In the country not in the country

Built on an ancient burial ground

Sometimes I think with all the bad luck I’ve had so far with this house it must have been built on an ancient burial ground……Well we overlook a cemetery and my friend’s house who lives just a few yards away used to be where a church stood. It was bombed out during the war and eventually turned into a couple of houses. Bodies were once buried in her front garden and were reconsecrated into the cemetery prior to the build. In fact the cemetery is virtually her back garden. This is sounding more and more like the beginning of a Stephen King novel. I’m sure my two black cats were seen visiting said cemetery….gulp.

Stood in my garden you can see in distance behind the houses the gravestones on the hill.

The old church. From The East Cleveland image archive http://www.image-archive.org.uk/?cat=165&paged=5

This is my friend’s house and where the old chapel once stood….she’s got a cemetery in her back garden 👻

On a less spooky note there have been five new additions to the household. Dolly, Big Bird, Ruby, Whitty and Van Tam. The five henny pennies were rescued by Whitby Wildlife Sanctuary from a farm after the farmer decided to send his birds to rehome rather than slaughter.

My five girls are special needs girls with varying disabilities. One girl now called Big Bird has a twisted beak, another Dolly has a crop issue. Dolly…named after the awesome Dolly Parton. Anyway Dolly needed a crop bra…my hen Dolly. So today she tried it out. Her crop had become enlarged following a serious bout of sour crop and it was looking in need of support. She wasn’t too pleased at first. But she’s got used to it!

Dolly….do you think I’m funny? Funny like a clown??? Do you???….no no Dolly not at all

Vinnie and Rambo were very interested in the new additions. The hens didn’t seem too fussed about two big horned rams staring at them.

With the hennies still being in bird flu lockdown it is a bit of a nightmare for the girls and with the new additions handbags have been flying. However, hopefully by the beginning of April all the birds can free range again.

For whom the slate tolls

This weekend has been a bit up and down. Mally’s knee dislocated again so we were back in A&E yesterday. Luckily again it went back in but with the coronavirus it’s probably going to be some time before surgery or whatever is needed takes place. He says liquid painkillers are the best (beer) but even he had to relent and take some actual painkillers.

I was out in the garden a lot today. Cleaning all the critters out. Felt quite spring like. Six dinner Sid made an appearance for his pouch, which might I add is still being presented on Welsh slate.

I’m still without a kitchen due to the flood and all the building work. It’s getting hard now trying to get creative with a microwave and toaster. But to be fair I do also have a small actifry type thing. So it was fish cakes, baby potatoes done in the microwave and coleslaw for Mally for Sunday dinner. Oh how I desperately want to make some Yorkshire puddings. A big pile of Yorkshires smothered in gravy…..heaven. Ah well these tinned veggie beans and sausages on crumpets will have to do instead.

At least the roof has been completed now. Just needs the scaffolding down. I’m really pleased with it. No more bits of roof falling down in the attic…yippeeee.

I’ve got a week off work this week, so tonight I’m going to settle down and watch some catch up tv. Ben Fogle inside Chernobyl looks like an interesting place to start.

Where is my mind

Now I don’t know about you guys but at the minute I’m loving wearing a mask when I go out. My mouth erupted in a colossal amount of cold sores since I had the covid vaccine and I can’t get rid of them. I needed to go to the shop this evening and I was so glad I had my mask. I even wore it whilst walking to the local shop, people looking would think oh she’s just being cautious. But no it’s mainly because I look like I’ve tried DIY lip fillers and it’s drastically failed.

Speaking of things that have drastically failed, I was watching hoarders on TV last night. A lady was on there and her flat was in a terrible state with cat poo and rubbish everywhere. I said to Mally I’m sure we’ve seen this episode before. He said it’s an update. I said I knew it!! I said she’d do it again. And she did. The same cleaners came to tidy up again and they were not pleased. I’m sure I heard one bork when she uncovered a pile of cat faeces in the owners bed 🤢. You can just tell that once the film crew go she’ll slip back into her hoarding ways. I then realised I probably come across as someone who would be a hoarder as a crazy animal lady but no I’m not. Even more so since the flood as everything on the ground floor was binned. I’m minimal and much prefer it.

The house is looking very minimal at the moment as the kitchen has been ripped out and all the skirting boards and some of the walls taken out. I still haven’t heard back from the laboratory see if we’ve got anthrax in the walls….and I thought covid was bad.

