What a horrible day Thursday turned out to be. I’d already had a disturbed night between the cat and the dog both wanting attention several times at different times, so it didn’t start well in the first place.
And then it went downhill when I heard my printer make the kind of noise it makes when the cat’s sitting on it and pressing buttons by mistake. The cat was fast asleep in the living room. My printer had just disconnected itself from WiFi.
Well, I say it disconnected itself. I suppose it’s more likely that the broadband blew out.
But that took a longer time than necessary – again – to reconnect it – again. I wouldn’t mind if it was the same fix every time. But no, each time it’s a different fix. I got it connected again, though.
The weather was nasty. Shocking. Frightful. As if our neighbours up the road don’t already have enough to deal with following the recent floods in South Yorkshire. Yesterday turned into a windy, squally, freezing, nasty day.
The chickens were trying to shelter in the greenhouse, but the greenhouse has a panel missing and the door had come unlatched. So that was flapping about in the wind. There was a gale blowing through it. And the floor was soaking wet. So I put the chickens in the outhouse.
I covered the floor and all the surfaces they can get on with old towels to make cleaning easier when they’re allowed back outside again. I made sure they had lots of food, including some goodies, and fresh water.
We often wonder why the chickens choose to stay outside in this weather when they have a nice, warm, dry chicken house inside a covered chicken run. But they didn’t this time.
This time, one of the roof tarpaulins was flapping where it had torn along the hem where the eyelets are, holding it in place. One of the wall tarpaulins had broken away several of its ties. And the dish of food that was in the chicken run was ruined too, despite being under cover.
Two roof tarpaulins, two wall tarpaulins, a wooden chicken house and numerous windbreaks still can’t keep out horizontal, squally rain.
Once I knew the chickens were settled (they didn’t want to go into the outhouse, but once in there, they didn’t want to come out), I went and got some ties from the garage and made some very temporary very emergency repairs to the tarpaulins. We can’t really have one of those working itself loose and then blowing into the path of an oncoming car. Or lorry. Or train …
There’s an outdoor cat house that the chickens sometimes go into when it’s a bit rainy, and I cleared that out and put that in the outhouse too. I’m was hoping they were warm enough, dry enough and cosy enough. But when I went to check on them at bedtime, they both dashed out and made a beeline for the chicken house.
I also rang the poet up and suggested he come home as soon as he could. He was working “ovver th’ill” (“over the hill” – on the other side of the Pennines, in Lancashire …), and it had taken him 30 minutes longer than it usually takes him to get there. I thought he’d sooner be stranded “ovver this sideof th’ill” if he had a choice. His journey home was 45 minutes quicker than the one going.
In between all of this I managed most of my daily admin jobs and some household chores, and as it was a “reading day”, I also managed some work for the Cadbury book.
I’m really hoping today will be better.
