Andrew had a job interview on Wednesday and I tagged along with him.  If he is offered the job it comes with a house but the only downside is that the house is in town, about 5 minutes drive from the farm.  The house looks beautiful (I didn't get a pic, sorry) but it has no gardens and is in the middle of a street so we will have alot of neighbours.

 The farm is in the Cotswolds, kind of like the Hunter Valley with its beautifully groomed paddocks and picturesque scenery.  And very wealthy estate owners.

Farm shed, milking parlour & office

My handsome hubby wishing I'd bugger off while he psyches himself up for a job interview

Cow being groomed by a giant hairbrush

Oh yes....  that's the spot...

Can't forget the tail can we now?

Inside the shed where the cows are "housed" during the winter.  The most impressive shed I've ever seen.  There are scrapers that periodically muck the shit out of the sheds, the cows have individual beds that are filled with sawdust, giant fans suspended from the roof to keep a good airflow, and of course the giant hairbrushes to keep the cows looking pretty.

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It was bright and sunny this morning so I decided to take advantage of it and tackle the vegie patch a bit more.  I weeded the patch in the foreground, and even though it is larger than the patch at the rear, it took less time to weed.  It's a shame the sun didn't stay out a bit longer for the photo.

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Andy & Nat came to visit us today, and they gave me this perfectly lovely gardenia scented candle set as a birthday present.  I've already put the set on display in our kitchen on the window where our dining table is.

We sat in the lounge room sipping mocha and eating chocolate croissant, talking about Christmas shopping and admiring my home made candles in the fireplace.

I only had 45 minutes to spruce the house up before they arrived so I lit the candles and put out some Christmas pressies that I haven't got around to wrapping yet.  If you think that reindeer looks terrified now, just wait til he sees Jack (the dog next door) on Christmas day!  We decided that, as Jack has befriended us and he's really quite harmless, we would buy him the reindeer toy and a chewy treat.  Jack's owner Charlie will be getting a nice big tin of Fox's biscuits.

Now that my 2nd order of wax and wick has arrived, over the next few day I will be making more candles as Christmas presents for friends and family.  I can't believe how easy they are to make, I really wish I'd started this years ago.

If you've noticed something strange happening....

I have just been having fun trying out new templates on this blog.  I found a website where I can download free blog backgrounds (just click on the link in the top left corner of this page or type the address into the address bar), and I just can't make my mind up which one I like best.  So be warned that there might just be a new background every time you visit!

While the rain held off today I managed to get a little bit more gardening done, I have finished the 2nd 1/2 of the garden bed at the front of the house and took away a big wheelbarrow full of weeds.  Yesterday I had two wheelbarrows' worth of scrambling roses, blackberry, English ivy, nettles and goodness knows what else.  It is starting to make quite a nice burn pile!

Then I started scraping the footpath with a square mouthed shovel to lift up all the moss and grass that had almost covered the concrete.  I think doing that was more exhausting than pruning and pulling weeds, I felt stiff and sore for the rest of the day and I'd only worked for about an hour.  The war has only just begun on the garden though, I'm sure the blackberry will be back in force by spring.  I even found it growing directly out of the stone wall - the mongrel stuff will grow anywhere.

So the garden is looking quite forlorn now as there isn't much left of it - just a few clumps of grasses, some snowdrops that I accidentally started chopping into with my new garden hoe (pffft!  that's what the Poms call a garden hoe, but it's a tiny little thing compared to the big hoes we can buy in Australia - where's a Bunning's when I need one??), some nasturtiums that are growing in a big wooden trough and some gnarled old shrub that I have pruned back so hard there is probably one twiggy little branch left on it.  I'll give it til late spring to start getting shrubby or it will be mulch!

And after all that talk about gardening, disappointingly I have no pic.  I will try to post one tomorrow.

Gardening

Today's forecast was for a fine day - the sun was meant to peek through the clouds for a while this afternoon but all I've seen is white cloud.  It has been ok for gardening so I've been outside to do a little bit of weeding and tidying up.


I bought some Fiskar pruners last week for our mowing day, and the pruners seized up within 15 minutes of use!  So I took them back to the hardware and exchanged them for a new pair a few days later.  Only for exactly the same thing to happen this morning!


I went back to the hardware store, exchanged them again but for a different brand this time (cheaper store brand) and what do you know, they are fine.


I managed to get some weeding and pruning done eventually, but I don't have any pics to show you, I'm not inspired enough by the little progress I've made.


With my £8 refund in price difference for the faulty pruners I was able to buy 3 red glass tealight holders and a bag of 50 tealight candles.  The daft thing is though....  I don't have anything to light them with!  I just didn't think about it.  So once I have a lighter, I'll light the candles and take a piccy to add to this post.

Gardening, shopping, entertaining

Andrew's best mate Andy came over on Saturday to help mow the lawn and tidy up the garden, as it hadn't been touched in a few months and consequently looked like a jungle.  Luckily we had good weather and got alot done, because on Sunday it poured with rain.

I took Andrew's mum Pam into Shaftesbury to do some shopping before helping the boys in the garden.  There was a market in the town hall (pictured below) so we had a quick browse around and I bought a verrrry yummy Lemon Drizzle Cake for £2.75 and brought it home to share with the boys for afternoon tea.

Shaftesbury high street with the town hall on the right (if you can't see the whole pic due to the size of your PC monitor, you might have to click on the photo)

Copyright  © Joe Dunckley

Shaftesbury's high street has lots of lovely shops that I haven't explored yet, but there is alot to look at.  There is a butcher, a few jewellers, a pharmacy, a few charity shops, cafes, gift stores, clothing stores and a fantastic kitchenware store where I'll be able to buy just about anything I need for my kitchen (including a shortbread dish for you Suse  - just like the one I saw in Bath!  I think it was £10.75 in the shop in Shaftesbury).

Last night we had Helen, Paul and Zach over to dinner, and to keep with the family theme we had some beautiful Welsh lamb which was supplied from Andrew's 2nd cousin Gareth's organic farm, Tyn-y-Coed (translates to House in the Woods), in Wales.  I don't have any pics to show, but the lamb was cooked to perfection and was so tender that it fell off the bone.  There wasn't a scrap left by the time we finished!!  Sorry to tease, but I promise that if any of my readers come to visit me, I will cook a Welsh lamb roast for you.

How's that for bribery.