Cobwebby Morning

It's getting light at 5.30am at the moment so the thought of Daylight Saving Time beginning tomorrow is welcome. Since all the trees on the eastern side of the driveway have been chopped down the sun has begun shining in the back yard and this morning when I glanced out the back door there were 15 perfectly round cobwebs suspended between fence wires or amongst the undergrowth. The spiders have also been busy building all round my windows but may be in for a nasty surprise as I am about to wash the outsides of these this weekend.

It's been an interesting week. A few days ago coming home from an appointment in Napier I saw a couple of wire cages sitting on the grass verge at the side of the road. Called in at the nearest cottage but no one was home so drove across the paddock to the house next door which still owns all the land. Met a very nice guy called Olly who said he used to keep angoras twenty years ago. He had nine banks (each with three cages) and also took us to his old rabbit shed where he had a roll of brand new floor mesh as well. Named a price and my brother paid straight away (I just have to pay him back now).

Last Thursday friend John arrived out with his ute and trailer piled high with the cages and mesh. A couple of banks have no bottoms and a couple had slight rust but the rest being perfectly preserved even after all these years in the open. He piled them down the back of the property so we can get to them when we start to replace my old ones.

It has been an interesting few months as angoras suddenly seem to becoming popular again. I have had quite a few enquiries about buying stock with a shocked response when I say that I no longer sell my animals. Firstly you get people thinking they're going into breeding angoras and are going to make a fortune with their fibre. I am very open with them as to the fact that the market is tiny and ever decreasing since alpaca has become so popular. So many rabbit farms went down in the 80s and 90s after China flooded the market with inferior fibre and the market will never return. Unfortunately people think I'm deliberately withholding information from them, that I'm making a fortune on the quiet and just don't want to share my spoils. In 19 years of keeping angoras I have yet to make my feed bill!

The other kind are the people who say they only want an angora as a pet. I and other breeders find these are the ones that say the same thing to a couple of breeders so they can get a pair which they then burn out breeding for the pet market. The offspring of these are then sold on to pet shops and after the new owners discover how difficult angoras are to keep the poor animals end up in the RSPCA or at vets. I have had several come through here in a bad way. Sometimes they have such severe blockages from wool they expire within a short time. Angoras are not a pet for the faint hearted and I applaud the breeders who vet prospective owners as to their intentions although many of us have still been conned. The bunny mill breeders are one of the lowest forms of life and have no regard for their animals- only the money they can make from the unsuspecting public.

Cats Feeling The Joys Of Spring

Kind brother spent a long time Wednesday trying to get the TV amplifier repaired. Finally succeeded by completely taking it apart and redoing all the wiring. Turns out the booster part is actually up on the aerial and the box down here is just a power pack. Anyway he got my TV reception back after 11 days.

Yesterday Demelza turned up with a baby rat. Fortunately it was dead but despite this she still wanted to bring it inside to "share". My cats never take on rats so the only explanation for this aberration is that Melz thought it was a very over grown mouse. I am amazed she even killed it as she usually plays with her prey till she loses them. She spends most of her time looking bewildered wondering where they've gone while (I assume) they sit under a tuft of grass giving her the proverbial finger.

Piper has done a disappearing act this morning. She was lying asleep by the back door last night when next door's cat attacked her so I brought her in. However she proved so restless that at 10pm I let her out again as I had given her her heart medication. Looking at her you'd never think there was anything wrong with her at all as she seems so fit and well.

The phone went out again yesterday morning. Told Telecom I didn't want to be without it for seven days like last time so they actually had it repaired within six hours. When you live in an isolated position the phone takes on mythic importance as it is your sole contact with the outside world.

Suddenly the weather is warming up. It was 25oC yesterday and the temperatures are set to be as high today. All Winters mud has dried up which is wonderful.

I Hate Technology

I am seriously beginning to think there is a great god of technology sitting up in the sky periodically deciding to dump his issues on this household. So far this year my computer monitor has caught fire, the washing machine and vacuum cleaner died, the stereo plug caught fire, my car failed its warrant needing new brakes (plus it needed another battery and requires four new tyres before its warrant in December), then it was vandalized in July. Eleven days ago the TV signal amplifier died so no TV ever since then and yesterday my three year old video lost its picture. Ringing my brother he informed me that it "sounded really bad news" and that it would probably be cheaper to buy a new machine rather than get it repaired. Like a good brother he is lending me one of his videos as he knows I can't afford to buy another at the moment (what with the $300 vet bill and four new tyres thing).

