of an F1 fan). So, as their namesakes raced in circles in the 2011 season opener in Melbourne, we eagerly awaited the arrival of Number One.

Sebastian.

Don't be put off by the sleepy appearance. Sebastian arrived fast, alone, efficient and first. By miles. Eventually followed by:

Fernando and Alonso.

No problems. No drama. Fernando and Alonso just got the job done. They are expected to make good solid progress and provide no cause for concern.

Mark and Webber.

Mark and Webber arrived okay but they now are restless. They seem unhappy with their current accommodation and keep making angst-ridden bids for freedom. At the moment they're inclined to bother Fernando and Alonso and bleat at whoever will listen.

Lewis and Hamilton.

Lewis made a big splash with his arrival in the rain at 11pm last night closely followed by his sister Hamilton. He crashed out of the lambing pen and ended up covered in mud, becoming separated from his parent in the process. Now reunited with his family he's doing really well and is showing impressive bursts of energy and enthusiasm.

More to follow...

Open letter to BT

Dear BT,

Thank you for the problem with the Maenclochog exchange last Thursday which deprived the village and the entire surrounding area of its broadband connection.

Thank you for saying that it could not possibly be a widespread problem as you had not had enough complaints. Thank you for not taking into account that this is a sparsely populated rural area so it was impossible to reach the mythical number you required. Perhaps you should have counted the pupils at the school and the customers of the Post Office on an individual basis.

Thank you for the continued instruction on how to remove the front of the telephone socket inside my house. I keep unscrewing it to look but a test socket has still not magically appeared. Thank you for reminding me to turn my PC off and on again and to unplug my telephone for the afternoon.

Thank you again for telling me to replace my router and microfilter. Both were working perfectly but I understand you require me to drive the 30 miles to Carmarthen to spend £60 on replacements just to be sure.

Thanks also for the threat of a big bill when the BT engineer calls round and finds the non-existent problem with the telecommunication equipment inside my house. I told you the problem was external just as it was last time but I understand I am a clueless woman and you know better. Thank you also for confirming that my telephone line is working perfectly because obviously I couldn't work this out for myself when I dialled my ISP to report the problem.

Thank you for sending out an engineer to begin visiting my neighbours on an individual basis because, obviously, all of our routers, microfilters and PCs mysteriously failed all at the same time.

But I save my biggest thanks for the engineer who drove to the exchange and fixed the problem. It turned out that it was a fault at the exchange after all. Who'd have thought huh?

Just one more thing.

I TOLD YOU SO.

Kind regards.

Pointless exercise

The phone rang the other day which was an event in itself because the land line is largely redundant and ignored in favour of the mobile, text and email versions of contacting people.

"Hello?" I said in a friendly and welcoming manner.

"Hello I'm an irritating person ringing on behalf of something-I-don't-remember (but it was a government department) to ask you if you wouldn't mind spending a few minutes answering a pointless and tedious survey," is approximately what the voice said the other end said.

"Um, er, how many minutes?" said I.

"Ten," said the voice using the sort of maths I apply when eating 'a few' biscuits.

"Okay," I replied, instantly regretting it but being too polite to say what I wanted to which was no, go away, bog off and never phone me again.

"I just need to ask a few questions first to check we're covering a sample of the population," said the voice happily and proceeded to ask a list of very personal questions about age, gender and how many adults and children live at this address.

I answered reluctantly. How many more minutes of this? I wished I'd timed it.

"Now to make sure we're covering a random selection of the population I need to ask the survey questions to the other adult who lives in your household," the voice continued.

"I beg your pardon?" YOU WHAT???!!!

"I need to talk to the other adult, your husband," the voice said as if talking to a simpleton.

I summoned the fury of a woman scorned.

"He's not available," I said. "He's at work."

"Can I ring back at a more convenient time?" the voice carried on hatefully.

"No," I replied. How dare you reject me after all these minutes. It's me or nothing. "He won't talk to you and he doesn't like telephone surveys anyway so there's no point you ringing back."

"Oh," said the voice, crestfallen.

"Goodbye." SLAM. Mutter. No wonder this country is going to the dogs. How much did that all cost? How much are they paying that idiot to do that?

RING RING (actually it's more of an electronic tinkly tinkly tink...) but anyway...

"HELLO." This can't be good. The phone only rings with idiots and pointless surveys. I'm not going to even think about being friendly this time.

"Hello, this is Kylie Minogue calling on behalf of Practical Classics. Can I speak to Mr Preseli Mags please?"

"NO HE'S AT WORK."

"No worries." (She really was Australian.) "I'll call back another time."

LIKE HELL YOU WILL.

I drew myself up to my full height.

"Just wait one moment. My husband isn't interested in whatever it is you are selling. He does NOT have a classic car. He does NOT want a subscription to your magazine so please take his details OFF your database and DON'T CALL AGAIN!" SLAM.

I'm thinking of having the phone disconnected. Really I am.

How to grow your own hens

Dig a trench. Place hens in trench about a foot apart...

Of course I'm joking! These are two of our lovely new Calder Rangers assisting me with the planting of the first early potatoes. The problem was, with their enthusiastic scratching for bugs, they filled the trench in almost as fast as I could dig it. We got it done in the end though.

My next task was clearing the weeds from one of the other beds. I sat on the wooden edge and three of the hens all but sat on my lap so keen were they to grab the first worm.

It's a long time since we've had hens this friendly. The last lot were ex-batts and were too traumatised to be cuddly, although they loved a good chat. These four won't leave me alone when I'm in the garden. They follow my fingers as I weed and lean their fluffy chests forward on to my legs when they scratch at the earth with their feet, all the while encircled by my busy arms. It makes it difficult to see what I'm doing but I don't mind.

I won't leave these charming creatures out loose and unsupervised though - we've lost too many hens to foxes that way - so at 5pm when I have to go in a cook dinner they have to go back into their coop. With previous hens that would have involved chasing and squawking. These four I just pick up and pop back into the run with a few tasty treats as a reward.

Spoilt? You bet they are.

Bathing der Schnauzer

Schmell? Vot schmell?

Das wasser ist varm.

Close der eyes.

Schteamy.

Ist dry now.

Vat? I ist duck? Oh der schame.

The Gallery: Trees

This week's The Gallery theme at Tara's Sticky Fingers blog is trees. It dawned on me yesterday, as I ambled around the farm looking at and photographing some of the hundreds of trees we have here, just how we rely on them as sentinels.

At the moment I'm studying them hard for signs of spring. The days are sunny but still chilly and only the hazels are showing signs of life with catkins hanging from their branches like little lambs tails. All of the other trees, including the mighty oaks and this ash, are still firmly closed up for winter, the branches like arms and fingers tracing shapes against the sky.

From time to time they fall down and provide a sudden burst of hard work and a lot of firewood, like last Easter Sunday. We moved our Easter egg hunt from the garden to the fields and spent the day hiding and finding chocolate eggs among the branches.