Fecundity abounds

.....Well outside anyway
Things are starting to really get going in the garden, just as well really, Duncan always promised me we could have turf in this garden but 4 rolls is as far as it got. I have started seeding sections and protecting them with mesh and the lawn is looking less threadbare now, still a long way to go but definite progress. 

Plants are starting to fill out and even some flowers! 

I love the Rhododendrons because they remind me of Lisa's house

I am going to have at least one Bramley apple this year !

The catnip has survived a whole week
The trick with catnip is to plant it somewhere that cats couldnt possibly reach it and "issue" it to them when they fancy a "hit" . The last couple of years I have grown it in a chimney pot but it never got above a couple of inches because the cats would get in  the pot and "session on" until it was all gone, a few weeks later, little shoots and another "session" and it was gone again.
the basket is fixed to the wall at a height that no cat could manage to get to,  so safe ... for now

Not to be outdone, the chickens have been busy too
This is the sight that greets me when I open the back door, if I dont get them a snack as soon as I open it, they start to come into the house, during the day I can sometimes hear a chicken sneak in, help herself to the cat food and sneak out again, usually its Minger but no one is shy about coming into the house.!

The new "tiddlies" are getting settled in, they have been allowed out with the others for the last 2 days but they are still huddled together at the moment, they should find their place in the pecking order soon and settle into the flock, one thing is for sure, Conchita may still be the smallest but she is determined she isnt going to be bottom of the heap any more.

Names
I started off with flower names when I had the 6 Brahmas, Rosie, Poppy, Iris, Blossom, Marigold and Lily. After the fox the 4 new hybrids were just given random names- Bluebell, Tikka (blame Alistair) Minger (not a pretty chicken) and Vulture (looked like one) 
Then came the Sebright bantams, Duncan said the cockerel kept strutting around like he was Spanish so they became Carlos and Conchita ......
Which leads me to the "tiddlies"

They are Pekin bantams, ridiculous little puffs of feathers that waddle about on their little legs, back to square one with the names......I thought I might start on names from the family tree Gertrude and Matilda, are my GG grandmothers so maybe they would have liked to live on as a chicken... or maybe not!

Chicks
Vulture has gone broody, she threatens anyone who comes near her eggs on her nest with serious harm, they arent actually her eggs but she doesnt know that.
In the interests of harmony, I got her a rabbit hutch of her own to be broody in , Carl sent me some fertile bantam eggs and after much grumbling about the eggs I slipped under her being cold, she settled back down to hatch them , if all goes well in 19-21 days time we will have chicks!

Happy Hatching !

Moving on

  

27 May 2013

The last couple of weeks have been a bit of an up and down affair to be honest.
A great day at school for the year 11 leavers events followed by finding out that the Siemens pension Duncan always talked about doesnt exist.

 Which means I need to earn more than I expected, that's ok, I have a full time job as Head of department to return to...........................or I did until last week

 The meeting at school was another ambush with 2 managers and the head, having detailed my shortcomings, dismissed my request for support, he made it clear that I wasnt going to be head of department...Having had my request to work part time refused a couple of weeks ago I was a bit confused at this point.
  Turns out giving up my job as head of department and working part time was what he wanted me to offer to do, bearing in mind this was exactly what I said a week ago, he could have avoided all the need to make me feel worthless by just saying "You told Bob last week you wanted to give up your responsibility and work part time, is that still what you want?" . In teaching you expect to be beaten to the floor, management demonstrate their superiority by being a better manipulator of people (and the facts!) than the poor victim the other side of the desk.

The head still wants to berate me some more before I return to work so I gave a return to work date of 14 July, agreed to resign and to work part time and that's it all over I hope.
 I am quite happy to have a new head of department, someone else between me and SMT someone else to go to the meetings and the dreadful presentation evening, someone else to have to deal with the lack of information, yes, for the £6 a day after tax someone else can do it! I first started thinking about working part time the year Sharon retired so its long overdue really.


