Poor Mrs Hen!

So here I am, on a Tuesday morning just waiting to leave to collect my jet setting daughter from Heathrow.  I learnt over night via Twitter that she was delivered to JFK in a stretch limo, as you do, and from Facebook that she has added some more electric ink to her small but perfectly formed body.  And what have I been doing?? Oh yes … I have just walked back in the house from my latest mission of trying to catch my chicken, Mrs Hen, who is showing signs of being poorly.  I don’t think it has anything to do with the baked beans she ate on Sunday, so I referred to my daily life curing manual and ultimate encyclopedia of life.. GOOGLE!  Loads of other chicken owners, many of them possibly fanatics/nutters from America, post on a chat allotment website and a smallholdings site “the essential tool for Smallholders“, and I think from what they are chatting about she may have ‘Sour Crop‘.  So to cut a long story short, after a mad chase around the paddock, I got her back into her nesting box, managed with the assistance of a willing helper (my husband, who is desperately trying to leave for work in his suit!).  After accidently shutting her foot in the door, I held her upside down by her feet hoping that some foul smelling fluid would slip out of her beak (that’s what the chat room said would happen!), but alas, my tactical chunder stunt wasn’t quite as effective as I had been led to believe.  Another site said put some Apple Cider Vinegar into her water, and give her live natural yoghurt and garlic .. shame for both of us that I hadn’t read this handy tip first!

 

Anyway, just checked the British Airways  website and the BA182 is due a little bit earlier than schedule, so poor Mrs Hen will have to wait for her next appointment with the in-house vet!!

 

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GOODBYE MUFFIN TOPS!

Spring has definitely sprung when I look around my garden and beyond.  Snow drops are blooming, daffodils are appearing, my chickens are laying more eggs than they have in the last 6 months, I saw a blue tit going into my nesting box earlier,  and all the shops are selling Cadburys Cream Eggs!  However, an arctic blast is forecast from the East, and snow is due by the end of the week so lets hope nature hasn’t peaked too soon!

Another hectic weekend started on Friday with our final birthday lunch which I hosted, to mark the end of a week long celebration of my daughters 21st birthday.  I pulled a few cheat recipes out of the bag, and for pudding I made a super simple banoffee pie with a secret ingredient form Marks and Spencers which is Salted Caramel Sauce …  no longer do you need to boil a can of condensed milk for 3 hours .. it’s so easy and this was the end result:

Yesterday I reluctantly agreed to accompany my youngest daughter on her mission in search of a dress for her pending Summer Leavers Ball.  There is so much hype surrounding this evening and the latest craze is for these 15 year old girls to order dresses made to measure from the USA for a hideous amount of money.  There is pressure to have your hair, make-up and nails done professionally and to achieve that all round orange ‘tangoed’ glow, you can get a fake bake too!  The final touch is a stretch limo to your venue, which our case is at Wotton House which less than a mile from our home!

WOTTON HOUSE

Well being a girl who likes to keep things real, I am allergic to all this peer pressure, so I agreed to go on an exploratory  trip to Guildford to see if there were any bargains left in the January Sales.  Well I am happy to report that there were some awesome price reductions, however not on the dress that she wanted!  I melted when I saw my baby in the  most elegantly stunning floor length dress and willingly got out my credit card … after all it was the first dress she tried on, and was perfect, and meant that my dreaded shopping trip would be over before it had started!  Thank you House of Fraser for the perfect result, and all the family approve of the dress, apart from one of her sisters, who said “it makes your boobs look big, and you look too skinny” which in my eyes was the seal of approval she was looking for!

And now it is Sunday …  I am just about to prepare our roast, and I have some crumble topping and home grown Bramleys in the freezer, which reminds me ….  this is a label of some new undergarments that I saw outside the changing room in House of Fraser yesterday  ….  looks like something from Mrs Doubtfire though!!

HELLO APPLE AND BLUEBERRY CRUMBLE .. GOODBYE MUFFIN TOPS!!

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