Cycle

The busiest time of the year is upon us , harvest the garden time  , the heavy rain means i can get the potatoes up finally , lots of them but very small but thats what a drought does , ive squash to bring in and a bean row drying up nicely , still no cauliflowers just tons of leaves..lol , dozens of tomatoes waiting for some inspiration on that one, we eat tons fresh but we dont use hardly any in the winter , im the only one who eats chutney so four jars is enough for me ,i may dry a load and see what i can hide them in over the winter ..lol, maize corn to dry for popcorn, plus himself will use a load for fishing , it breaks my heart really i just use a small patch these days but once upon a time every inch was productive and it saved a fortune with a big family . Living in the countryside you can barely give produce away , everybody i know gardens or they shop at the posh farmers markets , though i did laugh the other day when The Riverford Organic delivery van broke down out on the lane.

It would seem the newbuild over the road has sold , well it has a sold sign , i noticed someone had drawn a bullet hole on the forehead of the gurning estate agent photo , at least i think its drawn on , hes so well loved in the village he is ruining . its all a bit strange as nobody has seen a single viewer and in a small village full of the neighbourhood watch that is dog walking pensioners  thats odd . I expect its an investment buyer from away. theres a big market for posh rentals for the RAF officers and the other nationalities based here its easy money the rent is astronomical the military pays it and usually you dont see them much these days as they are always at work, but we have to watch out for Americans driving on the wrong side of the road and the Saudis suffering from culture shock. at the moment we have lots of Japanese air force here for war games. We have the jets screaming out at all hours as Putin plays silly buggers in the Baltic States so sleep is optional.

PS the roof is still leaking , not a thing have we heard in over a weak , i will chase it up later and doubtless they will have tried to contact us or have called and nobody is home   

Mess

 Well yet again my descent into gibbering madness continues !! the first proper rain of the season , the big cracks in the ground are showing signs of closing and a whole crippling day of potato lifting to face. Life was looking promising for a moment there , plus i made the first chicken stew of the season, but no something has to go wrong yet again . Sarcastic son potters in to tell me there water dripping through the ceiling in his bedroom . This was Saturday night , i rang the emergency repair number only to find it was dead !! so i had to wait till Monday morning when the call centre opened , they seemed very unconcerned when i pointed out that the chimney stack looks to have moved and they are going to have a contractor get in touch for which im still waiting and with another big storm forecast for tomorrow it could be interesting . Sarcastic son has resolved the matter by sleeping with decorator plastic sheets over his bed and a line of buckets where the worst of it is , star that he is he pointed out that if hes killed in a collapse think of the compensation !!! hes such a cheerful soul

Drawing In

 Its getting dark earlier every night , the squirrels have totally decimated the hazel bushes , mainly the fattest squirrel ever , hes huge and likes to throw stuff at you and swears a lot ..lol . Little hedgehog has grown so fast im not sure what was in the posh cat kibble , hes living in the hedge bottom under the big tree , his brothers and sisters have moved on , but this little one seems to be about most of the time , he has white spots on his bum so hes easy to spot , he will easily make his target weight before winter .

Im very technologically challenged at the moment , im currently locked out of facebook because my computer doesnt have a camera?  it seems i must send a 3d picture to be authenticated , i dont have internet on my phone either , so we will see how this pans out but its no great loss . Then theres the computer telling me its to outdated to be supported , so if i vanish im not dead its merely me being eradicated by technology .  It would seem that at the moment this is my only contact with the outside world..lol  Doubtless one of the kids will get annoyed enough with me to sort it all out .

Grandson is currently sort of in residence at the moment , having miserably failed his exams , being unable to go to college because of this , told he must go back into 6th form but the school wont have him. Hes after going into the building trade , so hes working on that . Daughter has had a wee bit of a breakdown over it all , hence ive ended up with him here pottering around with grandad and endlessly chasing girls ..lol.. ive had enough boys not to be phased by much of anything , they all have the gormless know it all phase , he will knuckle down eventually hes to intelligent not to, his epic level of sarcasm is why the school dont want him back ..lol 

Rantin

 Now i know nobody listens to my political rants but here i go again .....

Taxation . why do they have to make it so complicated ?  most just have PAYE to contend with . The rest seem to have to employ endless scheming tax avoidance schemes to make ends meet . Lets just simplify the whole scheme , no offshore accounts , no uncles next door neighbours dog , no climate claptrap.  Nothing but PAYE across the board , every penny profit made by you is paid by you to HMRC . Then they decide how much they give you back . Big companies Amazon and the like , still have to give up their profit to HMRC . There would be squealing from up the food chain . The accountancy industry would take a kicking but there would be plenty of new jobs at HMRC. All you would have to do is convince HMRC that your  expenses etc are legitimate. It removes all these mistakes that the rich make in one fell swoop . Your guilty till you prove otherwise . The government would be solvent in months . 

Too simple to ever get anyone elected , but wouldnt it be hilarious  

Goat

 im having a very grumpy phase at the moment , lack of sleep and hobbling about arent helping . Im finding everything is getting my goat . More problems with the van , hes now spent more on repairs than the bleedin thing cost , he cant go out anywhere that involves walking and its all my fault because i cant manually lift his buggy even in pieces . And of course if he cant go anywhere he thinks i shouldnt either , bollocks .

 I did a car boot on Sunday with daughter and her friend , sold tons of stuff for pennies just to clear my dining room out for the winter, made a quite respectable amount of money , saw a couple of the vloggers i follow online , even flogged a load of cross stitch kits to one of them, people seemed to be buying loads of craft stuff because winter is coming. Made another contact with someone whos opening a little shop in their barn .

Garden wise its all gone a bit mental, still cant get the spuds up the ground is basically cement , the tomato's have taken over i keep tripping over squash , but the pumpkins are tiny . Tons of the speckly italian beans for drying , caulis are huge but not a flower on them , so i will keep plodding on . then ive the pear mountain to tackle , i dug all the canning stuff out so thats going to be next weeks project . Plus i started a garden project that im already regretting..lol