Summing Up Sunday 18th October

What's been happening at 2CC this week?

BIG EVENT OF THE WEEK

Jacob, our stud ram, has arrived! He comes from Shepton Mallet and is staying for six weeks (which is two cycles for the rams). He's only five months old, so we'll see how he gets on. (Best quote: 'he has some very large, er, apparatus at the back!' - E)

Here's where he came from:

Two lovely sheep-y women asked lots of proper questions about pedigrees etc. which made A and J realise they never got our flock's in the first place. Oops. Jacob's paternal side are all named after people from the bible (Jacob), and his maternal side are all named for foodstuff. (Jacob's Cream Crackers)

The ladies are getting used to him, and he ate from the trough with them for the first time this afternoon.

What else?

• A and J went to a salsa party which involved a lesson followed by a party. Sounded like it was fun!
• Reading - J on 'The Gracekeepers', A reading poetry, E moving between 'The Virgin Suicides', 'Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe', and Michael Morpurgo's 'War Horse.' Good feedback all round!
• Disappointment at the Man Booker announcement; E must have missed something. Have to admit, it's still not that enticing to get through that many pages for something that sounds intrinsically nasty...
• Popoki is growing! She's not really a kitten any more, more like a small-cat. Spayed and microchipped on Monday! (You wouldn't have known she'd been under a GA, starting from Monday afternoon, she has been the most manic we've ever seen her!)
• A brief felting 'workshop' with a neighbour that wasn't entirely successful... At least A managed to get something presentable! The herd wick's fleece didn't felt easily at all, as we had been promised. And alpaca wool definitely needs quite a lot of sheep's wool with it to get the lanolin. Oh well, it's a learning process.
• A and J went garden centre-ing (along with grocery shopping) and got some colour for the winter months ahead - wall flowers, cyclamen, pansies and pinks.
• E finished stitching together her wooly project, so just a border to go. Watch this space...

5/15 on The Guardian Quiz. A mediocre score. We should have stuck with our first thought - the Chancellor of the Exchequer is the Master of the Mint!

Happy Sunday!

Summing Up Sunday 27th September

Autumn is definitely coming. But let's all celebrate with this last bit of extended sun - hurrah! It's so nice that it's sometimes difficult to get anything done, as the outside just calls to you...

A bits and bobs sort of week. J and A out to WWW Walkers on the Sunday - making the most of this glorious Indian summer we're having. A and E with support MJ went out to Clevedon beach on Saturday morning to collect... pebbles! (There is some sense to this, I promise!)

M2 is having a sale in order to get money for a polytunnel at the shared allotment, after finally getting planning permission. So money must be raised... There's a sale on the allotment on 8th October (scary how quickly October is coming!) and there's been a little flurry of activity over things to make. Here's a little preview...

Popoki's still growing, and the adult cats are gradually getting used to her. She still likes to clamber all over them and try to play when they just want some peace, but we're hoping she'll learn... (She hasn't so far - poor Kosh is pretty clear that she doesn't want to play (hissing, growling) and the little one comes back for more! I would've thought she'd realise by now what they're saying, but there seems to be some sort of communication error...)

Other than that, life as normal. Books to be read - we've got the whole of The Man Booker prize on order, although I don't know if any of us will be able to stomach 'A Brief History of Seven Killings.' We'll give the others a go before the October announcement.

26 books - well, we're really not doing well with that challenge. See what we can do. Even if it ends up being 10 books, then that's better than nothing!

Summing up Sunday 13th September

What we've been up to:

• A and E went on a hunt for more materials to weave into baskets from the hedgerows, after a lovely visit from E's 'good-father' and his wife. Both very successful, although A's basket is not quite finished...

• A, E and supporter E went to Cadbury Garden Centre to look at fish for supporter E's new fish tank! Difficult decisions, but a radical rethink from cold to tropical fish! Back to the drawing board with new heater and filter. Had a quick look round the bunnies and squeaky-pigs, but the craft section has gone! Very disappointing.

• Book Club discussing the Man Booker long list! Each person read one book and here are some choice comments.

The Chimes (JT): wonderfully enjoyable read, but possibly annoying if you don't have a background knowledge of musical terminology. Maybe not for the shortlist, as it reads a little like a young adult novel. Recommend to E and A particularly.

A Moor's Account (JC): retold story from a Moroccan slave character's point of view, reminded of 'Testament of Mary' from two years previous shortlist. Pretty good.