The good news:

• I managed to mend the mower after I ran over the lead
• I bought a new strimmer to tidy the lawn 
• I have nearly finished tidying the patio
• My petunias arrived at last
• We cut through the climbing Hydrangea so it dies and stops eating the wall 
• I met up with a friend from years ago, she had made a little picnic and we had a fab time eating it in my garden with the chickens and catching up with each other
• I looked at a student house to buy in Hatfield to rent out- havent heard from them though
• The agents that deal with my fathers house are happy to manage another house if I buy one there to rent out.
• Since I cant decide where to move to, I am going to stay here for a bit and see what happens, its not convenient for anything but at least its paid for .
• Not going back to work until the 12 July means there may be time for a little "flit" somewhere 
• Working part time shifts the crucial balance of work/home to 4 days at home 3 days at work which is an entirely new perspective on life.

Back down to earth

   

The reasons for flying home from Atlanta are twofold:

• More flights means more points
• A longer flight home means more sleep

Once at Heathrow a few years ago,  the jetstream was particularly fast and there were gaggles of people at baggage reclaim from New York, Philly and Toronto all rubbing their eyes, unable to believe thy had just crossed the Atlantic in a shade under 6 hours, the  mile walk from terminal B had done nothing to wake them up and children were piled on trolleys like luggage trying to snatch a few more minutes sleep.

You probably know flights from West to East are shorter than flights from East to West right?  all to do with the jetstream. The jetstream is a high speed wind that circles the globe at 25-40,000ft 

  The Polar jetstream is the one that affects us in the UK, the winds can be over 100 miles an hour and blow West to East in an ever changing pattern of swirls and waves. Often the flight paths are able to take advantage of the jetstream and "hitch a lift" on the wind. (likewise a headwind travelling East to West can slow a flight).

  The upshot of this is that flights from the US to the UK take between 45mins and an hour less than the outward flight, so less flight time = less sleep. Landing early in the morning when your body still thinks it should be asleep is a bleary experience anyway without a short flight.
  Arriving at Heathrow in the early morning can be especially tortuous, the airport doesnt actually open until 6 am and planes are literally stacked in the skies above London waiting to be allowed to land, it always seems a surprise to the ground crews that the overnight transatlantic planes are arriving, its not like they havent had 7 or so hours notice is it??    That, ladies and gentlemen is why it is better to catch as late a flight as possible from the US, by the time you land all the stacks have cleared, all the ground crew have made it to work and it is mid morning in the UK.

So, the flight 8hrs 10 mins from Atlanta to Heathrow, not a sleeper service so you eat on the plane instead of in the lounge, all taking up precious sleeping time. As a child we always went on holiday by ferry which used to take 6-8 hours to Belgium or Netherlands so settling in for a long trip is nothing new, perhaps thats why I like flying long haul so much.

There's champagne to drink while the rest of the passengers fight their bags into the overhead bins, some people think 1 carryon and 1 personal item means 1 case, 1 rucksack, 1 handbag, 1 coat,1 laptop bag and 1 bag of duty free, well, it doesnt, it means there is always a lack of space and people struggle to shove unfeasibly large cases into little spaces like schoolchildren shoving their PE kit in to their lockers at the end of the day. Eventually everything is crammed in somewhere and we can leave!

The cabin was only about half full and quiet, the meal was a salmon starter and yet another Caesar salad, this one wasnt a patch on the one on the way out, the anchovies were in a poly pot to add yourself, there was an assortment of grey vegetables, I bit one of them and was surprised to find it was a pickled onion, I bit another and was dismayed to find it wasnt anything I could name. Perhaps the caterers in the US have a different recipe for Caesar salad!

