Exciting Stuff

It was our home-ed Christmas Party at the hall today which was, er, loud but anyway, after a soothing cup of chamomile tea on arriving home, there was a knock at the door and my new feeder arrived and...the covered dustbath! I have put my electric screwdriver on to charge ready to assemble it tomorrow. I think the hens will love it, and they certainly need a place to bathe - Peggy especially looks rather filthy, mainly because Henry doesn't wipe his feet, if you know what I mean :-/

The treadle feeder looks really good and I put it out for the hens to try, with the treadle-y bit propped down with a plant pot so they get used to feeding from the hopper. Once they've got the hang of it I can remove the weight and they should learn that when they stand on the ramp, the flap lifts up and exposes the feed. I'm aware this assumes a certain level of intelligence that I'm not entirely sure my poultry possess but they were certainly intrigued:

So I hope they get used to it as it will save a lot of wasted feed and fat rats.

Then - great excitement - Laura took me out to Sarah Raven's place in Perch Hill as the Christmas shop was open. Dangerous, even with the 10% off. But we had a lovely time drinking in the stylish homewares and garden accoutrements, although we agreed that gorgeous though everything was, one had to place it in a realistic fashion given our lifestyles; the huge vase with mophead hydrangeas looked fantastic on the enormous wooden dining table in Sarah's conservatory but would probably look less so surrounded by cornflakes packets, bottles of Calpol and toast crumbs. Ditto the candlesticks/vases/tasteful trinkets....

I put my camera on charge before we left so that it didn't run out halfway round our visit but then forgot to take it at all. Laura has said she will email me some photos but it was very inspirational and I reckon I could pull off the sempervivs-in-terracotta-dishes-with-gravel that Ms Raven had placed on the table, and I did invest in a large pillar candle in a beautiful green that I think will work well for both Christmas and spring. A couple of seed packets did make their way in to the bag too - the cup and saucer plant, Cobea scandens and Tithonia 'Torch' (which are a bit like an orange Cosmos) so I am looking forward to sowing those. I also bought some hyacinths for forcing as they were in the 'reduced' bucket and £8 for 15 bulbs seemed pretty good.

What fun :-)