Demelza is continuing to improve. All the oedema disappeared last week and now she is ravenous to the point she tries to steal food. Hopefully she'll soon put more weight on. Angel is still AWOL after six weeks.

It took a week but I cleaned my way round all the windows inside the cottage. Trying to get to the outsides but the Spring Equinox has hit here with gale force winds so not bothering to clean anything out in the elements as it's a waste of time.

We're still getting a few frosts. I finished my nicotinic acid tablets last week and so yesterday right on cue painful chilblains reappeared on my right hand. Will buy some more pills when I next go to town and take them right through to summer. I know I should take the attitude that life is giving me the opportunity to make lemonade out of lemons but honestly when a run of bad luck lasts so long you just feel like a sour old piece of fruit!

First Egg and Demelza Is Back

Well my little chick who hatched in April has done the deed and laid her first tiny egg. Strangely (since she's a brown hen) she's laid a white egg with pale speckles. Have a couple more bantys broody at the moment. You can tell this by the screams if you approach anywhere near where they're nesting since they prefer to hide their nests under bushes and amongst grass. Always a sound that can get your heart rate up though not in a good way!

I have cut Demelza's Homeobotanicals down to three drops twice a day. All the oedema has dispersed so now I can see how thin this unexplained illness has made her. However her old personality is back, she even ran forward to greet me yesterday. I don't think we'll ever know what was really wrong with her (although I think she has had a toxic reaction to something) but I feel confident that she's over the worst. Just a matter of feeding her back up now. Just over a week ago I would have guaranteed that I was going to lose her.

Also been doing a little spinning each day. Did a skein of merino over the weekend which I posted on Trademe. It sold the next day so frantically trying to finish some more. Have also finished up some left over angora blend and plied it 50/50 with merino. Only got about 30 grams out of it but posted these for sale on Trademe as well. More a novelty yarn though.

The signal booster on the TV has finally died so I have no reception at all now. Watching old videos while trying to save up for a new booster as they're around $61. Has given me more time for my spring cleaning. At the moment slowly working my way around the cottage cleaning the inside of all the windows. A very boring job but always satisfying when you find you can see outside again.

Back To The Vet

My fortnightly trip down to town yesterday so had quite a few chores to do including dropping Demelza into the vet's for a check up. Originally she was going back for another blood test to see what her protein levels are now but since receiving a $258.20 vet bill on Monday (of which $120 was for the bloods) I have been in shock so have been cutting down on expenses so I can pay it.

Doug kept her in for the morning and when I returned at 11am told me that Demelza is a weird cat. Her backside is still full of fluid but only one side of her body is now swollen. This makes no sense whatsoever. He has prescribed anabolic steroids to try and get her appetite up (with a promise that she won't end up a muscle cat) and we'll see how we go from there. The receptionist said there are probably only about ten clients in their practice who really love their animals and would do anything for them and I would be one (the vet agreed with her) but I think this was to soften me up for another bill. I did mention giving herbs to her but Doug just grinned as he's used to this. He did ask if one was a diuretic which I confirmed and he seemed happy.

When I was chatting to the receptionist while Doug dispensed the steroids she said what an unusually marked cat Demelza is. She should have seen her when she was a kitten! What a little sweetheart she was.

Shedding The Thermals

The warm weather has finally arrived. Must have as I got rid of the thermal vest and two jerseys on Thursday! My plum tree by the garage is in full blossom now and absolutely stunning to look at, especially when you gaze up at the sky through the branches.

Trying to spend at least an hour and a half per day working outside catching up with rabbit work and doing a wee bit of gardening. Not easy as I'm still recovering from the head cold I caught a week ago.

Demelza is holding her own after having a particularly bad week. My usual vet was away when I rang last Monday to report that she was slightly off her food. The Locum felt it was constipation and recommended CatLax which a friend collected for me the following day. This is a brown paste which you squeeze like toothpaste onto the cat's front paw so that they lick it off. Well it did the trick and the following day two dried up little offerings were left displayed in all their glory in the litter tray. Two more doses helped Dem get back into the rhythm of things.

