Wildlife in January

Usual list of visitors, bird numbers have been all over the place this month, depending mainly on the weather. Highlights of the month are without doubt the red squirrel in the garden and slightly further afield - but still within striking distance of the house; husband had the absolute privilege to see a covey of English Partridge on the lonnin beyond the village. Also, I had a brief glimpse of a Hen Harrier, sitting quietly in a tree (the bird, not me), on the roadside.
The funniest sight award has to go to the covey of 21 red legged partridge who occasionally descend on us. Some fly, some waddle and some do a bit of both. Each and every one of them looks comical as they charge down the field.

Under The Floorboards.

As the bathroom renovations are pretty much finished, it's time to get ready for Gerry to come and fit the floors. The Bathroom floor is all ready to go, the wetroom floor is tiled, but the Hall floor needs replacing and that's where the fun is.



It might look OK. But laminate flooring is slippery, it scratches, it doesn't dry easily and it's noisy. Not really ideal when wet dogs paws and muddy boots are the most frequent things to come into contact with it. So while I have been swanning around on racehorses; Husband has been grafting.

Of course, when he found that there was a hole in the floorboard, he had to have a look!
We knew that there used to be ducted air heating in here, many years ago. What we didn't realise was how much space it was taking up under the floor!
It doesn't show in photos, but you can actually see from one side to the other and right from end to end. Just think how many bottles of wine we could store in there!
Another relic from the past, was a bit of carpet which was stubbornly protruding from under the stairs. It had been covered by the laminate, but needed dealing with. Nice!

Especially for Emma

Today has been a day of visitors. A friend was coming over for lunch and not long after her arrival, we had the first of many visits through the afternoon by a male Bullfinch.
Even better than that though....

Seeing red squirrels in the village is nothing new, but as they live on the other side of the road, none of the residents this side (not that there are many of us) feed them. The aim being that we are not encouraging them across the road. We had two road kills this summer and it is heartbreaking, so we don't want any more. Seeing one in our garden is pretty rare as a result.

This wee chap(ess) is probably from a late second litter. He/she is rather small and is probably struggling to survive the winter. He/she spent at least a couple of hours sitting here. Not normal squirrel behavior, but sadly not an uncommon situation. Many second litter kittens don't make it through the first winter.

Blinded By The Light

At last, we had a visit from the sparkies yesterday and got lights and an extractor in the wet room. We really are nearly there with the renovations now. Just flooring to sort out, which should hopefully happen in the next week or two.
Having electricians in the house all day gave me the perfect opportunity to make a start on a blind for the bathroom window. So. measuring, calculating, cutting, pinning, stiching, swearing and a bit more stiching; from dawn til dusk. Today it was Husbands turn to measure, mark, drill, cut, screw, swear, screw some more and then stand back and watch me struggle......


Finally, it's up and working!

All that work meant we just had to sit with a glass of wine an watch the sun set. By with not a cloud in the sky, the only colour other than blue was the orange contrails of passing air traffic. It's a tough job......

Looking After The Neighbours

We have a visitor this week. Buddy, our friends lab has come to stay for the week while they are in France. Buddy is a bit of a wimp. When I say a bit, I really mean a lot. He's a lovely dog, no bother at all to look after, and great fun, but he has a bit of an inferiority complex and an aversion to loud noises. Especially when they are made by The Red Thing.
Coming to stay is doing some good as we had all hoped. He is getting quite brave now, and will sneak past The Red Thing (with a lot of encouragement). At the beginning of the week it was a different story; if The Red Thing was in ear shot, Buddy did his best to hide.



Meanwhile The Red Thing tries out Buddy's bed. She always has liked pinching other dogs beds for some reason.

Fortunately Bud started to relax fairly quickly, and has made himself quite at home, pinching all The Red Thing's toys.

Water Pillow

A lot of rain in a short space of time has had an interesting effect in the ground behind our house. At first we thought there was a mound in the field that was standing out because water had collected around it.


Then we realised that it was a new mound





When we went into the field to investigate, we discovered that water was percolating through the ground and had lifted the turf to create a bubble effect. The best of it is, if you jump up and down on it, water squirts out of the side and it wobbles about like a bouncy castle!




And it gets better...... It apparently appeared last year, just before we moved in, so we'll get to play again another year!

Nearly, But Not Quite.

At last we are nearly there with the rufurb of the bathrooms. The last few weeks have seen the tiling completed in the wetroom - just in time for Christmas - and then finally this week, the second fix on the wetroom plumbing. It was completed yesterday, so the shower had it's inaugural run last night. YIPPEE!!

Now we need the Sparkies to come and second fix. In theory they will be here sometime this week. We'll see!

The towel rail needs it's dual fuel kit wiring in, we have no lights in there at the moment - just wire hanging through the ceiling. It's OK so long as the outside light is on, which is very conveniently situated just outside the window!

Oh and the extractor fan needs to go in where the green towel is stuffed in the wall.
The wetroom floor is tiled as you might expect, but the bathroom floor is ordered, along with new flooring for the hall. A friend in the next village is on standby to fit those when everything else is finished



Remember the floor former we had all the problems with due to concrete refusing to go off in the cold weather? Now you know what the letter box was for!

Winter Visitor

Today saw the first visit this winter of another of last winter's regulars. A Lesser Red Poll.

He's been back and forth since we first spotted him at lunchtime.

Not a bad view from the kitchen table!