What do real men use?

To moisturise?

Ask Reinhold Messner who has just bought out his own skincare range.

For those non climbers amongst you, this man is in my books the greatest mountaineer ever to live. First unassisted (no oxygen) ascent of Everest, first to climb all 14 '8000'ers' - so on and so forth. The man is a legend.

and now he has lovely soft skin.

Ahem.

Fergie

As I type, N is on the phone getting an insurance quote for the other woman in his life (Fergie TE-D 20). I say 'other' but sometimes even he admits that given a choice... I said it was nice that he had a thing for older women.

We were getting her documents ready last night and discovered that she's actually 'come home'. Registered first time around in Kincardineshire in 1949! Anyhoo, its going to cost eighty pounds a year to insure her. Not bad for all the work she does now plus future running about and the odd ploughing match. He doesn't have a plough yet so am just waiting...

Actually to be honest, I take the mickey out of him for liking ploughing matches - y'know loads of blokes in boilersuits standing around whispering about Sandy's furra's but when you come down to it, its bloody hard when you get to that level. Especially with the vintage gear they use.

Which wasn't that vintage when I used to drive it.

I feel old.

Interesting..

beans means....
Originally uploaded by TheNeepster

..and ecologically sound. A mates washing machine packed in but instead of ditching it they've recycled it - and the door became quite a good looking bowl!

Thinking about 2008...

Old garden June 06
Originally uploaded by J_C_H

I know, its only a couple of days away and I shouldn't be wishing days away but I mean 'generally'. Since moving here in Feb 2007 we've done precisely er...nothing. Ok, so we've set up the business, moved in, both been working fulltime, looking after the kids....but apart from that, hardly anything...

So, first on the list of Things To Do in 2008 is approach the local Laird for some land. We're looking at the 6 acres behind the house. Its fenced/walled on all sides with 2 sides also being sheltered by mixed woodland. We've direct access via the drive. We've made first contact anyway. See how it goes.

The veg patch is number two on the list. It will be in the lower part of the front garden nearest the river and is probably twice the size of our last veg patch, if not more. I've been strimming the whole area to keep the grass and weeds down, and keep the fruit trees clear, during the summer. It will need some serious rotavating.

Speaking of fruit - as far as we can make out, we have two apples trees - one cooker and one eating, one damson tree (which produced a bumper crop and got turned into a million jars of jam), redcurrants and raspberries. The entire drive is also lined with brambles (more jam....) and we planted about two dozen strawberry plants.

Theres also a wide variety of herbs - sages, rosemary, lavender and chives to name a few. Also have the indoor plants which are sitting in the greenhouse right now.

The greenhouse produced a glut of tomatoes this year (our one major success) and kept providing right into November despite serious neglect in the summer (while I was away). Also grew courgettes, some greens and beans and tried peppers but ther latter didnt take off as well as we'd hoped (they died..).

Incidentally - thats the old greenhouse above. The new one is four or five times the size. Eeek!

Anyway - thats roughly what we want to repeat this year only on a larger scale. We don't intend to even try to meet all our vegetable needs (oooer) in the first year but we will try to meet at least 50% of them.

IF we get the land, some of it will be dedicated to tatties and some to a couple of pigs. If theres room left, we've decided on a couple of sheep too. That, along with the chooks we have already and are breeding from (we've 6 Light Sussex hens and 2 cockerels) and the game we get locally should provide us with a fair chunk of our meaty needs.

Thats the plans anyway......

Merry Christmas

Christmas Day dawned bright and bloody cold in Deeside. I was up before anyone else to stick the turkey in the oven. Plan was to get all the cooking prep out of the way then take full advantage of the peace and quiet and go for a run alongside the river. As per the 'best laid plans....etc' didn't quite work out like that but I can say, hand on heart, this was the most relaxed Christmas I've had in a very long time. Perhaps it was because it was our first xmas in a house with any-form-of-efficient-heating and therefore negated the need for full winter kit while peeling sprouts or perhaps it was because we made no plans and just did our own thing - don't know.



The chickens even added to the festive spirit by laying their first egg. I got all biblically anthropomorphic about it all of course...