However on Friday her feet had swollen to twice their size. She slept all day and whenever I looked at her she was shivering. When she woke late afternoon she could barely walk and I was concerned that she might not last the night. Rang the vets' and the receptionist was very cranky and berated me for leaving my call till so late in the day as the locum had left early and I would have to leave my enquiry till after hours when she switched the phone over to the vet's mobile or else come in the next morning. I came off the phone very tearful. That sort of attitude is the last thing you need when you're already upset about your pet. Then I got angry as I've poured alot of money into that practice over the past 15 years.

Anyway hauled out my Homeobotanical Remedies which are so past their use by date it's not funny. Cut some of Demelza's fur and dowsed over it a selection of remedies until I found a decent combination. Showed up she needed diuretic herbs as well as some for blood, bowel and allergies of all things. Hardly had any herbal water left but mixed up a potion, succussed it and just squirted it down the cat's throat. That night she cuddled up to me and everytime I touched her began purring. The next morning Demelza was very interested in her food for the first time in a week.

Yesterday Dem's face was very swollen but she wandered outside and sat in the sun for a couple of hours. I noticed when I carried her in that her feet weren't so swollen and by this morning they had gone back to normal. I have her on ten drops of HbtBDQU twice a day and will keep her on this till all the fluid has disappeared from her system. Just goes to confirm my belief that natural remedies can be extremely effective in helping conditions that have conventional vets scratching their heads.

Deflating Demelza

Demelza walked in Tuesday night with a swollen rear end. By the next morning she also had huge saddlebags on her thighs so off to the vet she went. Doug "deflated" her by putting an incision in the base of her tail and she leaked fluid from this for three days. This was full of glucose but strangely enough her blood glucose was normal. He sent bloods away and these showed up that both her small and large proteins are very low. However she is still eating and perky which he feels rules out kidney, heart or liver problems. She has no bare of itchy patches so no allergy either. Which leaves the gut so it looks like she may have ingested something toxic. If she loses her appetite, gets diarrhea or swells up again then she has to be hospitalized for a biopsy.

Quakes and Ancient Hens

After all my excitement about the rabbit cages I fell back to earth when friend John went to check them out and discovered the cage I saw was the only good one. All the rest were battery hen cages (small) and mostly rusted. However yesterday he drove out with the one good cage and two others that I had stored at his place.

It had already been a bit of a traumatic morning as one of my white hens had died. I can't remember which clutch she came from but she was aged between nine and eleven years old. Pretty good life span for a laying hen (not that she has laid many eggs recently). She was only a bit wobbly for one day and died in her sleep. As the mornings are light by 6.30am these days I had her buried by 7am. The majority of my hens are now geriatric ranging up to Peanut (a game fowl cross) who is the great grandmother of them all at twelve. Her daughter Suki is eleven and her granddaughters are all around eight or nine. Most are still laying but I am going to have to think about bringing in new stock at some point. My landlord's partner is raising Plymouth Rock poultry at the moment. Can't see them but can hear the roosters in the morning.

Had three smallish earthquakes late Sunday afternoon- the largest measured 3.7 on the Richter scale. Just a jolt each time, no shaking at all. Apparently they were centered at Hastings which is just twenty minutes away from here. At the moment we're waiting for a cold snap to travel up from the South Island. Just winter's last fling before the warmer weather arrives (she says hopefully).

Chocolate

We're in the midst of another cold snap at the moment so too chilly to do more than essentials outside. I have lots of work to do out in the sheds which is frustrating. Also Chocolate who lives in a hutch on the lawn needs some maintenance. She is such a hardy rabbit and seems to thrive in the outside environment although I think she misses her brother Snowflake who died of RCD/RHD (calicivirus) right beside her last year. She is very small even for an English angora but apparently, according to her previous owners who brought her up here, both her parents were rexes. For some reason two angoras were thrown in the litter although the other one died. You can definitely tell there is crossbreeding in the background as her coat is just rubbish but she has such an adorable face you forgive her anything.

Angel Flown and Thumb Update

Angel has gone walkabout again (early this year as she usually waits until September until she begins disappearing. When she's here she tends to take over the cottage. She's either asleep on a chair you want to use, sitting in front of where you want to walk or else sitting (or cleaning her rear end) on your drawing board where you want to work.