A Spool of Blue Thread (ET): regretting having never read Anne Tyler before! Beautifully formed novel, felt in very safe hands from the start. The kind of book where it isn't groundbreaking or dramatic, just an average family life, but you end up reading slowly - not wanting to read the end.

Satin Island (AJ): rather like the cover, this book was less interesting than watching paint dry. Didn't like the characters, plot or anything at all.

Sleeping on Jupiter (DW): set over a very short period of time (almost finished reading!) digging deep into the disparate protagonists. 

The Fishermen (CG): brilliant read, and a debut from a Nigerian author. It should make the short list! 

A Brief History of Seven Killings (ET... well, the first 50 pages): Not brief enough (700+ page book)

A Little Life (CG): found this a slog and too many characters to keep track of...

Did You Ever Have a Family (): 

The Green Road (AC): 

The Illuminations (AB): a good read, though not groundbreaking. The two interwoven stories came together slightly clunkily, and one story was more compelling than the other; maybe the extreme contrast improved it though. A not very believable ending soured the climax.

Lila (RA): hadn't read the two others in the trilogy, although it seemed okay to stand alone; Marianne Robinson is probably more established in the US? Stream of consciousness writing, would rather have had points to stop because you can't say 'I'll stop when I finish the chapter!' But a great read and should make the shortlist! 

The Year of the Runaways (CN): enjoyed, though not finished yet. Sometimes don't want to hear so much about suffering, seemed to be a very 'worthy' book. Seems similar to 'Five Star Billionaire' on the long list two years previously.

• Not one, but two weddings! (or three if you count T and H at another in another part of the country). J and A to cousin J's wedding to T (very relaxed, family affair at a registry office), and E with two supporters (thank you J and M!) to an old school friend's. Very contrasting - church wedding, lovely tipis for the reception (though they didn't go), beautiful decorations, wedding car, amazing dress, the works! Moving ceremony and very grateful to be invited, and able to go.

• The Winscombe Michaelmas Fair! For the first time in a long while, A wasn't there organising on the day! Quite nice to have a break, although she still missed it a bit. E entered photos, flowers and some craft things - and a good haul of certificates back, although disappointed at the photo compilations not being ranked. Still: two firsts, four seconds, one third and one highly commended. Just a shame about the photos.

(Winning collage of the sheep - a bday present for Alison, and each sheep is made from her own wool!)

 

(Losing photos on the theme of texture)

• J stayed overnight in Devon after the wedding, and now A has left for a shibori dyeing course at West Dean until Thursday! Should be good fun.

• 5/15 on Guardian Quiz. Did you know that Princess Anne was the first senior royal to commit a criminal offence? She had dangerous dogs. (We didn't).

Happy Sunday! If you're reading, give us a comment :)

Summing Up Sunday 30th August

Another week at 2CC!

In The Garden: last of the cucumbers - but the plant did about nine! Great tomatoes, even though the plants look very sorry for themselves. Gladioli nearly all over, maybe three to still come. Dahlias still strong - beautiful reds, yellows, light pinks, bright pinks and deep purple-y red. Lovely. Sunflowers grow-grow-growing, apart from one that was sadly severed by its own tie. (Note to self: leave even more room for stalks to expand.) Too much rain to have much fun outside, and the garden needs a bit of tidying, but still very productive.

Outings: an exciting week! J went to London (two plays - one mediocre, and one very good), gallery-ing, Mexican food-ing, wandering, reading, looking at the magnificent view from hotel window. A and E to Wells for charity shop clothes, but sadly none found. Then, the unexpected Banksy trip by E, J and C (chum for the afternoon) - so lucky to get in, as we never imagined that we would! Excellent. A more charity shopping on Saturday and struck gold! And A to a lovely outdoor wedding on Saturday afternoon/evening. Packed packed week!!

Purchases: 'fairings' from London (notebook and tea, so very good automatically); two charity shop dresses (A); trowel and hoe set for a £6 bargain in Wells charity shop; then an almost new (second-hand) Settlers of Catan on ebay, but were outbid at the last minute (I think that there's a real knack to ebay); twenty six books bought (... er. Yeah. How did that happen? Oops); new secateurs! (there must be some huge party house in a secret part of the garden where all the old ones live...)

Kitten Updates: still very very sweet! Growing day by day, if everyone is to believed. (Hard to tell when you see her every day.) More confident and spending much more time in the rest of the house - desperate to get around in fact! Contact with the other cats is continuing at a slow pace... no one is that impressed so far, but hissy/spittiness is getting a bit better.

