Badminton Horse Trials

 Every year I carry my camera round the whole time and never seem to take many pictures!  The first thing we did when we arrived was a nice big picnic under a shady tree - it was unbelievably hot, everyone had to buy hats!  So we were a big group - nine of us!  Lindsey, Emma, Jess, Giles, Hattie, Fran, Sammie, Ann and me!

 Another food themed picture!  Frozen yoghurt, I think you can tell how hot we are!

XC day, this is the Colt Pond, we walked the XC course twice on Sunday, Giles had a pedometer, he said he had walked 13 miles and he only did the course once.  It was 4.5 miles long so I must have done about 17!!!! No wonder we were all exhausted, dinner on the last night was a very quiet affair!  Of course it was all great fun and we really enjoyed it!

My new office chair

My old office chair has finally given up the ghost, I have also been trying to get John to buy a new chair for himself as well.  John's chair was listing badly to one side and it is only now he has got a new one that he realised how bad it was!  John found both of our chairs on ebay, his is very posh, black split cow hide with contrasting stitching, mine is described as "milk" it is a lovely cream leather.  I don't know how long it will stay looking like this..... To me it looks like a chair that should be in a very smart room with only a glass topped desk and a sculpture in the corner!  I feel like I should be the one giving orders sitting in it!  Needless to say I am very happy and comfortable now! 

Enjoying a week with my Dad.

I had a lovely week last week when my Dad came to visit, unfortunately for Dad it was not for a holiday as he was put to work as soon as he got here!  Dad very kindly agreed to overhaul the engine on the ginger car to prepare her for our summer adventures - there was a lot to do!  So we got into our matching orange boiler suits and got to work!

 Here we are (with Belle) posing with the cows in the background!  Yes John has taken the side out of the stables and actually took over two stables for his car!  I still have the other stables but its meant to be a horse living in there not a car!!!

 John and Dad on the way to a tea break, we didn't have many, Dad likes to just get on with the job with no distractions!  The weather was lovely and sunny apart from one day when it rained and it was freezing!

 My best little helper Belle, she is such a happy girl!

 Kara and Jess snoozling while they wait for Dad and John to finish - you can see Dad and John's feet!

 Concentrating!  John had just arrived home from work so hadn't actually done anything, if you look closely you can see his hands are far to clean...

 Putting some air in the new tyres, Jess is fast asleep in the sunshine.  This is 8pm on Sunday night, we had just finished after working non stop since Tuesday morning!

The finished engine with shiny new air intake and rocker covers.  I now know most of the parts of the engine, John tested me when I showed him this picture.  The conversation went like this; John "whats that?" (pointing) Me "the coil" John "and that?" Me "the distributor cap" John "this?" Me "the roundy roundy thing???" John "the what??? - your supposed to know this - now think you do know"  Me "erm its the roundy roundy thing thats the official name - in my head anyway!"  John "ITS THE ALTERNATOR!!!!"  Well at least I will never forget it again!!!

My little old man

 I thought my little old man was really starting to feel his age in the last couple of weeks, he didn't want to go out much, then yesterday he went out walked across the field and then came charging back flat out!  He certainly surprised me, he didn't look ancient!  So he must be feeling the spring air and it has put a bounce back into his step!

 This is Sam's new place to sleep on the back of the sofa, he makes himself very comfortable and when the sun comes out he is in the right place to bask!  You can see a picture of Danny going XC with Shane (the horse!) in the background!

Sam is still singing opera at every opportunity, he is really quite deaf now so I don't think he realises just how loud he is!  He still has all his attitude and the dogs all give him lots of respect so I think that does his ego good!

The view from my desk

 I have shown you the outside of KC INKS LTD http://www.kc-inks.co.uk/ I am not quite ready to show you the inside (need to tidy my desk!) but here is the views from my windows - yes I have two!  The picture above is looking down into Blackhall Yard, the tree is very beautiful in the summer, lots of people like to sit and enjoy the sunshine, not in March though!  I think I need to clean my desk AND the windows!

 It is bliss having such a nice view, our old office had no windows at all and it was like a goldfish bowl!  Now we are completely spoilt we have windows and skylights - its a wonder we ever get any work done!  This picture is the back of Black Hall, it is a very old building (one of the oldest in Kendal) and has two round chimneys, and I can see them from my desk!