My thumb is slowly recovering from being eaten nearly two weeks ago. The skin has grown in and filled in the hole but the bite marks are still visible and painful so I am still bandaged up. Muggles is back to hopping round and helping himself to toast crusts at breakfast but now I throw them on the floor rather than risk feeding him by hand. I definitely want to keep the rest of my fingers attached.

Piper Poses

Piper has good days and bad days with her cardiomyopathy. A good day she'll get up early and eat all her breakfast, she'll supervise me when I'm outside working and plays with the water coming out of the hose when I'm filling up bottles for the rabbits. A bad day I have to wake her up, she doesn't want to eat and it takes her all morning to come right. I don't know why this is as she regularly has her heart medication (twice a day).


Recently I had a film developed and discovered I'd taken quite a few photos of Piper (before I knew she was so ill). Here she is posing in my bedroom window which is the first room to get some sun in the morning in the winter. As you can see it gets so damp here even the windows cry.




This is the reason I often can't sit in my armchair- no room! Piper is sharing with Peaches and Gypsy. In the evening the young cats take over while Pipe lies at the base of the chair so she can get the full benefit of the heater.

Biting the Hand Who Feeds Him

Had an interesting day yesterday. Was having breakfast with five cats, dog and Muggles the house rabbit who, as usual, was getting rather excited as he loves eating the crust off the bread. Well he mistook my thumb as part of the toast I was offering him and took a chunk out of it. I knew the wound was bad as it began spurting blood immediately. I got Mugs back in his cage while rearranging the room which has to be partitioned when he's out. By the time I got to the bathroom I began hearing buzzing in my ears and realized I was going to faint so came back out, grabbed the phone and lay on the floor. My friend John was the only person I knew would be up at that hour so rang him and told him I was likely to pass out and began crying like a big sook. He was coming to a meeting in Hastings so told me to leave my door unlocked but after ten minutes the faintness passed and I could sit up. All this time I was pressing my thumb with my finger but the bleeding wouldn't stop.

Anyway we discussed that I should ring my other friend Judy as she's a trained nurse. She suggested pressing a sanitary pad into the thumb to take pressure of the finger which was getting tired. She rang back in an hour and it still hadn't stopped bleeding. It didn't stop for two hours!

Afterwards I put on my Homoeobotanical Golden Healing cream and nearly went through the ceiling with the stinging. I put on a band aid and after ten minutes the pain subsided. GH actually prevents tetanus so I guessed it would deal to any staph germs in Muggle's mouth. I ended up feeling so shaky yesterday but drank alot of fluids right through till evening so hopefully my hand has filled up again! ;-)

I'm going to rename Muggles Dracula.

Phones

More rain came last week causing more flooding as the ground was already sodden with water and couldn't take anymore. An unexpected twist was that it took out the phone lines and I was without a phone for SEVEN days. Since I am on dial up this also meant no internet. Talk about frustrating. Telecom will be receiving a letter of complaint as they didn't bother to divert calls through to my mobile until last Wednesday when I was in town and phoned them from my brother's place. I have missed several calls apparently as when people rang they wouldn't even get a signal which also meant my message service wasn't able to do its thing. Considering the obscene profit this company makes every year you'd think they'd have adequate maintenance staff on the job. I object to paying the monthly rental I do if this is the service I receive.

Also I've had three days in the last week and a half when I've had no water. Happened again this morning so waiting with dirty hair for the landlord to do something to rectify the situation.

Grrrrrrrrrr

Bastards of the human and feathered variety

Had an upsetting phone call on Saturday morning when my brother called to say that my car had been broken into Thursday night. Richard drives my car which is why it was parked at his house but unfortunately that particular evening he didn't hear the thieves smash the window to get in. They demolished the ignition barrel, switch and turning lock so the car now can't be driven at all and as a parting gesture emptied the ashtray over all the car seats!

The police didn't bother to come until Saturday morning by which time Rich and his friend had had to push the car round to the back of the house for protection. This meant that there were no fingerprints that could be taken so no one will be punished. I've spent time on the phone trying to organize insurance and the company arranged for the car to be towed to a panelbeaters yesterday and have said they'll try to get it back on the road as soon as possible.

