July greetings from Ireland

Saturday 24 July ‘10

Good day to all, family and friends!

Not much has changed since last week weather wise as it is dripping again today, light mist rain, but warm!
Yesterday was a very good day and we cannot complain!
The grass grows and the fields where the farmers had the hay cut stands already high with green green grass!
The flowers cannot take this amount of rain and looked like drowned specimens of some distant fauna and flora planted before the great flood!
The strawberries has come to an end after many weeks of producing excellent fruit!
The rasberries and black currants are starting to ripen and I will cook some jam ! The apples 7 in all, are still hanging and growing ,we are watching them like hawks!
The rhubarb is no more as our dear geese family tramples all over them with little respect! We will have to move them to a safer spot!
I have a busy week ahead of me, work wise, as every surgeon tries to get as much done before the hospital closes for the August maintenance week!
I will have 2 weeks off and would only then have used up my accumilated leave of last year!
Some 3 weeks ago I lost all the fillings out of 1 of my molars, I say ‘all’ as the Polish dentist just keeps on patching the broken parts. But this time it is not to be saved, and I have my appointment with a proper dentist. I have never had a tooth pulled , do not like the injection as I can feel and hear it so clearly in my head,wriggling between the roots of the teeth and against the jaw bone, but without it I will not make it so at 10am on Monday morning I will have my 1st tooth pulled since childhood!
I know of a young man that will be going for an interview this coming week, Christiaan I will be thinking of you and hope it will go well!
Gerlof and Sandra are already in SA and Arnolda & kie seems to be on their way to Perth and then driving to Melbourne!Some distance and we hope that you will enjoy it and that all will go well, When is your departure date?
Nine from Kokanje and her grand daughter ,Nine from Canada are also going on a trip,every-one seems to be on the move,we, on the other hand are staying put the livestock is keeping us from leaving for much longer than 12 hours!!!!
Last Sunday we had the privilegde of having Finbarr and family visiting and we just cannot get enough of our grandson Lukas! He was 3 months old yesterday! He is such a lovely child!
Birthdays for this coming week: Oubaas(Gerhard) in Mazibuku Zambia will be a year older on the 26th,Megan Josling and Thilo on the 27th and Frik on the 31st!
Many happy returns!!!! May it be a lovely memorable day for all of you! Thilo will be somewhere in the USA! Enjoy!
Some time later!
Just back from a pleasurable attendance to our local argricultural show! Charlie is the chairman and Charlie is a member of Corboy congregation. His parents, Sam and Mabel Murphy are part of the foundation of the church, Sam (83yr)and Victor(86yr) are brothers and they went to school in the hall next to the church and it is very important to them that we attend functions like the show. Victor is the president of the Argricultural Show in the Midlands! Sam’s grand daughter studied Forensic something and work in Leeds for the Court pertaining to drugs, any kind of drugs and she rides the horses and do show jumping and we have since we attended the church made an effort to watch her jump and she was jumping today, we were just too late to see her but the show jumping is really lovely, these horses are so big and the jumps so high your heart nearly stops every time they go over an obstacle.
We bought every possible thing with apple and raisons in it! Our evening meal will consists of the ‘brack’ , a fruit loaf, we bought at the Rectory which had a sale for the Boy scouts this morning and apple strudle and raison bread! A little piece of everything!
The animals were beautiful, cows with calfs,bulls, sheep, goats. We should have had Madam and her 7 goslings there but ....we will arrange something for next year. There were enough chickens! Small and large and ducks of all kinds and colours! This is really a rural country show! Undescribable! You have to attend to appreciate it!
Tomorrow is Sunday the best day of the week and Stephen our Minister is back, Last week was somewhat of a disaster. The man who came, first used a book out of another ‘Bible’ He called it the ‘Good News Bible’ I was not so sure about it but the books name is Judith!
I do remember that when Finbarr had to attend his cathecism classes I had to buy a different Bible with 5 extra books in it and I think that was the Bible he was using which meant that no one could follow the reading , That was enough to upset the older generation and then he did not use the microphone and those with impaired hearing were totally left out and that is not on! We could rather have sung 20 Hymns for the 40 min!!!!! The lesson in itself was good but I wonder who heard it!
Stephen will surely hear about it tomorrow!
We go to church for fellowship and to hear the Word of the Lord explained and prayer but when you upset these Irish that are absolutely set in their ways it leaves little harmony although they stayed very polite! The month of August is Stephen’s holiday month and we are then entertained by 4 different preachers I sincerely hope that it will go better!
Those you are not interested in the Goose saga exit now!
The goslings are growing so fast, like mushrooms! By the hour! They are back in their own quarters and settled without problems. Wednesday morning when Barry opened the door and checked on the other 2 hens sitting on the eggs he found all the eggs in the nest of Naomi out of the nest, He could not understand it and put them all neatly back, but later in the day he checked again and she was standing at the back of the nest not sitting at all! He thought that she might like to go out and opened the partitions. Both of them went out but when they came back Mary went to sit on her eggs and Naomi also settle with her on the same nest. It was a catastrophy and we had to get her our of Mary’s nest back into her own!. A hour later we noticed that she is not sitting on the nest but standing at the back. It was now late in the day and Barry decided that he will leave it till the morning! The next morning she flew out of the nest with an egg broken! That was when we realised that she must have realised there is no life in the eggs and abandoned them. 9 eggs lost! Some just plain rotten and others never developed! Very sad! Mary is still sitting and we hold thumbs that she will make it to the end!
The goslings have now started to develop feathers and it is so wonderful to be so near to this process of growth and development! They are a bit top heavy and their tailends are pulling them down which looks very funny, but they are correcting themselves and eventually get it right !!!!
They graze now as a group, Madam, as mother Scruffie who received a few blows agains his heads when he pecks the little ones, Ruthie who lost her chicks some time ago and Naomi the last hen to loose her brood!
Looking after this lot is a fulltime job! We make notes of all the growth points and hope to properly record it for the future! Behaviour as well as problems encountered!
These birds are very strong and trying to move one of them out of a nest is no joke and another time she just flew over the fence wihtout a problem, past Barry and his stick!
The next episode in story will follow soon!
The day turned out to be wonderful! The mist were replaced by bright ,warm stinging sun shine, blue skies and some cloud but brilliant over all! 22 degrees!!!!!!!!!!
The bird population have suddenly increased triple fold and at certain times we could easily have 40 little birds on the wall outside the kitchen! Very lovely!
The Tour de France is coming to an end tomorrow and we will miss it! We followed the entire race with great interest! Headbutting and all!
The whole cabinet is on 2months holiday and all the important reports which should have received their attention have been published and they are shying away from the responsibilities brought to the front through the reports, by shining in their absence!
Parents who are arranging weddings, enjoy it ! Those who have to study, DO IT WELL! Those who are expecting, stay well! Those who are sick, or not able to move as fast as they are used to, get well quickly! Haya I am thinking of you!
I greet ye all from a lovely sunny afternoon in Cranley more!
Barry and Christina