Battening Down the Hatches

According to the Met Office, the high winds that we are currently experiencing are due to Storm Dudley. Apart from rescuing the olive tree in a pot at the front of the house that had been blown over during the night (it's a heavy pot too!), I have to say that I'm quite enjoying it so far. I've got all my necessary jobs that involved going outside out of the way and I'm now snuggled up indoors, wearing 2 sweaters and enjoying a cup of tea. I'm lucky to have the last item as our kettle went phut yesterday and we resorted to boiling water in a pan until R managed to work out how to remove the tamper-proof screws in order to fix it. All is well now, for the time being anyway; he's handy like that. All in all, it's rather cosy.

Apparently, Storm Eunice is following hot on the heels of Dudley, so it looks like being an interesting few days. Luckily, we have no plans for the weekend, so we can stay at home and ride it out.

Last weekend got off to a rather eventful start. I was reading my book in bed whilst R was having a shower, when I gradually became aware of an unusual noise. It sounded like the wooden gate at the side of the house being rattled. Either it was a rather useless burglar or one of next door's cats that squeeze underneath it on one of their usual routes had got stuck. Ignoring the fact that I was still in my pyjamas, I ventured outside to investigate. Unusually, there were 2 deer in the garden; a male and a female. I say unusually because whilst we're used to them pottering about out there and they ignore us if they see us through the window, generally, as soon as we go into the garden they disappear. This pair were different - they stood a few feet away on the grass and the male started barking. It occurred to me that they might have a baby and I was worried that, inadvertently, I may have got between it and them. I could imagine the headlines: 'Woman in pyjamas, gored by muntjac!'. I looked around but couldn't see a fawn. Then I thought that it might have squeezed under the gate and the parents couldn't get to it. The neighbours would have thought that I was potty if they had seen me telling the deer to 'wait there while I go and have a look'! The front garden was fawn-free as well, so I decided to ignore it, merely telling R that the deer were behaving weirdly that morning.

I had my shower and breakfast, did a few chores and, as we were going out for the day, made a picnic and then sat down for a quick cup of tea before we set off. Then, I heard the noise again. This time, we spotted it - a fawn had got itself stuck behind the log store at the side of the house. We assume that it had squeezed into the gap and then, being unable to reverse, it somehow scrabbled up to standing and then toppled backwards getting firmly wedged. What we saw was its little head sticking out, partly concealed by the Camellia. It was on its back with its legs in the air ( I think the hooves scrabbling against the wood was the noise that I heard). Its eyes were shut and we initially thought it might be dead - it must have been 2 hours since I had first noticed the noise. We ran outside and, donning gardening gloves, R tried to pull it out. Well, I don't know if you have heard a muntjac cry out but it's a really piercing scream. R was worried that he was hurting it - I don't think he was, it was just terrified, poor thing - so we decided that the only thing to do was empty the log store. The cries had brought the parents running and they stood watching as we emptied out the logs and then pulled the store forwards. In seconds the fawn, closely followed by the adults, dashed up the garden. They live underneath an old conifer near the river and I think they went there to recover from the ordeal.

I still can't decide whether the father deer had been 'doing a Lassie' and trying to tell me earlier that the baby was stuck. Either that or he just wanted me to keep away. They seemed to know that we were trying to help and didn't interfere when we unloaded the wood, so maybe they understood. At least we now have the wood pile more in order, with the older wood on top, so they did us a favour really.

Other events this month include:

Doing the RSPB Garden Bird Watch:

As you can see by the above photo, I'm not very good at photography and failed to take any in-focus shots of birds on the feeders. I think I get too excited and my hand jerks when I push the button. I did manage to get a shot of a red kite on a tree though:

We had numerous great tits, blue tits and mallards, along with a couple of nuthatches and various little brown jobs. Needless to say, the goldcrests, heron, woodpeckers and pheasants waited until my hour was up before putting in an appearance.

Sorting out my seeds for the new season. I still need to buy some aubergine seeds and compost:

Buying some new boots to replace the ones that fell apart in Jordan. The old ones have been downgraded to being my pottery boots - I forgot about their lack of waterproofing until I walked through a puddle on my way to class on Tuesday and suffered a wet foot as a consequence. My new ones are, wait for it .... children's Docs in a size 3! I'm usually a size 4 and have 2 other types of Doc Marten's in a size 4 that fit perfectly. The adult boots though swamped me and I was planning to go down to a size 3 when I spotted these in the children's section. They were £80 cheaper and also have a zip on the side which makes getting them on and off much easier, so I'm not proud!

The Acer tree that R bought me for Valentine's Day. Now I just need to decide where to put it and get it planted:

A trip to Chichester, where we had a very cold picnic in the Cathedral grounds.:

There was a brilliant second hand bookshop and I treated myself to a copy of Daphne Du Maurier's short stories.

A trip to Unravel - the yarn show held at The Maltings in Farnham:

I may have made a few sneaky purchases:

I had a little wander around the town afterwards and found the best shop!:

A trip to Harcourt arboretum near Oxford. We had a lovely, if chilly, wander round the trees. It is much smaller than Westonbirt but closer to home:

They also had incredibly tame peacocks:

We called in at Abingdon on the way back and had a delicious lunch at a Thai restaurant and a potter round the charity shops.

A trip to the Watermill Theatre to see a play about Spike Milligan. It was very enjoyable:

A short walk to Coombe Gibbet:

The wall hanging that we bought on the way down from the Monastery at Petra. It still smells faintly of wood smoke and I hope that it doesn't lose the smell entirely:

Finishing my travel knitting. It's a 'sockhead cowl' in Hufflepuff colours and the garter stitch made for a lovely relaxing knit, even if it does look a bit waspy!

A trip to nearby Littlecote Roman Villa to see the Orpheus mosaic:

Littlecote House is now a Warner Hotel and we sat in the grounds to eat our picnic, expecting a gardener to come along at any moment and tell us to clear off. Luckily, they didn't. 

My first attempt at sauerkraut. I rather liked it (although, if I'm honest, I'm not entirely sure what it is supposed to taste like). R though pronounced it 'really rather nasty'! :O)

Lastly, I'm gradually working my way through P G Wodehouse's books this year. L's collection is still on one of the bookcases in her bedroom, so I'm borrowing those. I did, however, interrupt Jeeves and Wooster to read 'The Salt Path' and its sequel 'The Wild Silence', both of which I really enjoyed and would recommend:

Well, that's it for this month. I hope you stay safe and warm in the coming few days, whilst Dudley and Eunice blow themselves out. Anything exciting going on at your end?

Toodle pip for now. x