The weird thing is nothing was stolen out of the car at all which I guess means I have really have nothing worth stealing! I guess I'm lucky that the morons didn't manage to steal the car and go joyriding as it would have ended up as a burnt out shell on the river bank. It just infuriates me that they trashed the scruffiest car on the street- could they not tell it belonged to someone permanently broke? I just hope my belief in Karma holds true........

Onto more pleasant topics once upon a time there were three little boys. Well three little white roosters. One was unnamed as he would be going to live near the beach at Waimarama, one was called Spiderman but he unfortunately was killed by my landlords dogs and the third was known as Bloody White Bastard. Now BWB didn't start off with that nickname but he was such a pig to the hens (hiding behind bushes to ambush any unsuspecting pullet minding her own business) that I found myself constantly yelling out "Leave her alone you b****y white b*****d!" so it stuck.

His halcyon days have passed however as BWB is now ten years old and apparently can't cut the mustard anymore. Yes the hens actually threw him out of the hen run. He now spends his time sunning himself in the garden or else hanging around waiting for me feed him. I have become fond of him as he has turned into a pleasant bantam rooster who minds his own business. No more lust in the dust for him- now he only has me his "bud in the mud".

Waterfalls, Wet Fowls and Thunder Thighs

I loathe having to go to town in the rain. That feeling of water running down your neck every time you get out of the car, having to scurry from shop to shop and the mad dash to get all your purchases into the house before they turn into pulp is not pleasant. However Thursday I needed to go to hospital for heart tests so had to brave a terrible rain storm.

The shingle section of our road is now just one long succession of pot holes. If you try to go round one you just drive straight into another. The rain had gouged great chasms across the dirt which saw mini waterfalls pouring into the paddocks. Even the sealed section wasn't much better as the water began creeping right across making driving quite dangerous. The road beneath Te Mata peak was obscured by four or five slips where the clever powers-that-be had decreed all the trees holding the banks together along the roadside be felled. Bet they're feeling a bit foolish now considering all the times workmen are called out to clean up landslides.

We didn't suffer as badly as the Wairarapa though who are still cleaning up after extensive surface flooding. Today we are expecting 120 km westerly winds but I for one will welcome them as we need something to dry up the mud.

In the midst of all this I decided to shift the mother hen and her three month old chick into "the big house". This proved quite simple as I just held the chick while Mum followed me yelling abuse. Unfortunately the chick wasn't too sure if she should be in the shed with the others and I found her standing bedraggled at the hen run gate Thursday morning. I washed out the old plastic rubbish bin that was in their hutch in the hope she would recognise it and stand in there out of the rain but she didn't want a bar of it preferring to get soaked instead.

Fortunately she's settled in a bit better now. When I let the chickens out at lunchtime I catch her and put her in the shed where I feed her. I will do this for another couple of days till she realises that is her new home so that she'll happily return there in the afternoon when I put everyone to bed.

Piper is doing well. Her "Thunder Thighs" have gone back down to a normal size so the heart pills are definitely working. She gets annoyed with me for keeping her inside at night and sits on the window sill looking out at all the mice, rats and other prey she'd normally be catching as they file past giving her the finger in defiance. It's a tough life being a cat!

Mud......but no way is it glorious

I remember a few years ago listening to the radio programme "My Music" where a panel of four wits answered questions about music through the ages. They would always finish up singing a song and Frank Muir (a well known comic writer) would often finish with a Flanders and Swan piece that went "Mud mud glorious mud/ Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood/ So follow me follow/ Down to the hollow/ And there let us wallow in gloooooorious mud!"

Well mud isn't glorious. It smells, it gets everywhere and it doesn't matter how much I try to convince myself it is actually chocolate it still just remains wet dirt. I'm not the only one complaining as a visitor yesterday said she'd never known it so wet and horrible at her property. This is exacerbated by the cats who come in with muddy paws and decide to "take the high road" along the furniture. Officially we have had the coldest June in 15 years and at this rate July may turn out to be the wettest.

The only cat not giving me grief at the moment is Piper who is fast becoming a house cat. She has finished her antibiotics and is feeling better if her frisking around the cottage at 3am is anything to go by. Sometimes I notice her breathing is quite forced but her heart pills seem to be keeping that in check. When I go outside first thing in the morning she sits watching me before accompanying me inside for breakfast. In the afternoon she spends an hour outside with Demelza before coming back in for the night. This is the complete opposite of what she used to be like.