One of my cats Susie likes to hang around in the kitchen and she’s not best pleased with the upheaval…plus she’s insisting on choosing the new colours for the kitchen…according to my cat meow translator app… it was either that or she was saying she wanted some ham.

The joiner who took the kitchen out made sure before he left that we knew that he’d switched Susie cat’s heat pad and water fountain back on. Good lad.

I can see you!!!

I went up into the woodland to feed all the critters as I do everyday. My leg is still in a bad way after Rambo rammed me over a week ago. I had a strange thought last night that if I died from a blood clot because of that injury I would want on my gravestone “killed by Rambo”. That would spark interest in cemetery passers by. Wow they’d say, Sylvester Stallone really has gone rogue this time.

Anyway, I think Rambo could sense my nervousness today and when I went into the shed to get the feed, he cornered me. He wouldn’t move and seemed to be laughing almost, moving his mouth up and down so I could see his teeth. How long would I have to wait, surely he’ll want to sleep eventually??? I hoped.

He approached me inside the shed and I prepared myself for another shoe in. I couldn’t get help as Mally’s leg is in a worse condition than mine and he’s on crutches so he couldn’t get up those stone steps into the woodland. But it turned out Rambo wasn’t laughing, he was moving his lips because he had a seed stuck in between his gum and teeth and he wanted me to remove it. I took it out, gave him a stroke and he trotted off to go and headbutt his brother. All’s well that ends well as they say.

I came back into the house after the feedings and made myself a pease pudding sandwich. Yes just pease pudding as I don’t eat meat. I love pease pudding. I also reviewed my camera footage from last night. Still detecting motion but absolutely nothing to be seen on the footage. I don’t know if I’m disappointed or happy. If I had have seen something ghostly I might have been really freaked out and unable to ever sleep again. So maybe it’s a good thing. The cameras are going back outside to await my garden hedgehog waking from his hibernation. I like stalking him. However, he may soon apply for injunction against me as I do even have a camera watching his hedgehog house…..too much????

Mr H discovered my camera before Xmas.

They only come out at night

So I set two mini motion sensor cameras up last on the landing. This morning I checked the recorded footage on my app. There had been 12 activations of the cameras between 23:19 and 05:50hrs. Three picked up my cats. The rest had all activated but nothing was visible on the cameras. Everything seemed normal so I don’t actually know why the cameras activated.

Everything is still

So unfortunately I didn’t captured any ghostly goings on but it was strange that the cameras kept activating with seemingly nothing there.

However, I did catch a little intruder trying to vandalise one of the cameras…..lil Lacey 🙄.

The vandal

The attic is looking a lot less spooky at the moment due to the new roof and skylight. Still wouldn’t want to hang around up there on a night though 👻.

The last couple of days have been really nice weather wise. The good weather seems to be making Rambo naughty. My leg is still swollen with a hard lump from the other day and the little monkey tried to ram me again today. I saw him doing his moonwalking backwards to get a good run up and knew what was coming. So I grabbed his horns as he reached me. He then walk off in a huff. I needed a drink after that….I know how rare for me to have a glass of wine 😂. Well after all that cattle ranching I decided to play with fire and had a bag of wine gums at the same time as a glass of wine….luckily I didn’t go blind or pass out.

Six dinner Sid

As you have read in my previous post I’ve been seeing a lot of shadows on the landing. I’ve decided to dust off my blink mini cctv camera and will set it up tonight. It is a motion detecting camera so it will either capture my cats or unlikely but you never know a ghostly apparition. If something spooky is captured I may wish I’d not set it up!!

Blink camera. It’s been outside all winter so is looking a little grubby

I’ll update you all with the results tomorrow.

In other news, the local neighbourhood cat, six dinner Sid, was stood on my garden wall waiting for his cat pouch. Afterwards he goes next door for a bowl of biscuits, then to another house a couple of streets away and then I presume home as he is in good condition. Anyway Six dinner Sid or Tux as I also call him due to his snazzy black and white markings usually has dinner on a tea plate. However, as my roof has been getting repaired the Welsh slate has been taken off. I thought to myself they use welsh slate now in all these posh restaurants as plates. So if it’s good enough for hipsters then it’s good enough for Sid/Tux. I presented the pouch nicely on the slate. I think he was impressed. Well he ate it just like he always does.

