17 April 2010

Checking in...

The lack of recent updates is mainly due to me being working hard in England over the last week. Underneath a cloud of volcanic ash - although it was fairly hard to believe, looking out at the blue skies over Salford on Thursday. So I'm checking in here, but am beginning to get worried that I won't be able to check in next weekend at Heathrow to get home. I'm wondering whether there will be a Dunkirk situation arising soon, with small boats being requisitioned to take people to and from the UK across the seas.

As a bit of light relief from a busy week I got a chance to visit a friend's house in Lincolnshire yesterday. We met as undergraduates and have probably only seen each other half a dozen times since we left university. It was lovely to catch up and to meet her family and tour their domain. I don't think that either of us ever had any dreams about becoming self-sufficient when we were twenty-one, but both of our families have ended up with similar sets of values and lifestyles, twenty years later.

My friend's family have three different breeds of free-ranging chickens, with a very handsome Sussex rooster. The Cream Legbar hens were interesting too, with beautiful blue-shelled eggs. I know that shell colour doesn't have any impact on the flavour of the egg inside but there's something undeniably beautiful about the combination of the blue and brown eggs.

3 comments:

Linda said...

So many delays and cancellations due to the volcanic ash clouds, hopefully it will have cleared by the time you have to return home

Lou Murray's Green World said...

Those eggs from the Cream Legbar hens were interesting. That's a breed I've never heard of. Ditto the Sussex rooster. I learn so much by reading the blogs of others. Good luck getting back to Canada. I'm due to fly over the pond soon with my camera club (first visit to Europe for me) and am anxiously awaiting the lift of the flight ban. I'll be out the cost of the hotel if our flight is cancelled, but I'd rather not fly if it isn't safe.

Linda said...

And indeed there were small boats requisitioned, a la Dunkirk, but they were turned back by the French. Dan Snow, the historian and presenter of TV history programmes (who apparently has Canadian and British citizenship btw), got together a flotilla with some friends, but were thwarted by French officialdom.