Diary: October 23

Continued 2/2

12th

I've been gazing at my Roberton walks booklet for some time, but today, on his way to work, Charlie dropped me outside Forman Hall to navigate surrounding footpaths along Borthwick water that would eventually return me to the farmhouse.

Roberton's church, seemingly rarely open.

This hue of green from this glen of the Borthwick valley.

This bridge appeared to be safer than the bridge further up the Borthwick water, toward the Craik Forest.

Striking definition of these berries, pale in the swirling grey waters of the Borthwick.

Dark clouds loomed heavy over a fast dissipating bright morning.

Extremity of weather nay bother Cheviot sheep that graze here.

High upon the hillside there were wild mushrooms, food for the badgers, I thought.

A fire was lit at Park hill farm, but the wind blew the smoke in a different direction, ha ha. I don't know what to make of Chisholme; but then again I figured that's exactly what they want, hindsight of witnessing this world's heinous contempt to trauma purge and graft people's spirituality unrecognisable from self.

May the folk at Chisholme be calm at peace among themselves; whilst there is still some attainable peace present within this beautiful valley; as an unquellable, relentless storm hastens to appoach.

10th

The afternoon became strange after I walked some distance along the River Teviot from the Trinity Bar. Why does the apostolate always approach guided by mobile phones I don't know. So many messages tonight, they void me inside. The wind is howling outside, three mobile networks took £40 instead of £20 as tried to re-establish my LAN via the internet; I'll be phoning them tomorrow to demand a £20 refund.

9th

The 4x4 rear left wheel locked up this morning, a suspected problem with the vehicle's handbrake. The truck is covered in mud from our weekend jobs, although not a priority, we require nobly tires as the tread on the 4x4's existing tires is not sufficient to grip. I am pleased to find I am seeing a reduction in body weight. Skipping breakfast, lunch and consuming an evening meal earlier appears to be rectifying acid reflux significantly.

Today, I have upgraded this here computer to a Debian testing release named "Trixie" (I've used Debian since "Woody" release). I am not missing Atom (an IDE I used for years) whilst utilising Gnome desktop environment + Gedit; which is sufficient for coding.

Charlie finished ploughing late, we drove to the farmhouse to find the lambs water container tipped over; they got two containers now, placed in such a way they cannot be knocked over. Its handy having IPcams, last year, alerted by the IPcam we saved a ewe in lamb, she had fallen onto her back and could not roll over. The Bothwick valley is a beautiful place; I feel very lucky to have resided peacefuly there.

8th

Charlie fetched the JCB to scrape the farmhouse driveway from a yearly landslide of mud.

Then, out of the mud leaped a frog, charlie safely removed him to the garden pond!

The 4x4 was used to tow a few buckets full of type one stone, and also bail of hay from our lambs inside the polytunnel.

7th

Early afternoon we purchased a Herdwick ewe and lamb; the drive to the field, along a disused railway track tested the traction control of our 4x4.

We drove through deep ruts full of rain water unhindered, after a quarter of mile we arrived to see the flock of Herdwick sheep penned.

The shepherd told the ewes as having no teeth, Charlie let me pick the ewe, as the shepherd held the ewe he checked for teeth and finding a full set he seemed disappointed; as we noticed his other ewes he wanted to keep penned elsewhere.

Driving away from the field with our trailer loaded was not a problem, until we approached an incline following a sharp right turn. The 4x4 road tires, not made for off-road, whizzed steam as Charlie zigzagged the slip between wet blades of long grass. A mere eight feet from the road gate the 4x4 declined to grip, but the shepherd kindly obliged us a tow.

Our elderly ewe we picked out from a herd of a few hundred appeared calm, both the lamb and yew were definitely bewildered. Among the herd we noticed symptoms of fluke (dropping heads, bowed jaw lines), returning to the farmhouse we oral wormed both ewe and lamb before they entered the poly tunnel.

5th

Intense pains in my stomach during the night, waking at 3am to vomit stomach bile is a regular occurrence; this has occurred years ago but gone away. Pungent rising acidity is chocking my breath, inducing a dazed lethargy. Obesity and eating later could be contributing facts, in hindsight I've eaten much less, but although stopped weight gain, I've been unable to lose excess weight.

1st

Today we repaired the rear electric window of our 4x4, a wire cord between the motor and window had frayed and broken. A electic window mechanism replacement job at our garage cost £130, but with the electric window mechanism bought by us on Ebay only costing £40 we thought we'd watch a few YouTube videos then complete the job ourselves.

It took about an hour and a half between us, the YouTube videos of experienced amateurs took forty-five minutes. The old mechanism took some plying to exit the door, as did the new mechanism entering. The door card was fairly easy to dismantle, although shown differently on the videos, as their car was a different year to our veichle.