Only the finest for my visitors. Cat pouch presented on Welsh slate.

Redrum Redrum

I’ve spoken before about a feeling my house maybe haunted. Now I’m on the fence with ghosts. I don’t know one way or another if they exist. It may in fact be echoes or energy that creates possible ghostly apparitions. I guess kind of like a screen with an image burnt into it. Maybe that’s why you only see ghosts at night, when the light is right and the burnt image is visible.

As you know we’ve been living upstairs since the flood. Whilst Mally has been at work I’ve been on my laptop working with the bedroom door open. As the light fades, I notice numerous shadows stalk across the landing. The strange thing is I feel no real fear. I just close the bedroom door as I’d rather not see the shadows. It’s strange because I always said I would run a mile if I saw a ghost.

I’ve also even been reading ghost stories and mysteries whilst being in the house alone. Strange as it’s not normally something I would do. But I feel the house encourages me to do so…..oh I hope this isn’t The Shining on the North Yorkshire Coast type scenario….Redrum Redrum. Mind I think Jack Nicholson’s character is more reflected in my naughty rams than me. Rambo the naughty scamp got too excited for treats and decided to smash one of his horns into my leg. It swelled up like a balloon immediately and I can hardly walk on it. Talking about can hardly walk, Mally had an “incident” at work and had his knee dislocated. So he’s on crutches at the minute. Not a good pair of legs between us..and that was before the injuries 😂.

A week later and half my leg looks like this. Rambo you monster 😂

Anyway I digress. I was talking about ghostly goings on. I have been reading a very interesting book called ‘murders and mysteries from the North Yorkshire moors’. Written in the 1980s by a retired North Yorkshire police inspector. A very interesting piece was regarding the ‘hand of glory’ a macabre dried and pickled hand of a hanged man. Criminals used to believe that having the hand along with a very gruesome candle made from the fat of the same corpse, would assist them on their extracurricular activities. Apparently taking the hand and the candle on a burglary would put the householders to sleep and they would stay that way until the candle was put out. The candle would be lit and a rhyme quoted. The only way the spell could apparently be broken was by pouring milk over the human candle. This was very popular a couple of hundred years ago and criminal corpses at one point had to be guarded to prevent other criminals from liberating the corpse of its flesh. I mention it as apparently one of these such hands is on display in Danby. A village only around 6 miles from my house. It’s an interesting book and I highly recommend it.

Looking roof today

Things are coming along nicely with the roof. Another week and it will be done. This was a very unusual roof with its ship mast beams and apple store. A challenge the roofers seemed to enjoy. After the roof is complete a new challenge of the ground floor being totally redecorated by the insurance company will commence. This isn’t going to be easy as the wood panelling in the living room is centuries old and in truth neither I nor the insurance really want to touch it. But it is likely there is contaminated flood water behind it.

The kitchen is also going to cause a problem as the surveyors said it’s the most bespoke they have ever seen. Not because it’s big, it’s a small kitchen but all the cabinets have been handmade in wood as thick as a nuclear bunker’s walls. I love that kitchen so I’m sad it maybe ripped out. But the flood was so bad it’s flooded every area of the ground floor.

View from the attic window which has been totally reroofed. The valleys and eves were so rotten they crumbled in the roofers hands

I can’t wait for the summer when hopefully all the building work will be complete. It has been a cold harsh winter. We had limited power and the minus 11 degrees a few nights in a row were tough. I was out to my animals constantly and bought duvets to place over the coops. The rams have very thick fur and a dry sandstone building full of hay and straw to chill in. I did bring the woodland bunnies in for the worst it. They are back in the woodland and loving the warmer temps. I also bought hooded cosy cat beds for inside of the quail hutch. House bunny Fonzie was sat near the radiator for most of the cold days. I could definitely emphasis with those in Texas after their power went out and they had no heat in minus temperatures. After the flood just those couple of days in January without power was torture and I ran to my sister’s for heat.

Whilst I’m am thinking of the summer months to come, I’m also thinking of the spring which obviously comes first. I’ve been offered a greenhouse by my sister. Mally and I will definitely be getting this when lockdown is over. I really want to utilise the garden fully and grow my own veg.

