Local Affairs

When I got back from Ireland at the end of August I was coming back to life without one of my jobs. For the past 2 years I have been working part time as a call handler for the local police force. It involved answering emergency 999 calls and non emergency 101 calls and dealing with them as appropriate. I initially took the job so i had some extra income to put towards our Ireland project. I must admit it was the type of job that i had always wondered what it was like to do. I had seen the TV programmes about this type of job and suppose i thought it would be exciting to give it a try. The application process for such a job including training took 6 months and then i was in at the deep end answering all sort of calls from serious road traffic accidents and assaults through to people reporting quite petty things such as complaints that a neighbour has moved their recycling bin again! I have to say that i was totally blown away and completely surprised by what people call the police about. 
In all cases you have to remain calm, professional and polite which in some circumstances is hard and there have been times when i had to terminate the call, with warning. 

Ready and waiting for a call

I thoroughly enjoyed the job and met and worked with some wonderful people. 
I have calmed people down and got the information i was after in super quick time, I have helped return lost pets, spoken to people who want to end their lives and managed to stop them from doing it, plus dealt with 'regular' callers, those who use the police call handlers as someone to talk to about not very much and sorted out arguments about mobile phones.
Do some of these jobs warrant police response - probably not but when some people have nowhere else to turn then it comes down to a police call handler having a chat with them and try and resolve the issues. 
Yes I have felt upset by some of what i have heard and laughed at other situations.
Anyway after 2 years I decided that I would quit and dedicate a bit more time to my foot patients and also the long term plan of getting to Ireland permanently. I looked forward to some free time.

So when I got home, within 2 weeks i had signed up to take part in a drama production in November. There is a group locally called the Stretton Players who do 2 productions a year. I have never been involved with them before but I saw an ad on Facebook saying they were looking for females to take part in their next production. I answered and got the part. Rehearsals took place twice a week and three performances were scheduled for 17-19 November. 
The play was 'Local Affairs' by Richard Harris. It is set in the 1980's and revolves around three couples who have recently moved onto a new housing development. Norma and Charles – he’s a doctor – are in their mid-40s. He is mostly concerned with devising outfits for a fancy dress party they are due to attend, while she is more interested in planning her new kitchen. Hilary and David are late 30s. He is a supermarket executive and she is in business. During the course of the play, they have David’s mother, Mrs Hinson, staying. She and Hilary cannot stand each other but both try very hard not to show it. The third couple, Susan and Keith are younger, late 20s. They have young twins and this is the first time they have been parted from them. They are supposed to be having a romantic weekend, but Susan can’t stop worrying about the children and Keith, is more concerned with his beloved motor bike. There are two smaller parts, Peter, a doctor colleague of Charles’ who is also going to the fancy dress party and Katy, mid-20s, an ex-girlfriend of Keith’s who has recently split up from her partner and is rather hysterical.
The play follows the humorous activities in each of the three households until as the play moves towards its climax all come together round at Norma and Charles’ house.

I had the great part of Hilary. We had great fun rehearsing and then going into the hall where we would be performing and seeing all the hard work that the set builders had been doing.  

Me and my stage husband David - my character has just
 returned home from a health farm and is as yet unaware
 that her dreaded mother in law has been staying

Me, my husband and the dreaded mother in law

Round at our neighbours

It was thoroughly good fun and we were lucky to have full houses at each performance. There was lots of laughter from us and the audience! 

So will I get another chance before moving to Ireland, I hope so. And I need to start looking for a drama group to join in Ireland.

Enjoying our surroundings

We are coming to the end of our trip to Ireland. I always feel sad leaving, it does feel like home now. 

This trip we had decided to take things a bit easier as it is so tempting to jump straight into work here and we had both been really busy working at home before leaving for Ireland. We really wanted a break. 

We had a few days on our own and then we had some visitors come to stay.

Terry is my godfather and he and his wife Pat came out to visit. I was really surprised that Terry had never been to Ireland before as he is a very experienced cyclist and walker and  I would have thought that it would have been a place he would have pursued one or both pastimes. We prayed for good weather and we were very lucky.

