Category: Family

Enjoy the Christmas Holiday, we have a little more shopping to do and family and friends coming round over the following days so no more photography until the new year, but I need to find a few spare hours as I have some final post processing to do from my last studio session.

What ever your religion or even none, enjoy the holiday.

 

Bodhi Day

December 8th – On Bodhi day some Buddhists celebrate Gautama’s attainment of enlightenment under the Bodhi tree at Bodhgaya, India.

Hanukkah

December 9th – Hanukkah is the Festival of Lights and marks the restoration of the temple by the Maccabees in 164 BCE. Hanukkah is celebrated at roughly the same time as Christmas, but there is no connection at all between the festivals.

Yule

December 21st – Yule is the time of the winter solstice, when the sun child is reborn, an image of the return of all new life born through the love of the Gods. Within the Northern Tradition Yule is regarded as the New Year.

Christmas

December 25th – The day when Western Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.

Oshogatsu

January 1st – Shinto New Year, one of the most popular occasions for shrine visits.

Guru Gobind Singh

January 5th – Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708) was the tenth and last of the Sikh Gurus. He instituted the Five Ks and established the Order of the Khalsa.

Orthodox Christmas

January 7th – Most Orthodox churches use the Julian rather than the Gregorian version of the Western calendar. As a result, they celebrate Christmas 13 days later than other Christian churches.

Makar Sankranti

January 14th – Makar Sankranti is one of the most important festivals of the Hindu calendar and celebrates the sun’s journey into the northern hemisphere.

The Christmas holidays are fast approaching; were working the Christmas week so this week is our holiday. The main jobs are tidying the garden, cutting down some of the more overgrown shrubs and starting the clear the bottom corner where we are planning on having our bees.

In the house we have decorated for Christmas and also done a little DIY. The house is flood wired for phone, but we do not use it as we have wireless phones at home. The wiring is old and causes interference, so I have been doing a little rewiring, so only the alarm system is still connected and the rest of the phone sockets can now all be removed when we decorate the house finally.

We took a trip out to a local garden centre in the south of the county as we knew as well as garden supplies and plants, they also specialised in pounds and had a pet centre.  As well as the usual hamsters and rabbits they had a good selection of vivariums.

Oz our old corn snake has needed a new vivarium, the lighting was starting to fail and I was worried that the heating module would also start to fail soon.   Also corn snakes appreciate a bit of height to climb, so a larger viv and bigger wooden branches so he could climb more would make a nice improvement for him.

We found a lovely nice viv, on display with more height and a little wider and deeper so we bought one.  It came flat packed but was easy to put together, with a new lighting and heating system we were ready to go.

The other week we lost another hen, Annabel.

Our first batch of hens, the A-Girls (because we called all of them names beginning with A), have faithfully given us eggs of the last few years and in turn have been give the range of the garden at weekends and their enclosed run when we are not around to keep an eye on foxes.

We now have just two, but have taken the opportunity to refurbish the coop and run.  We now have a concrete base to stop the rats tunnelling in and have covered it in a thick covering of hard wood Chipping’s, which they love digging in.

Our next big task is to get hold of a new vivarium for our pet snake Oz and redecorate for him.

In the spring we will get another batch of girls; the B-Girls to keep up are egg supply and to keep us entertained in the garden.

Over the last few years we have had the joy of the A Girls.  Four lovely chickens that have enjoyed the company of and they have enjoyed the our garden.  A little too much enjoyment of our veg plot!

Today we had our first death, Andromeda.  All of our chickens have names beginning with A.

Fair well Andromeda and thanks for all the eggs and the company and friendship you have show.

After the excitement of the last few days we had yesterday off and paid a visit to the local teashop, today I had to go into the office for some meetings and to plan for a big system migration that night while Caroline worked from home.

The teashop in North Scarle is always worth a visit.  We had a hotpot and baguette while Caroline had a pot of tea and I had a hot chocolate.  We finished with cake.

This time we did not take Timmy the greyhound which disappointed the teashop owner as she always likes to see Timmy.  I am just glad that a Wednesday is not a diet day!

Last Sunday was the annual Belton House Greyhound Walk.

Always a good day out, and its when you get whole pack of greyhounds together you realise how well behaved they are compared to the majority of other dogs.  As usual the Lincolnshire Greyhound Trust had their stand there to raise awareness and money.

If you want a well trained dog that is low maintenance and well behaved its hard to think of a better dog then a greyhound.  Most areas have a local Greyhound Trust and its well worth making contact, even if you cannot adopt one of these beautiful animals please support the trusts anyway you can.

http://lincolnshiregreyhoundtrust.com