Saturday

I'm just about back to normal I think now after my chickenpox. I still don't feel very energetic mind you, but then did I ever, not for the past few years anyway. I haven't done very much this week, apart from normal stuff, shopping, walking Emma, and watching Celebrity Big Brother. On which subject I am embarrassed to say that I am seriously addicted this time, maybe because of being ill, and having the excuse to just sit and watch it, plus viewing it on my new telly, but I'm also thrilled that my favourite is still in after last night's double eviction (Dirk) It's the first time I've voted on a Big Brother, and probably will the the last, but it was apparently very touch and go between him and the bunny-boiling Cleo, so I spent a few quid on voting her out, and thankfully, other people felt the same and she went!

I went over to Pat's yesterday to set up her new broadband with BT Yahoo. It turned out to be yet another nightmare, the wiring for their phone line and extensions in their place is like spaghetti junction, with leads running up through the walls, across from one side of the house to the other between floorboards and ceiling, and her computer is in the study area with a run of about 30 metres of extension cable running up the wall from the main socket, across the house, into the bedroom, then back across the ceiling and finally back down! I didn't think we had a hope in hell of it working, but after about 3 hours we finally got her online. She needs another DSL filter though, we had to unplug the bedroom phone to get it to go, and I finally left there at nearly 6pm in the pitch black. So my poor birdies didn't get their afternoon feed yesterday. Still, at least it was mild and there were plenty of peanuts and the sunflower hearts feeder and fat balls, just the seeds and the suet pellets they had to miss out on. Talking of birds, I am saddened to see that the dreaded trichomonias has reared its ugly head again here after an absence of several months. I've seen three chaffinches and a greenfinch this week, and found a dead chaff yesterday. It's awful watching them trying to feed, and sicking back their food and spluttering and spraying mucous around. I rushed out and disinfected my bird table the other day having witnessed this, but of course it's impossible to see it all, especially on the ground. This afternoon, I took Emma for a walk over the river at Henllan. This is a lovely scenic area of the Teifi near Newcastle Emlyn, with lots of huge trees alongside, and I was upset to see a Chaffinch there too, also puffed up and spluttering. So it's pretty widespread (it's around 12 miles from me) Poor bloody things.

It was otherwise lovely to get out, I haven't been over there for months, there's lots of trees come down since the last time I was there, and the river was very high. Hard to believe that in the summer I was paddling in here and could have walked right across, it was only a few inches deep, now it's about 5 feet I reckon.

We got our village news mag today. Normally, this thing winds me up, as I have mentioned before, full of things that don't interest me, but this time I cheered, I feel really, really happy at something I read in there. Namely that the Council have again opposed the 10 wind turbines that they are trying to build within a mile or so of here. They have refused to grant permission! Yay. Oh what joy. Now perhaps that company who is trying to wreck our countryside and way of life here will just piss off and build them at sea, where they aren't going to disrupt anything (except perhaps a few fish) I really thought it would go ahead this time, being as the reports of how many people were keen for it because of the work it would bring to the area.



Don't make me go in mum!