Holiday musings

Posted on 24 May, 2010 by Simon

Holidays can be confusing.

Yesterday, my daughter, who lives in Montréal, told me that she had a long weekend, as today is a public holiday in Canada. Apparently, it’s Victoria Day – to celebrate the birthday of Queen Victoria. I guess any excuse will do to justify a holiday at the beginning of the summer. Of course, being Québec, things are not that simple, and to maintain the French/English duality, provincial legislation has officially named the same date as Victoria Day the Journée nationale des patriotes.

In England, Whit Monday used to be a holiday, until the late 1960s when it moved for a trial period to the last Monday in May (confirmed in law since 1971). It’s notable that all public holidays in the UK are on fixed days of the week (except for Christmas/Boxing Day and New Year – but even they are moved to Monday/Tuesday if they would fall on a weekend). Still, no holiday today in Britain.

Which brings me to the point of this post. Continue reading →

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“One cat just leads to another” (A Sequel)

Posted on 23 May, 2010 by Val

Regular readers may recall a mention I made at the very end of the April Passing post about a stray cat that I had seen heading into our barn with what looked suspiciously like a kitten in her mouth. But because the upper barn floor is a death-trap in barely disguised disguise, I did not venture far in to its darkened depths to explore the mystery further. And Simon has been, well, just a tad busy lately. So we just sort of forgot all about it, and since we neither saw nor heard any further signs of burgeoning felinity in the barn, I simply came to believe that I must have been (uncharacteristically) mistaken.

Well, it turns out I wasn’t. Continue reading →

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Lenny is confined

Posted on 22 May, 2010 by Simon

Lenny continues to make his field a no-go area. It’s now a month since Val described him as The Llama of Our Discontent and two months since he bit me when I went to rescue him from Alpine isolation.

For the whole of those two months, we have not been into the big field he shares with three females. He has jealously patrolled the boundaries day and night, ever alert for possible rivals for the ‘affection’ of his harem.

In the short term, this has not been a problem. However, Continue reading →

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Photographic Negatives

Posted on 21 May, 2010 by Val

Argh! What was he thinking? How could Simon possibly imagine that I would be happy with him plonking a picture of me (albeit with Big Cat as the purported subject) bang, smack at the top of the home page, in the Latest Photos. I think a Little Word may be in order.

And while we’re at it, let me share with you the surreal conversation we had yesterday evening, prior to going round to Mike and Sue’s for a delicious dinner. Continue reading →

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Free from Interference

Posted on 20 May, 2010 by Val

Well true to form, Simon has managed to do a quick repair to the fence and gate of Lenny’s field – good enough at least to eliminate the immediate threat of a possible llama absconsion. And even though we have constructed the two rope set-up that will give us remote control of the top gate to his field, Simon has declared that today is not the day for the Grand Experiment. It is instead a day for doing some of those many ‘little’ jobs that we keep putting off because they are so little as to be easily forgettable. Continue reading →

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On Obstructions and Openings

Posted on 19 May, 2010 by Val

Just when I thought the plumbing could be put to the back of our minds, and we could instead concentrate on green and pleasant things, we have discovered that the septic tank isn’t doing what it’s supposed to do. The good news is that everything is still flowing out of the house at a pleasingly swift speed. The bad news is that, once outside, it is continuing to flow – out of the top of the still-uncovered septic tank, and into a big puddle around the place where the bathroom waste drains into it. This is just a bit of a bummer. This suggests that the tank is not draining according to design, out of its outflow pipe. Continue reading →

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