The other news for the week is my landlord coming in to removed the gum tree branches from the backyard. What a job that was. I think the whole top of the tree had broken off in the bad south easterlies we had a couple of weeks ago. I have no idea what else to expect this winter- I just wish it were over.

Southerlies and Other Storms Ahead

The weather this week has been terrible. On Monday we had such strong south easterlies that the entire canopy off the top of the gum tree fell into my backyard. It was disconcerting as I had been in the exact spot an hour earlier. I spent the entire day rushing outside trying to keep the tarps on the hutches on the front lawn. Weighing them down with bricks didn't do the trick and in the end I had to tuck the edges under the hutches themselves and this seemed to do the trick.

I was already tired from traumas the night before. Piper cat began meowing at 9pm and licking her lips before she vomited her entire afternoon meal all over the carpet. I cleaned this up and we all headed to bed but instead of getting up on the chair beside me Piper sat at the foot of the bed. Round midnight I awoke to a weird sound and found she had had "an accident" so out of bed to clean this up while she sat facing the corner. An hour later I woke to the sound of vomiting and found her in the litter tray surrounded by undigested food. An hour later she was still there.

Monday she didn't want to touch her food and ran into the garage for the day, only coming inside later that afternoon. However Tuesday she began eating again so I surmised that she'd caught a stomach bug and that it had righted itself. Wednesday though she began having episodes of diarrhea and this was bloody so I rang the vet for an appointment.

After a thorough examination he came up with the terrible news that Piper has cardiomyopathy. Her body is filling up with fluid and her heart is beating very fast. The vet thinks in her case it is hereditary. He prescribed antibiotics for the diarrhea and heart meds but would not give her the first dose as he felt the stress of him forcing the pills down would cause a heart attack. He did say that it was lucky she got sick as usually cats with this condition show no outward signs but just drop dead!

Instead of leaving her with the vet we put Piper in the back seat and covered the carry cage with a sheet so she'd feel secure. It made for a very nervewracking morning as we kept checking to see if she was still alive.

Two days later I have managed to get the medication into her and Piper has begun to eat again. Last night it was so cold I made sure she was covered up where she lay on the chair. From what I have read it depends on what part of the heart is affected by the cardiomyopathy as to her prognosis. It could range from as little as six months to a few years. It seems so unfair as she is only two and a half years old and already dealing with having been born with a deformed tail.

Meanwhile we all huddle inside while this terrible storm freezes the country. I thought it was actually snowing here yesterday as the rain began coming in sideways. After receiving a huge power bill yesterday I am mindful of running the heater but there is no alternative. I hate winter!

Cages

Last Wednesday I finally managed to get out to see the lady who had offered me free wire rabbit cages at the Creative Fibre Festival. We were running late as the car took an hour and a half to start due to a dying battery (to go along with the brakes and tires that also need replacing) so I ended up there at 10.59am instead of 10.30am as promised. However the lady had pulled a double cage out and I was able to view it without getting out of the car which saved time.

They are double ones and look like old poultry brooder cages. Despite having been outside for ten years they haven't got a touch of rust that I can see. The wire is thicker than in my present cages with a double thickness coming up the side for strength. Added to that they're slightly larger than my present wooler cages plus they come with feeders. The lady says I can have them all- all 100 of them!

I spoke to my friend John who by coincidence lives round the corner from her, in fact his family passes by her property when they go into town. He has a trailer and will bring as many cages out as he can in stages. We'll pile them up under the trees at the back of this place after replacing my two banks of rusted cages which he says he will take away to the dump for me. I am extremely relieved as I have been trying to replace my older cages for so long now. I can't believe how providence led this lady to me!

Antarctic Blast

It was only 8oC (46oF) here yesterday but the wind chill made it feel even colder. Heading down to town I noticed heavy grey/brown clouds hanging low over the valley and I was certain we would get some snow. It was a four cat night as we all huddled together to share body warmth.

I have been rereading a book about Hannah Hauxwell the genteel daleswoman who was discovered by a documentary film maker in 1972 and immortalized in the programme "Too Long A Winter". This lady was living alone in a remote Yorkshire farm in Baldersdale with no electricity or water. In fact her circumstances were so dire she was living on about five English pounds a week and that included animal feed. The winters were so severe she would sleep with all her clothes on.

