Monday January 23rd 2023: It’s still bloody cold outside 🥶 I can’t wait for it to warm up a bit, the areas in the shade are not even thawing out during the daytime at the minute. Mentally I am ready to get on with the work outside but physically I know my hands and feet will suffer so I am holding off.
Apparently between 5 & 6pm tonight there will be a big demand on energy due to the cold weather, if you are signed up (and you need a smart meter) you can get paid to reduce your consumption considerably during this hour. Even if you are not signed up perhaps it would be a good idea to help reduce the load anyway, going forward I think we will be seeing a lot more of this kind of request. We are quite careful with our energy consumption but there is always more we could and should be doing. One problem I find is that the damn plugs for everything are always behind the appliances meaning it is difficult if not impossible to get to some of them and switch them off at the wall.
Tuesday: Still cold 🥶 around -8 last night and I am officially sick of the freezing temps now lol. Luckily there is nice bright blue sky and sunshine today but it still feels very cold indeed.
I had a phone call mid afternoon from a vet to say that someone had picked up Mia on the road near the Cotswold wildlife park and taken her to them. This is so weird, Mia never goes anywhere as a general rule. The only time she has run off before is when I used the staple gun and we soon realised that she didn’t like that noise and so were always careful to shut her in if anything like that was ever going to be used. So for her to have not only run off but to have gone so far down the way is odd. I imagine she has gone across the fields which eventually ends up on the A361, luckily she was just sat there, a man watched for a while to see if anyone was with her and decided they weren’t so put her in his car and took her to the nearest vets. The horses were also a bit frisky in the paddock so I am wondering if there was something or someone out there 🤷♀️ but I couldn’t see anything at all. I will have to watch her all the time now for a while just to make sure she doesn’t do it again. It could have been that she heard me talking to John about giving her a bath last night 😂 she really needs one but it’s a bit cold at the minute.
Thursday: It’s definitely a little warmer than of late but not much, the sun made a splendid appearance though which was a welcome sight. I have been keeping a very close eye on the dog and I have had to call her for quite a while a least once. Goodness knows what she is up too but is obviously in the furthest part of the farm 🤷♀️ Charlie and Oscar visited today, they are looking after the place tomorrow through to Saturday while we go away over night. Sam also came over and we popped to town for a mooch and a coffee. Once back home I sorted out the Guinea pig who is on his lonesome now his friend has died and sorted the horses water as well as plenty of other general jobs before the twins arrived for their Thursday sesh. Last night I had a zoom meeting for an hour and a half and I have another one tonight on growing flowers in the polytunnel. There is plenty of info out there about growing veg in a tunnel but very little on extending the flower season in a tunnel, something something that the group I am with is trying to change 😁
Friday: We went away overnight, not very far but it was nice to do something different. We went to Chipping Cambden which is only about 40 minutes away, never been there before but it is a delightful Cotswold town full of lovely old buildings, boutique shops and places to eat. It is definitely worth a visit if you are ever in the area and I can recommend the Eight Bells for great food, great service and great atmosphere.
Saturday: We retuned home just before lunchtime, Charlie and Macca had been looking after the place and done a great job. We had the afternoon to sort ourselves out before Josh and Florence came over at tea time for a sleep over.
Sunday: I haven’t done much today apart from a few rounds of breakfast
frieslandfarm (flowers) 