Visitors: twenty-two month A (I made this blanket for her as a tiny thing!) and her mum visited on Friday. A was completely uninterested in Popoki, but she thought the toddler was terrifying! A had friends round for a laugh on Friday night. KH visited E on Tuesday for a lovely craft session.


What a mammoth week! What has everyone else been up to?

Love from 2CC xx

Summing up Sunday: Week 5

We've been growing: borage, love-in-a-mist, squash pumpkin things, polyanthus tuberosa pearls (came free with the dahlias, which are doing well!), and remaindered carrots and sweetcorn plants from 'Sandra's' World - pretty good stuff! Most things doing well, although lots of aphids on the broad beans...

We've been reading: 'Life After Life,' Kate Atkinson (A - enjoyable after a few false starts), 'Ancillary Justice' and 'Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk' (J - both very good, particularly AJ), bits and bobs (E): 'The Sandman,' (good), 'Stolen' (mediocre), started 'The Darkest Part of the Forest' (great fun.)

We've been going: busy week! Visiting kittens at the RSPCA (saying goodbye as they went to their forever homes yesterday...), drive to Uphill Beach (lovely, breezy and quiet), concert at Bristol Cathedral (not a great programme, but a good experience), J's trip to Devon to see a cousin, and Raku Pottery Take Two at The Walled Garden, including a slightly chilly picnic.

We've been doing: reroofing the garage! (J), practising spinning (A&E), finishing making a peg loom (J&E), sewing a present for a friend (A&E), charity shopping (A)...

Best part of the week: having T and H for the weekend, a real treat!

xx

Summing up Sunday 17 May

Our best Banagaram words - whacked, equestrian, hoity and warbler

Best TV - Julie et Julia was a great Meryl Streep film we borrowed from Jean. Surprisingly engaging.

Best gardening - the sunflowers have gone out! And the flower project blog started with Sue.

Best animal - Lovely lacy and her 6 kittens being fostered by Rita for the RSPCA. We got to name them after garden things - calendula, chicory, juniper, huckleberry, fennel and alder. Sadly they are off to be early weaned and find homes from Brent Knoll.

Best outing - ice cream on Clevedon seafront

Best purchases - 20 dahlias on line and some blue flower gardening clogs...

And what we've been reading - The City and the City by China Melville (7 stars out of 10), The Tiny Wife by Andrew Kaufman ( a solid 8 stars), Americana (not finished yet....) (among others...)

"Our field"

Hello Readers!

I haven't contributed for quite a while, though I have been collecting some pictures of the field in anticipation of writing this.

To back-track: we acquired the field in the legal sense on the 15th February, having spent some time arranging with two of our neighbours the proportions and shapes of the pieces we would have.

Our section is shown here outlined in red  on the plan prepared for us by our friend David the architect.

For the previous many years (19 that we know about) the field has housed our loca dairy farmer's dry cows and baby calves from about March to October. So the edges and fencing have not needed to be kept in a secure or tidy state.

Here is some of the debris we collected:

We burnt a lot of old brambles and rubbish:

Here is a shot that gives a perspective on the size of the blaze!

Then neat and tidy new fence:

and finally, sheep!

We like the sheep. The white one butting A is Wendy, a last-year's bottle lamb, who is a Texel. The rest in this picture are Herdwicks, and there are also Blackface and six of this year's lambs. They all belong to someone else, and are temporary grass eaters, pending us organising some of our own. A is going to the Bath and West show tomorrow to choose some! And goats?

Bank Holiday Weekend

A quiet home-y weekend.

Finishing sewing for J's present.

Admiring the blue sea of forget-me-nots.

Planting sunflowers in pots...

Preparing a new bed - potatoes, pumpkins and more sunflowers.

And SHEEP in the field - if you look really closely you can see them! Not very tame yet, but A will soon have them eating out if her hand.

Despite showers, it really feels like summer might be coming.

And the final flutters - Easter Monday and beyond...

Monday was bright and sunny despite the rains of the evening before.

It heralded a lot more departures : J to see E in London, Hopkinshaws on to the road to avoid holiday traffic by 9 and finally T and H after lunch. However we did mange to pack a little more in...

Hurdle and trough moving from the old sheep field. - 3 years ago I borrowed both space and Suffolk sheep from two sets of friends and put them together to have sheep from Easter to October half term for a few years. In this process I acquired some equipment - hurdles and feeders.  These have kindly sat in what is now Barton orchard anticipating the moment when life might change for us and sheep return. They are heavy and awkward so having help to move them was great and took us an hour rather than all day by myself.

