New Year

We celebrated New Year's Eve with a game of Cluedo using Charles' adaptations to extend the game, as in addition to having to work out the room, person and weapon, he has extra cards for the time of day and motive - it was great :-) so Amber won having deduced it was Mrs Peacock, in the lounge, with the rope, in the early evening, due to insanity...

I have been doing some knitting in front of the television, and managed to complete my beehive tea cosy. I wanted to make a little one as I'm not following a pattern, so there would be less to unpick when inevitably went wrong. Anyway, I need to modify the pattern a bit and work out the decreasing rather better, but as a first attempt, I am quite pleased:

The weather has been awful this afternoon but we did pop over to Arundel while it was still fairly bright. We saw 4 snipe and the usual selection of ducks, like these lovely shelducks:

The girls had great fun in the cafe sticking all their straws together, whilst Charles and I watched very miserable-looking gadwall, mallards, tufted ducks and pochard sitting in the lake with the rain pouring down on them.

We called in at the antique bookshop on the way home:

I bought a book called 'The Complete Stitch Directory' for knitting, crochet, embroidery and needlepoint, and the girls each got a book too.

Yesterday I had moved the dustbath/perchery station that the hens have so far studiously ignored, and put it in the garden so the chicks at least could use it - they perch on anything. However, all the hens have discovered that the bike port is dry:

Hmm.

I have had a bit of a rough run with my chicken-owning over the last few days. Daisy, one of my original four hens, developed sour crop and after a consultation with the vet, we agreed the kindest thing would be for her to be put to sleep. Then yesterday, Maud suffered a prolapse, and given that it would be more than likely to happen again, she also had to be put down. I felt pretty rotten to be honest. I have decided to wait until the end of January when the local supplier at Martins Wood Farm gets a new supply of hybrids, and go and choose some then.

The children have just left to have 24 hours with their dad, so I have a night off. I've got Charlie Bighams steak and ale pies ready to go in to the oven and there are a couple of good programs on tv so I have my knitting at the ready for an evening on the sofa, on the right hand side so I don't jab Charles with my elbow :-)

Happy New Year everyone!