Goats 'n' Roses

 Driving home from Brenda's today we saw this baby goat stranded on the wrong side of the fence from its mother. How they get themselves into such situations I can't imagine, but they're obviously not too bright!! Anyway, let no one say that we don't have hearts. The other half and I stopped the car and spent the best part of a quarter of an hour trying to catch the little devil so we could pass him over the fence to his mum. Would he let us catch him? Would he 'eck as like!! Once I even pulled the fence up from the bottom (hope the owner's not reading this) and suggested he might like to wiggle underneath to where his anxious winnying mother was pacing back and forth, but would he come near me? Nope.

After he'd run out into the road for the third or fourth time we had to give it up as a bad job. Better he hang around near his mum against the fence, than get knocked down out in the road.

With heavy hearts we had to drive away and leave the pair of them to their fate. Probably won't sleep tonight now.

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Yesterday we did our first bit if DIY-ing since my op. Her indoors did all the lifting, carrying ladders, tools etc. - it's at times like these I'm grateful that she labours (appropriate verb there) under the misapprehension that she's an Irish Navvy really - and I did the thinking, pencil marks and staining (the brains of the outfit, see?)!!! But, we managed between the two of us to clad the back end of the car-port with T&G after the polythene sheeting that I'd put up there five years or more ago had finally cracked and been ripped to shreds by the winds of a couple of weeks back...

Aah, T&G eh? Sounds so much more appealing the other way around.

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Finally, Maria's been out there with her trusty secateurs again, as she usually does at this time of the year, and she's cutting roses from the garden for our small breakfast table in the kitchen. I just can't imagine a garden without roses. Blossoms like these will grace our table for several weeks (if not months) now - and the smell! As I've mentioned before, the closest I can get when describing the aroma of roses in the kitchen when I get up in the morning is to compare it to fresh raspberries. Enticing or what?

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So, there we are folks, a few thoughts from today, December 17th. Only four days to go the shortest day. That's why the pagans of old invented what's now known as Christmas of course, to celebrate the re-birth of the unconquered sun. A week-long carouse of drinking and overeating, exchanging gifts all the while. Hasn't changed really has it.

Goats 'n' roses - sounds like a good name for a band. And there was that mummy goat worrying about what she called her "sweet child of mine" on the other side of the fence. There, you didn't know I could speak 'goat' did you.