Doing the Rounds

It takes quite a while to perform the home farming duties at Much Malarkey Manor now, what with the various changes to hen accommodation and the addition of Pandora Trumpet Trousers to the equation.

Up at 6, it's open the South Wing, refill Slocombe/Poo water bowl, check status of food and replenish as necessary. Check nest box for eggs and state of straw. Then into the North Wing, open up the Dowager Cottage, refill Pumphrey/Miggins water bowl, check status of food and replenish if necessary. Add extra oyster shell and grit for Miggins. Check nest box for eggs and state of straw. Check hen health - feathers growing, eyes clean and bright, all clucking, all bottoms where they should be. Pick lettuce from Miggins's raised veg bed and add to chicken breakfast.

Water greenhouse plants. Check outdoor plants (Mother Nature is watering them at the moment so that saves me a job.) Pinch out side shoots of tomato plants, pick strawberries from hanging baskets.

Back in doors, it's refill cat water bowl and feed Tybalt and Phoebe. Into my writing room, release Pandora from her sleeping quarters, change litter, feed her kitten food. Chase after Pandora into kitchen as she turns nose up at kitten food in favour of proper grown up cat food. Swap grown up cat food bowl with kitten food bowl. Pandora eats. Phoebe returns for round two breakfast. Swap kitten food bowl for proper grown up cat food bowl. Pandora decides she hasn't had quite enough breakfast so swap grown up cat food bowl for kitten food bowl.

Pause to give back a rub. (Mine, not the cats.)

Tybalt wanders in. He has decided he likes kitten food. Swap kitten food bowl for grown up cat food bowl. Tybalt gives it a sniff and walks off with his nose in the air. Will return later when I've lost track of which bowl is currently available to which cats, in the hope of catching me out and getting the kitten food.

(We play swap the cat food bowls ALL DAY. I'm going to stop describing the whole rigmarole now as I think you've got the gist and are probably getting bored.)

Today was 'stir up the wormery' day. Generally, I find that engaging worms in a discussion about neo-classical art versus the merits of Picasso gets them sufficiently stirred up (the worms' eye view favours Picasso) but thought I ought to do the job properly today. Fetch wormery, don rubber gloves, give it all a good stir to add oxygen, add crushed up egg shells (you should see the size of the teeth on these worms - it's amazing what a bit of added calcium can do) , top off with fresh layer of damp newspaper, chuck in some more waste food (this morning - carrot peelings, a mouldy tomato, broccoli stalk and a couple of tea bags for luck), check sump and replace wormery.

And on top of all this, I am having to plan, very carefully, our meals for the week, nay FOREVER. This is because my brother, who is younger than me, had just been diagnosed with diabetes and has therefore flung me into another dread and fear panic vis a vis my health, Andy's health, everybody's health, we're all going to die, I'll never meet my grandchildren unless our spirits cross in the ether whilst I'm going up to heaven and they are coming down, oh my God, we're all DOOOOOOOOOMED!! I called Heather yesterday who is ill and sounds awful. I said 'Go to the doctor, just so I can be reassured you haven't got dengai fever or however you spell it.' I shall be calling her later today to check she has followed orders and woe betide her if she hasn't.

So I'm trying to make sure Andy and I eat healthy well-balanced meals. I mean, REALLY trying, and not trying for a bit and then giving up and eating cake. Poor Andy. Not only is he highly stressed at work at the moment (I know this because he was on the interwebbly looking at jobs on Monday night and it is a rare thing for him to do this. He also mentioned moving to France again so things must be bad), he can't come home and eat cake for comfort.

'Have a yogurt,' I say, 'or a banana. Bananas are good for potassium which is good for your blood pressure,' but I can see in his eyes that neither yogurt or banana, no matter how much potassium it contains, is no recompense for a slice of chocolate chip and banana cake, or lemon cake, or chocolate fudge cake. It's been like looking at a starving puppy dog.

So here I am at nearly 10 a.m and I haven't even started writing yet. I've been given another book title by the writing genie, which is - 'Merrily, Kissed by An Angel' - which I had to start over the weekend despite 'Indigo Antfarm, Violet and Blue' being only half complete, because when I get given a title, the writing genie makes me sit down and write, write, write on the back of the new title until I've got at least 3,000 words under the belt, just so I don't lose the idea. (This would make the writing genie tut and sigh and say, 'Am I wasting my breath?') And I must remember to do some more anatomy revision today, too.

My cousin popped in for a visit yesterday. 'Don't you get bored, being at home on your own all day?' she asked.

I nearly fell off my chair laughing.