I started watching 12 years a slave but trying to pause it stalled the system so then I watched The Railway Man, same thing again after about 20 mins so I gave up and switched to the moving map, crossing the jetstream there was a fair amount of turbulence but since my fear of flying never had anything to do with safety or crashing, I am perfectly happy when the plane drops and creaks, I like to watch the wings bending through the window!   7hrs left to fly, I snuggled up and when I opened my eyes it said 2hrs left, closed my eyes again and woke up with 22 mins left, a good nights sleep.

Arriving at Heathrow was the long route march to immigration, a 2 sec stop at the E-passport gates, Customs, the parking company even managed to bring the car to the correct terminal this time, I saw the chap who had been next to me on the flight getting into a very large, very shiny black Mercedes and beside it was my battered purple Chrysler, someone drew the short straw driving it back to the airport!

Out through the sliproads still on the "wrong" side of the dual carriageway and Freedom.

I hope you enjoyed my ramblings, it was written for 2 different audiences, if you dont understand an abbreviation or dont get a joke, dont worry, you probably belong to the other demographic.

See you soon!

Winding down

Last couple of days at Lisas house before I start the trek back, Monday is not a bank holiday here so life goes on as normal, I have to pack the bag again, finally managed to get the orange blow up matress into its bag, at the airport it was like trying to struggle an unruly inflatable octopus back into its bag.
 Everything important (apart from Al's Bourbon) in the hand luggage in case the big case goes missing in the short connection. 

My route home is PHL-CLT-ATL-LHR-(BRU) we know why the BRU is in brackets don’t we?? 

       No wonder the AA flyers liked the BA lounge, this lounge in PHL is very sparse, a school dinner lady hatch to ask for a drink with a few nibbles set out. I didn’t stay long as I had a flight to catch . The nice ladies did offer to route me direct to BRU if I wanted but I declined! I guess they wouldn’t understand  truth being stranger than fiction as you know.

Well of all the picturesque airports that I have departed from in the past 2 weeks, I have come to the conclusion that PHL is not one of them, arriving on BA, it’s cool to be hanging above the Delaware for so long but departing…well, its not that interesting either

Over the last couple of weeks I have seen the inside view on  airports, the domestic flight side that us tourists don’t usually see, the reality is the arriving into an international airport does not equal what the locals are going through day after day.

MIA was a particular surprise, away from the palm trees and the brass inlays of sealife on the floor is a whole other side to the airport, grey, somewhat seedy, not what tourists are used to !

 PHL-CLT

The 757 seat  experience on US is better than AA on a 757, remember being crammed into the seats on the 757 to LAX or perhaps to HNL well, my feet don’t even touch the floor, there is no way I can reach the seat infront of me and judging by the gyt 2 rows up, they have an infinite range of adjustments you can make

Drinks in plastic glasses for take off, a pack or two of nibbles from the tray and a couple of photos out the window is all I can say about this 1hr trip. I would say it makes a reasonable 60TP leg if you are in the area but not worth going out of your way for!

Pretty much bang on 15.22 the wheels touched the runway and then the agony of a 10 min hold for a gate while my precious connection time is ticking away, the FA seemed unconcerned that I was boarding again in a different terminal in a mere 20 mins. The chap next to me reassured me that it wasn’t too bad to connect from the B terminal to the C terminal and calmed down a little.

My “friend” at check in at PHL had said something like “well if the airline are silly enough to sell it to you , they must think you can make it” but that hadn’t filled me with confidence after the rest of her performance!

It turns out although it is a yomp and 3 moving walkways between B13 and C13 which is manageable in about 8 mins so I was just in time to get on board with the tail end of the priority boarders. Clt looks like a nice little airport but I cant say for certain as I spent precisely 45 mins on the ground.

What is it with people and smelly FOOD on planes, at PHL there was a woman tucking into a man sized slice of greasy smelly pizza and now there is someone eating sushi with chopsticks (which she cant manipulate very well) I should be grateful no one has brought any smelly cheese or perhaps that is to come.

CLT-ATL

This plane is a whole step down from the 757, its usually the case that after you have been on a 757 you are praying for an airbus but not this time, crate is the best description, rattly and crashy, alledgedly it has wifi so I am going to log on to facebook and say “guess what I am on a plane” on there!.