This is the front of Black Hall, Kendal's first alderman lived here in 1575.  The building was renovated in 1875 and became a brush factory and has the sign of the Bristly Hog.  You can see him above the blue arrow sign in the picture. The next time it is a nice day I will go and get a close up of the hog, he is special!  I will get a better picture of the building as well you can't really make out the entrance to the yard in this picture, it goes under the two windows on the right.

A tiny daffodil

 Look at the size of this little darling!  Fran gave me a beautiful planter and I finally got round to putting it together a couple of weeks ago.  I had a couple of spare bulbs so popped them in a plant pot and this is the first flower!  A minature daffodil - spring is here!

That is my index finger holding the bloom up for you to see, that gives you an idea of how tiddy it is!  No I haven't got enormous hands!  I went a bit mad and have bought a nice selection of roses to plant in my border, my seed trays are planted too.  I have a lovely wide planter in the kitchen at the moment as I have planted night scented stock and I think it is still a bit to cold for it to be outside.  I am going to fill my planters with freesias, sweet peas and calendula this year, I'm sure I will add more as I go along!  John is waiting patiently for his tulips to grow, no sign of them yet!

A tragedy

I took these pictures of our beautiful doves on a lovely spring evening and the very next day a sparrow hawk took four of them within 24 hours.  It is sickening, the stupid bird didn't even eat any of them, just killed them and left them lying around, and yes it is definately a sparrow hawk, I know my birds of prey!

 They were so pretty, and went everywhere in a little band together, sometimes they were cheeky and when we fed the hens they would join in!  The hens couldn't get to the doves food though!

 When we got home from work and they heard us getting out of the car they would coo to us even when it was the middle of winter and pitch black!

 The really sad thing is that this one is the mummy and she was the first one that was taken.  The two chicks were just starting to get their feathers and luckily they are ok (touch wood!)

 Feeding platform, the one on the right is daddy, he has a pink ring on his leg.  He got taken about a week after the first ones.

The dove cote last night it was slept in!  We only have two remaining adults and the two chicks.  Luckily we have a large dog run and we moved the survivors into it.  Daddy was also moved into the dog run and did a very good job of looking after the babies until he took it into his head to squeeze through a tiny gap and escape and unfortunately that was the end of him.  It isn't perfect - but at least the survivors are alive.  There is room to fly (it is about 15' x 4' and nearly 7' tall so they are not in a tiny box.  The chicks are eating themselves now and growing up, I worry about how they will learn to fly.  I hate sparrow hawks.

Slightly late but Belle is feeling better!

Belle is now back to her normal self and bouncing around at top speed again!  Her eyes were very sore for a while, she was so good about having ointment in them.  She is just starting to loose her winter coat, not many hairs on the carpet yet but I know it is not long!  I took this picture as the sun was setting, you can see the glow on Belle's coat!

Little lambs

 I felt guilty that I used a picture of lambs that were not "ours" a couple of posts ago.  So here you have some genuine real lambs from just over the wall.  It was a beautiful evening and the little lambs were really having a nice time.  This mummy is looking after a couple of other lambs besides her own, they had just come to visit, their mum's were in the middle of the field.

 No 8 is a real cutie and was into everything, already nibbling a bit of grass and is the ring leader of his little group.

This is a view of the field - lovely and peaceful in the evening sunshine.  Most of the sheep are Texels, the black sheep you can see in the background is a Texel x Suffolk, she is a lovely girl, her lamb is to the left of her - yes it is white!

Meet some of the chooks

 This is our very smart cockeral, he really is beautiful.  Most of our hens are Old English Game bantams, the little black one in the picture is a bit too clever for her own good.  When I go to feed the birds (not the hens, the wild birds on the bird table) she flys up and tries to sit on my shoulder or my head to help me!  I don't appreciate it!

I took these pictures in the evening (the same time as I took the lamb pictures - I will put them up soon) and the light on his neck and tail feathers was really lovely.  His spurs are HUGE, I never really notice until I looked at these pictures.

He got bored of posing for me and went to sleep!  I suppose that shows how tame and friendly our hens are, I always see normal size hens and think they are huge compared to our little banties!  They are only about a foot high!  We used to have cochins and they were about three times the size!  Our hens roam all around the field outside our house and as soon as they see you they all come running, they like to be with you whatever you are doing outside, these pictures were taken outside the new extension we are building, they like inspecting the work!

Work work work

This is why I needed the Pro Plus!  John and I have been working non stop on the website, you can't see any difference when you look on there, it is all background stuff.  I took a picture of my computer screen to give you an idea, it is really boring stuff.