Despite being forgotten by the world (all alone since her father died aged 37 and her mother and uncle had died years before) Hannah was not bitter about what had happened and instead become a humble stoic individual whose chief delight was her cattle whom she regarded as her family.

Hannah became an instant celebrity after the TV documentary aired and two more were made plus three best selling books written. The attention didn't faze or change her one bit and the public's generous gifts actually made her life a little easier. In the late 1980s she moved from her farm due to failing health and now lives in a small Yorkshire village. Low Birk Hatt Farm was sold in pieces including couple of fields that were full of rare wildflowers (due to Hannah's family being too poor to use modern fertilisers) that were acquired by a conservation trust and renamed Hannah's meadow

After reading how Hannah lived so stoically despite great poverty and hardship I don't think I ever have the right to complain about my own circumstances again. Unfortunately being human I know I will!

Mad Goats and Cranky Cats

Winter nights always find me heading to bed early with a good book and three of the cats end up there with me. Demelza takes her place at my right shoulder and Peaches usually further down the bed. With Gypsy there is a huge drama as she makes "the big entrance". First her head pops round the door to check we're watching before she makes a mad dash across the floor and up on the wicker basket at the opposite side of the room. From there she walks across the dressing table and onto a chair before climbing up on the bed beside me and burrowing under the sheets to cuddle. However this past week she has decided to sit on my chest so I can't read which is also nervewracking as she is within striking distance of Demelza.

I don't know why these two don't get on but suspect it's all to do with jealousy. Usually Demelza has the younger cat bailed up on top of the furniture but lately Gypsy has begun fighting back which is what happened Saturday night and unfortunately I was caught in the middle. I felt my head being lacerated by her claws and yelled which frightened her into falling off the bed taking my face with her. On examining the damage I found scratches on my chin, a deep one on my forehead and a fine laceration over my right eyebrow and in the side of my mouth. I applied disinfectant before getting back in bed feeling sorry for myself. Gypsy did her usual routine but just ended short of the bed on the chair with her back to me. We all went to sleep but I was woken an hour later when Gyps began wailing and crawled into bed for a cuddle- her version of an apology I guess.

I thought that was all the excitement I'd be getting for the weekend but when I opened the curtains yesterday morning at 7am I saw that Tobermory my cashgora goat was on my front lawn. On further investigation I discovered someone had left my back gate open. I snuck out with the dog for protection and managed to replace water in some of the rabbits' bottles before Toby spied me and charged, pirouetting with his horns down read to headbutt my knees. I only just managed to go backwards up the ramp and get the back door shut with him in hot pursuit. I turned off the light till Toby wandered back down and then let the dog in. Some help he turned out to be!

I rang the landlady managing to wake her up and she promised that once the landlord had come back from doing something up at the woolshed she would pass on the message. Up to then I would remain a prisoner in the cottage. For an hour and a half I worried that I hadn't fed the chickens or the mother hen and her chick out front. Plus the tarp on the outside rabbit hutch was flapping loose and it had begun to rain.

By 9am the donkey had also wandered in and was cheerfully eating the garden. Looking out the kitchen window I couldn't see Toby at all so decided to go out again. Taking an alkathene pipe with me to hit him over his horns if he attacked I shakily went to the hen house and fed the ravenous fowls before sneaking out front to feed the mother hen and chick and weigh down the flapping tarp. All the while I was looking over my shoulder expecting the manic goat to charge out from where he was hiding but also hoping that if he did Briar the donkey would defend me as she hates him with a passion.

At 10.30am the landlord arrived with one of his hunterways, another Toby. He admitted to me that he had taken the catch off the gate while trying to fix it last week and never returned to replace it which is why it had sprung open. He couldn't find Tobermory or the donkey so decided they'd gone back out and was just about to leave when he saw them hiding behind the hen house. Sending Toby dog to get them out instead they made a break for it and ran round to the front. Reappearing from round the cottage Briar came trotting past me and went through the gate with the dog after her. Unfortunately he became so wound up he began chasing one of the horses out in the paddock. Meanwhile Toby decided to head back to the hen house with Ken running behind him. When he saw the dog worrying the horse he yelled "Get out Toby!" and Tobermory being an intelligent animal thought he was referring to himself, changed direction and trotted out the back gate.

Life is never dull in the country!