Both flights were about an hour and the only reason I took them was to increase my points, having said that Atlanta is a stonking good airport, the connection train to the international terminal is exactly the same at the underground in Brussels, the same swaying, the same forks in the track. Dunc would have just rolled his eyes and got on the plane, I liked to give him the chance to relax and have a couple of drinks by adding connecting flights, he never drank on the flight home because he was driving. I struck a different sort of bargain with Al when we went to NJ, he drank on the way over and I drove in the US, I drank on the way back and he chauffered me home.

Cheers!

I have tried to experience US airways so that I can “share my wisdom”, I am afraid to say, the general experience hasn’t improved all that much over the last few years and unless there is a routing you particularly want to take, then stick with the tried and tested AA routes

Smiley faces on US...not

Atlanta is humid and sunny, the international terminal is pristine and full of light, only the sun in my eyes and the fact that I had a couple of drinks on each of the 1 hour flights spoiled the party by conspiring to give me a headache. Bummer, I usually drink myself "tired" in the lounge before an overnight flight !

The Lounge in ATL is shared with other airlines but is small and nearly full, sandwiches, nibbles, soda machine, bar the usual stuff, if anything I think it resembles the Galleries in Heathrow but on a much smaller scale and without the branding.

Night is falling so it must be time to get on another plane!
The overnight from Atlanta to London- see you in the morning 
Nite xx

R & R

So a few days R&R at Lisa’s house, Thursday it rained all day, Jeff got a bit wet:

 but I have finally figured out what time zone I am in, it seems to correspond exactly with EST 5 hours behind BST. Which means Lis and I spend less time with one of us asleep and the other awake which is what usually happens, I go to bed at 7.30, then am wide awake at 3.00 by which time Lis is just going to bed!

Lisa, like me has turned to gardening since Mary died, we didn’t tell Mary about Dunc’s diagnosis  because we didn’t want to upset her. Last year I sent her Mothers day flowers on British mothers day which was March 10^th as she is kind of my second mother, having assured the flower company in Mt Laurel I wasn’t going mad and yes, I did want the card to say mothers day even though the date in the US was May 12^th. Lis said she looked at them for ages and knew who they were from so that was a comfort since she never made it to May 12^th.

Georgie, Lisa’s nephew is supposed to be doing the fence but for the last 3 days he has got sidetracked by drinking on the deck with John and his friends,

 Saturday I went to get Jim Beam Maple for Al and Lis ended up buying “Mikes hard lemonade” and drinking on the porch as well.

You don’t really get lemonade like we have it in the US, the closest is sprite or 7 up but the hard lemonade is the cloudy sharp stuff we call traditional lemonade. Cider is flat and non alcoholic over here, if you want to get tipsy you have to find Hard cider, thankfully they don’t have any problem with getting Heineken and after 2 miller light and a bottle of Heineken, it went to my head, I am such a lightweight. Dunc always said he knew when I had a drink during the week when he was away because I could only manage half a bottle of Thatchers cider and left the other half in the fridge for days.

The boys are happy....

Even Sierra seems to be chillled

 I am not so chilled, I am stressed and panicky about going back to work, I know they are expecting me to go back and resume work at 100 miles and hour, I feel under immense pressure because my line manager went back to work 2 weeks after his wife died, 

I got an email saying the head wanted me to go in for a meeting and for some reason I told Andy I would go back after half term, things are always a bit hectic and preparing for the 6th form only adds to it, I feel the need to prove I am superwoman, I am no way ready to handle classes of kiddies, however well behaved, I can't even handle driving a left hand drive car and indicating for the correct turning . I gave school all I could for as long as I could but the meeting in January robbed me of any self confidence I had left, I felt totally destroyed and the next 8 weeks at home with Dunc were the most traumatic of my life. I just hope it doesnt end badly....