Now talking about growing veg, last year I got a Strange idea that I would grow saffron. I purchased a few bulbs from the royal horticultural society and then for some reason just left them in the garage in a box. Well when I went to check on them they had grown and actually produced saffron. They were still sat in the box! So this year when the bulbs are ready in autumn I will be purchasing a few more and hopefully growing Loftus saffron.

What would Jackie Weaver do???

Sorry I haven’t posted in a little while. I was feeling quite ill for a week or so after my covid vaccine. I think I had a strong immune response to it. About six hours after having it I suddenly got the worst chills, fever and for some reason bad pains in my legs. At one point due to my fever(it wasn’t due to my fever, I’m just a weirdo naturally) I had a strange thought that I’d died and had suddenly become aware of it just like Bruce Willis in Sixth Sense. I thought I would suddenly now float away. Anyway to cut a long story short, the reason I thought this was because Mally kept walking past the bedroom door and I kept shouting him but he didn’t respond. Therefore, naturally as you do I assumed I had died and that’s why he couldn’t hear me. That seemed the only logical explanation. Turns out he was just listening to some programme on his headphones and couldn’t hear.

Although I now have twenty cold sores on my lips and look like I should be on an episode of botched plastic surgery, I’m feeling ok. I’m very pro vaccine as it is vaccines that have allowed the human race to prosper and progress. Even with my botched surgery look and thoughts of being dead I’m still glad I had the vaccine.

Whilst I was waiting to have my vaccine and was sat in the doctor’s surgery car park I watched a video on the tube of you. It was something I wouldn’t normally click on…..an upload of a local parish council meeting of Handforth. But it was the funny and yet enabling in a way as Jackie Weaver….who I don’t think actually had the authority….battles her way through the misogynistic foul mouthed councillors who think they have the god given right to be in charge. She muted them all and order was restored. If you haven’t seen it then google it…you won’t be disappointed.

The house is now moving on slightly. The roof is nearly done and the insurance are drawing up plans for the flood damage. Apparently as the house is old it needs to be tested for anthrax before any building work can be started. Anthrax naturally occurs in the soil and on animal fibres. In the old days lime plaster was used and binded together using animal hair. So it’s a possibility it could still be present. Oh goodie!!

So apart from a global pandemic, pretty bad flood and possible anthrax in the walls, I’m actually in a good mood. Might be the large bar of galaxy chocolate followed by a rum chaser that has enhanced my mood.

We are still living upstairs and cooking options are limited. I must admit I’m getting sick of things that go in the microwave or toaster. Today I rustled up a pan of stew on the gas hob, which still works when aided by matches. I think that’s why I feel better, a proper meal can really lift the mood.

Sail Away, Sail Away, Sail Away

The woodland bunnies are still in the house. They look only slightly cleaner after their sponge clean and bath! I’ve decided they will stay in the house the next couple of nights for some TLC as heavy snow is forecast tomorrow. I opened the cage door but they made no attempt to leave. I think they thought “Nah, we’re cool Mam, it’s nice being waited on”.

They are cleaner than before but I don’t think they’ll ever be completely clean again 😩

I finally found out today where Cagney had hidden herself during the flood. I searched everywhere that night…well I clearly hadn’t searched everywhere! She has now taken to sleeping in the laundry basket in my bedroom. Really I should have thought of checking there. It’s well documented that children and animals hide in cupboards, under beds and probably in laundry baskets in times of disaster such as floods and fires. Lesson learnt, check all small spaces.

It’s a bit chilly today so it was very disappointing that the boiler has suddenly packed up. That seemed to be the only thing that had survived the flood unscathed….clearly not. Myself and Mally have just joked that if we didn’t have bad luck we’d have no luck at all…we’d be in a state of suspended animation I guess as nothing would happen at all. However, it’s not all doom and gloom. I have some really great friends (I know it’s hard to believe) I got two brilliant gifts from two of them…..a bottle of scenario appropriate wine and a wall hanging lifebuoy.😃😬

Work started on the roof today. I’m so glad as I don’t think it would have survived too many more winters. Although it did survive that storm. The roofers noticed something very interesting in the rafters. The beams are all made from old ship masts. See even in 1760 they were recycling. To be fair people did recycle up until fairly recently as they simply didn’t have the money to buy new. Some of the beams are apparently still in good condition and sturdy…that’s saved us a bit of cash. If only I had known we had ship masts in the loft, I could have tied on a few sails and we could have sailed our way out of that flood the other week!