Tag Archives: hangman

Men in Sheds

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Try to bring this picture to mind – five middle-aged men in a barn, one holding a microphone, one talking at length and three more standing round muttering. They are either about to deny allegations about their past or discuss our new Men in Sheds project.

If you  listen to radio Nottingham at around 11.00 tomorrow morning you may hear me. I’m the one heard answering “About this big.” as I hold my hands apart to the microphone. It’s not great radio, but I’m working on the basis that if you’re good at things they will ask you again.

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Assuming that you miss it, because the lead time is short and the time is imprecise, it should be available on some sort of archival player (I’m hazy on technological detail) for a month or so. However, I’m in a good position to tell you that it won’t be worth the effort of finding it.

The only important thing I said was that we have a new small scratter for kids to use when they visit for apple pressing this Saturday.

Meanwhile we are doing farm stuff – trying to teach people the six times table so they can count the eggs after we’ve boxed them up. It’s not as easy as you’d think. We’ve also had a cut-throat session of Hangman – I came close to being hanged searching for Family Guy and repaid the compliment by hanging the group by going for zip. I nearly got them with jive too, but they squeaked in with one limb left. What you need to win at Hangman is an overly competitive attitude (or so Julia tells me) and a selection of short words featuring unusual letters. (I checked up this strategy on the internet – a sure sign of being unsuitably fixated on winning, but after the “dik-dik affair” I decided not to rely on unusual names.)

For those of you unfamiliar with the full details of the “did-dik affair” I did try to insert a link but can’t remember which post originally had details. What happened was that I was banned from playing Hangman by Julia after I used the name of an obscure antelope

which caused far too much hilarity (and repetition of the words dik-dik) amongst our clients. It’s not the first time she’s had occasion to put the dampers on me in our 26 years of marriage and won’t be the last.

Wednesday (Part 1)

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We have new goats! They are pictured above, though you may struggle to make them out. When we have new animals we always have plenty of people wanting to use the camera and we try not to hang around and disturb them too much. The result is half a dozen rushed photos from someone who may not have held a camera for months. One kid isn’t eating so it’s a bit of a worry – we aren’t lucky with goats.

Apart from that it’s been a busy morning with the apprentice trainer coming and a professor visiting – yes, professor. We’re not as daft as we may sound from this blog.

We’ve done eggs, looked at the new goat kids, gone through the list of jobs, struggled with technology (that was me) and taken pictures of butterflies (me again – it’s  a hard life).

Having said that, I’m still banned from playing hangman. I’m not happy with the decision because I feel it was quite an easy word and well within the spirit of the game (as It can be difficult pitching it right for the group) and generally not thought of as a “bad” word.

Trouble is that I failed to take into account the fact that a couple of the group  would go home laughing and telling everyone that there was an antelope called a dik-dik.

I will say nothing more, just reflect that there is a difference between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is knowing there is an animal called a dik-dik.

Wisdom is realising that when you work for your wife you need to remember she doesn’t always share your sense of humour.

Meanwhile I have a good photograph of a female Small White, which is on my list of things to do.

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Female Small White

Also got a good photo of a Gatekeeper.

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Female Gatekeeper

Both of them have their wings open, which can be tricky to get.

We’re making bath bombs with lavender from the garden at the moment, and then it will be time for lunch.

Is it really only half-way through the day?