We have been putting lots of links on every page, that makes it easier for google to find and read all the pages.  It is very repetitive as we have to do the same things on every page, every single cartridge and every printer.  And yes there are thousands!

John and I started by coming in on Sunday, and we have been in early every day since.  We got here before the car park opened today!  It is weird though because by 10am it feels like lunch time, we have been working for four hours by then!  On top of that is the journey into work so we are good and tired by the end of the day.  We are about halfway through and guess what it is STOCK TAKE next week!  I have once again bribed my little sister Sarah to come and help out, luckily she loves it!

Look what I found!

Ok so I went to Boots to get some Pro Plus for work (will tell you about that later!) and I just so happened to see a lipstick called Belle!  I had to get it and luckily for me it is a beautiful sheer colour, nowhere near as dark as it looks in the picture.  Don't ask how I managed to be close enough to read the names of the lipsticks.... Well I had better get back to work, in fact I will do another post right now so you can get an idea of what I am doing..... it is not fun or interesting though!

From today I will be more organised...

Here is the schedule I have drawn up for the three blogs I am in charge of for work (no this is not one of them!) This is just for March and as you can see I have completed the first one!  Actually I have now completed the second (but not third) I have until the end of the day!  Here is a link in case you are interested in any of them http://inkandprintercartridges.blogspot.com/  http://www.kc-inks.co.uk/pages/Charity_Drive.html  http://www.kc-inks.co.uk/pages/blog.html  this little lot tend to keep my quiet for a couple of hours at a time!  I am very bad for not writing anything for a bit and then going mad and writing LOTS so I thought if I drew up a schedule maybe I would stick to it?  Well here is hoping....

A new 10 things...

Well it is time for some more of my favourite things that have been either keeping me occupied or I have been thinkin about over the last few weeks.  We have all been exceptionally busy, but we are getting masses done and hopefully everything will be slotting nicely into place in the next few weeks!

 I know it is only February and the daffodils aren't in bloom yet but nearly!  Of course living in the Lake District we have Daffodil watch (on the local news North West Tonight with one of my favourites of all time Gordon Burns)  It is big news when we get our daffs as all the tourists suddenly appear!

 I confess this is not a picture of any of the lambs around here.  The farm has been lambing for three weeks now, cue lots of tired faces! The weather has not been that good, but not that bad either, wet but quite warm.

 This picture is from one of the most awesome sites I have EVER come across here is the link  http://smittenkitchen.com/ I have spent hours on there and have bought the ingredients just this morning to try the chocolate peanut yumminess you see in the picture!

 Up Helly Aa.  Not so much the Viking festival (although being of Norse descent myself I do like a bit of the old torch waving in a pointy hat!)  but odd British festivals.  I have been doing some research for the work blog and to be honest printers and cartridges are not the most exciting things to write about.  So I was trying to think of other interesting things and came up with blogging about how special our British traditions are.  I am going to have so much fun!  Maybe even a trip out to see (or even take part!!! I would LOVE that!)

 That leads me nicely on to work.  I know you can't believe that I am putting work on a 10 things I love post.  But do you know, I am really loving work at the moment.  There are so many exciting things going on at the moment, my feet are hardly touching the floor.  My desk is by the top window and yes I run up the stairs as part of my keep fit - three storeys so hopefully it is helping!

 Badminton Horse Trials.  A group of us girls go every year there are seven of us going this year.  It is such good fun!  And of course we are all over the top proud of Fran who has ridden at Badminton and had the cover of Horse and Hound for the event!  Can't wait!

 This would not be complete without some make up!  So my favourite this time is MAC All Over Colour Base in Luna it is just so beautiful!

 A new venture is under way for me - it will fit in nicely with work as it will be on the middle floor.  I can't say too much just yet as we are still working on websites etc but I am ready to burst with excitement about it!

 Z Palette.  I have the zebra print one and I love it.  I thought I would struggle to fill it at first but now I think I need another!

Now this is about John and I going on an EPIC adventure this July.  I will do another post about it because I have lots to write about it!  Watch this space!

Ben and Kara

Kara is not too big to be a lap dog!  She is a very good hot water bottle, it is actually quite rare for any of our dogs to be on the furniture but once in a while is ok.  It is never for very long because Kara gets hot quickly so hops down herself before you start to think she is getting heavy!