We had one full day entertaining our guests before we welcomed some more. My mum and Dad and a couple of their friends Mark and Gaynor, had been doing a tour of the northern part of Ireland in their motor home and they came to join us for the weekend. We had warned our neighbours to expose the two large motor homes to arrive and as we looked out from out house down towards the village we spied the two vehicles appear by the church and then slowly make their way up towards out house. At the same time we got a phone call from our neighbour - he had been out tending his sheep and had also seen them, he just wanted to let us know they were on their way.

Our house became full with people and it was lovely, Hubby and I enjoy entertaining and it was lovely to hear people in the house and hear their exclamations about the wonderful views, One good thing is that even with eight adults staying in the house it never felt overcrowded - there is plenty of space for everyone, I love it.

We had organised a meal out on the first night and then the second night we had planned a BBQ. We had studied the weather forecast very carefully all week and hoped that it held out true. We had brought a new BBQ over from the UK so the day before me and Terry had spent a couple of  hours together assembling it. Luckily it stayed dry and we also invited our neighbours up so we had a great night, people came in when it got a bit chilly outside and we ended up round the table playing daft board games. We had a real laugh.

On our last day together Hubby took our four visitors out for a drive locally, through the Sheaffry Hills, the scenery is really beautiful and is always a place that we like to take visiting guests as it it is so near to our house but also very breathtaking. My Mum and Dad stayed home with me and I did a bit of baking ready for when the hungry travellers returned. We also had some canine visitors, our neighbours dog has just had pups....

 

We had never met my parents friends before as they are people they have met through motorhoming but they were really lovely people. Over the three day they were with us my Dad and his friend Mark were very kind and moved a large pile of stones which had been at the front of  the house of months and months. It was there for the driveway but we had never got round to moving it. Dad had spent a little time the last time he visited moving some of it and this time with the added bonus of a wheelbarrow, he and Mark spent many hours moving it so our driveway looks  so much better,

After they had departed we had a few ore days with Terry and Pat and we enjoyed days out to the beach, the pub to taste some more Guinness and Terry very kindly helped Hubby put up some blinds in the kitchen/diner. Although we have the most lovely views outside and the blinds are up most of the day we feel they really help make the room look a bit more finished.

 

Last time we visited we sprayed the area at the back of our house with roundup so we were hoping that when we came back this time the vegetation would have died enough for us to cut it down and as you can see we have had a busy couple of days clearing the area.

 

Finally we were very excited when we got our wardrobes fitted today. So we can actually hang things up in our bedroom instead of in the other bedrooms. It's a small thing but it certainly helps it feel more like a home. 

 

So on a day when we had rain forecast it had been a completely rain free,  I am currently sat with my feet up enjoying the evening views and watching my neighbour and his very talented sheepdog  taking some sheep up the hill at the back, 

 

From fleece to Yarn.

For quite a while now I have enjoyed knitting and crocheting and generally making things using yarns/wool. I have made things for myself such as jumpers and cardigans

              

I have also enjoyed making stuffed toys and children's clothes

                                            

                                             

                                    

                                                             

Since getting our house in Ireland I have become more interested in sourcing my own yarn and after speaking with our neighbours there who farm sheep and know only too well the fact that the cost of shearing a sheep is more than the price of the fleece.

Sheep need to be sheared but the farmer usually makes a loss in doing so. Our neighbours are fortunate in that they have 3 sons who are all able to shear sheep, in fact two of their sons have won shearing competitions and have very recently represented Ireland in sheep shearing competitions.

I have been very lucky too that in the new house I am able to have a whole room for me to use as a craft room - to me that means all my crafts can live in one room and when I finish at the end of the day I can close the door and leave it and not have to clear away to make room for something else.

Last week I spent a lovely day out in Wales learning a new skill.

The course was entitled Spinning - the basics and I have to say it was a thoroughly enjoyable day. 

I drove about an hour and a half south from where I live to a place not far from Hay on Wye.  My destination was a sheep farm high up in the Brecon Beacons and boy what a view they have.