We then set up Crook Peak for egg rolling and a picnic of Italian Easter bread in the shape of a sugared dove, a wonderful selection of cheeses, olives and tomatoes. The storm kettle did its bit too and we had tea on the very steep slopes of the south side of the Mendips. As ever the slope's steepness did for the eggs and we lost much of them in the smashingly stony trip down the hillside! 

Some clearing up and octonauts watching finished the day...

Tuesday 

Departure day for Little S, L and MB back to Cornhill terrace and genomics and nursery... However we fitted in a visit to see some Nubian goat kids and texel lambs and play in court farm park nearby.

And the final flag flutters of the weekend...

We managed to collect an enormous amount of lost property: three egg moulds, a pair of black shoes, a single large walking sock, a roll of glittery wrapping paper, a car key, a little French recipe book, a blue and maroon striped scarf, a computer charger, toothpaste... Much of this has an obvious home and has been posted or delivered back but if any if this is yours do get in touch. 

And Maidens' Piece is well and truly named - more to follow about the name! 

Easter Sunday celebrations and namings

Sunday

As it had been forecast grey and wet we had moved the biggest of the bonfires to Saturday but we still hoped to burn the remaining bramble and hawthorn hedging from that side of the field at the end of the day. 

Many more visitors came in a steady stream - the Stallard clan with Mum Stallard, Dad Stallard, Grandma and Grandpa Stallard bringing H

Caroline Peter Jack and Rose, Sue and David our field architect, Huw an oak dragon officiando and men's group friend to help mastermind the naming ceremony, Tim and Margo in the evening bearing brownies, and neighbours Alysun and Tim too to help with the fire. 

Little B and B were dispatched off to sues emporium for a birthday treat rummage experience and returned with an antique blanket, liberty fabric and jumper! 

An Easter egg  hunt set by T and H and Easter egg making for Ryan, Arran and Sam with Ellen and Debbie completed the afternoon activities. 

And a wonderfully erudite and literary treasure hunt for the oldies by H and T too ... The best clue - this beautiful boetician and their redheaded companion's surname - pond! 

The naming ceremony followed in a gap In the rain. Huw smudged  us in with sage and we were a rather noisy and bedraggled procession but process we did with  a noisy beating of the bounds to ward off spirits. We welcomed  the good spirits of the East, North, South and West to bring air and light, regeneration and solidity, sunshine and wet fecundity and then officially named the land 'Maidens' Piece' with gifts of hope, peace, fertility, and sheep! 

A mega 'train game' was played while it rained. Sue, Huw and David hadn't played it before so we introduced them to the delights of stations and engines throughout Europe...

And another slightly soggy but brilliant bonfire ...

Easter Saturday at The first Coombe cottage field festival

A busy day:

As well as being our fields naming weekend it was also Belinda's birthday...

The morning was heralded by michael's special buns, present opening, and then cake with lots of candles to be blown all ably assisted by Sam... We did try and score the cakes appearance/texture/flavour but there were so many and they came so thick and fast that in the end this ginger cake was the only one we managed to officially evaluate! After a lot of scientific discussion about likeart scales and the like we did manage to agree on a 5 point scale and this cake managed a sound 4 point something...

Debbie and Jay arrived early afternoon with Ryan and Arran to make chocolate eggs. Debbie was amazing bringing all the equipment with her and the eggs got finally decorated on Sunday and made into fantastic monster faces.

Ryan and Arran were great at swinging and were also very well versed in tadpole management ... 

 

Swings in the garden and the start of the botanical and insect surveys with mark and Michael  went on through the afternoon. The tadpoles also suddenly developed legs so needed to be upgraded to the next size of tank with stones to crawl out on to - much excitement and a lot of water right in the middle of afternoon tea but all got safely transferred.

Early evening heralded a magnificent birthday and Easter feast from M and B with a wonderful bowl of Winterhead cherries and creamy yoghurt from Karin. More arrivals in the shape of Tam who dillligently organised the treasure hunts for Sunday and Joe arrived safely home from France with his merry men.

Then came the gathering of even more people as the sun set...

Frank and Elizabeth arrived bearing a wonderful field cake with a pigmy goat, a texel and Suffolk lambs. As Frank planted the existing boundary hedge with the field 17 years ago most of the prickly clippings were definitely his responsibility.

 And then many neighbours - Bob and Maureen the owners of the other big third, Anne and Peter through the hole in the hedge between our gardens, sue and Richard from around the corner, and  Sandra and Jim with Adam from the Lynch and Sally/Suma land.

And a huge bonfire with more tea and cake to thank all for their contributions to an amazing
achievement .