 

                                                                                                 

Dunja at All in a spin was our host for the day and me and 3 other budding spinners  were definitely in safe hands. She started off explaining about the different types of fleeces there were and we were able to look and feel the fleeces. In fact from the studio we could look out and look at a some of the sheep that the fleeces had come from. 

                             

We then learnt how to prepare the fleeces for spinning, which part of the fleeces were the best and how to wash them.

Then we learnt how to card the fleece. Carding involves separating and straightening sheep’s wool with two brushes so that it can be used to make yarn for knitting. These brushes closely resemble pet hair brushes but are made specifically for preparing wool fibres.

                               

Next we got to grips with a spinning wheel and learnt how to use our feet to spin the wheel and our hands to feed the fleece slowly on and turn it into a single ply yarn. This process took a little while to master and could be likened to trying to rub your stomach at the time as patting the top of your head......it takes a while.

It was a lovely environment to work in and Dunja was incredibly patient with us as we did seem to be slow learners. 

                                    

                           

Once we had managed to fill two bobbins with a single yarn it was time to ply them together to make them resemble  what I would know as 2ply yarn. 

Once this was done and we had each got a bobbin of 2 ply yarn we used a Niddy Noddy to move the yarn from the bobbin into a skein of yarn. What is a niddy noddy? Well Wikipedia explains it perfectly 

"A niddy-noddy (plural niddy-noddies) is a tool used to make skeins from yarn. It consists of a central bar, with crossbars at each end, offset from each other by 90°. The central bar is generally carved to make it easier to hold.

                      

After a really informative day I came away with my own skein of hand spun yarn. I so enjoyed it, I would love to be able to get my own spinning wheel and do some more spinning. 

                                                     

It's a jungle out there!

It's been a while since I've blogged but life has continued a pace, days have merged into weeks into months.It really doesn't seem like six months since we spent our first Christmas in our Irish house.

Hubby has been working hard both on the house and also on our house and garden in UK, whilst I have been working two jobs meaning usually only having one day off every ten days.

It's been exhausting and family and friend catch up time has unfortunately gone by the wayside.

We spent the full month of April in Ireland and the weather was really kind to us again, meaning that we made great progress on painting the outside of the house.

We have just had another week there with equally favourable weather and we've finally finished the outside.

When you compare it to what it looked like when we first voted the place, the difference it makes is so heartening and hopefully it looks a lot more friendly and welcoming than it did.

 

  

                                                                                        

As well as trying to get some decorating done we have also welcomed quite a few guests already this year.

It's great to be able to entertain at last but it does mean that decorating has taken a bit of a back seat, the house is in the sort of state now that everything has been painted and needs its top coat and final touches. To the unknowing guest it looks ok and I suppose it sort of means we don't feel the urge to paint so strongly! To be honest its nice to sit and enjoy it rather than be working all the time.

With such good weather our attentions have also turned to the outside space. The site our house stands on is apparently 1.3 acres. Essentially it was a field with house built on it and as such it still looks like that. Over the winter everything had obviously died off but when we came back this last time, with the recent run of hot weather, it came as no surprise that everything had grown slightly.

It can be a bit daunting but we have enlisted the help of a local garden designer. He runs a local garden centre and we first came across him when we were listening to the local radio station on a Saturday morning. He does an hour long gardening Q&A show and as his garden centre was fairly local we decided to pay a visit. We found out he offered a garden design service and we decided it would be a good idea. Hubby and I like a nice garden but we are no experts. We have a fairly small garden in the UK which doesn't take too much work to maintain and have over the years developed some raised vegetable beds. 

With such a large area of land we knew we needed some help and really felt that we would end up saving ourselves money too. Trees, plants and other things for gardens can be so expensive and we could easily have bought loads of things and found that they didn't grow properly resulting in a large waste of money.

So Padraic from the garden centre has visited and we have discussed our ideas with him. He seemed very positive and we await his first set of plans. Once we have agreed on a design we like he will put together a 3 years plan for us to follow in order to achieve it.  

So hopefully we wont be looking at this 'field' for too much longer.

                 

                  

Maisie has enjoyed exploring the garden. She runs off and hides and waits for you throw her ball, sometimes its a bit hard to see her properly.....