Mike’s Meandering Mumbles

As seems to be usual these days I am so damn busy that I fail to mumble as much as I intend but never mind here I am again ready to celebrate our pigs. Just yesterday we had another influx of 14 piglets in a single birth, quite a reasonable number I thought.

We normally immediate detail and detesticle the youngsters, unless we want another boar but we had a bit of a problem with one as the mother decided that an escape as in order and headed up a tree. This caused a certain amount of quiet chat and the odd titter amongst the other mothers, who knew full well that our crack team who did such this never caused the piglets any problems. I do like to see my granddaughter helping on the farm. whether assisting in such matters or helping a little piglet to get its breakfast. As can be seen we treat our animals very kindly, so much so that we even tend to get legs of pork one at a time so as to prolong the happy lives of our pigs.

Mind you I wish we had not taught them to read as it has led to a number of difficult questions that may disturb their peaceful ruminations.

I tell them to look at the medicines we keep and note that our snacks tend to come from that direction rather than the pig population and ease their worried minds that way. However to be totally honest I am not really keen on the rat on a stick snack. 

Perrhaps I am not as good an artist as I would like to be but . . .

I just don’t care!

With dogs at both houses giving birth we seem to be imundated at the moment. I still refuse to replace my beautiful Muggins who we believe succumbed to rat poison at a nearby house. He had relegated Jasper to second place in my heart, which came as rather a surprise as Jasper suffered from terminal cuteness. He has become a father now and the puppies look to be similar soon.

Dachshunds are renowned for their cleverness although this is not generally known; in fact he actually built this machine himself.

We have had a number of impure Shih Tzu puppies also, which is rather nice as they are friendly little chaps with an almost permanently wagging tail. They are also pretty bright particularly in comparison with some of our other mongrels. Indeed they are also braver than many which makes me wonder if having guard dogs is really worth it.

But then I see one of ours trotting up with glee and realise that dogs are really just nice to have around and unlike our ducks they do not conspire against us.

That’s how today is as I realise the lorry is not a paying proposition and must go, a sad thought as we expected better from it and it has worried me a bit. But luckily I recently came across a self help book that may assist although being a bit of a wimp I have been thinking of other possibilities that will not involve me in altercations with the armed police.

Such possibilities range from baby minding, which I have to say looks simple enough, and thus within my capabilities to taking up spaghetti growing on our farm, as it looks simple enough even for me. sticking on long thin things, perhaps I could take up pet snake walking, but my dislike of snakes is a bit of a barrier there.

An expansion to include food provision at the Beauty Parlour might be the answer but of course there is the problem that we don’t actually have any sheep.

Perhaps we should just stick to the parlour which is, thankfully, doing quite well, as well it might with the effort the staff put in, especially for the Fiesta Queen. We are even prepared to adorn her cat similarly to make the experience one to remember for ever.

We are not awfully keen on animals though as some of our hair stylists have run into trouble.

. . . that carries you off.

It’s the coffin they carries you off in.

And if my cough doesn’t leave soon I am ready for the consequence. After two doctors and two sets of drugs I am still coughing so much as to have an extremely painful diapragm by the afternoon due to the paroxsyms that afflict me.

However this has prevented me joining in the Easter re-enactments so popular here in the Phils, which probably avoided more pain.

I have been strolling from my position watching Alice play tennis to dine in a pizza parlour most afternoons and this has now been pointed out to me as a possible error.

Never mind I place the ice pack firmly on the head and hope for improvement, while sipping my latest medicine. With the occasional trip to mutter, of course, although that has its own problems.

I have been suffering from a vile cough for far too long and in spite of my feeling that antibiotics are far too freely prescribed I have had to concede defeat and obey my doctor and swallow them. This is partially due to the failure of our beauty parlour or at least its promised acupuncture to return me to normal.

However being horribly infectious and with my grandchildren regularly dropping by our house I have remained in the bedroom for the main. Which is nice as it gives an easy view of our birds’ living area. I am shocked to find that my favourites are not the bosses of the area, and neither are the turkeys, in fact the ducks bully the others and we have had to ensure that my sweet geese are fed separately to ensure they eat well.

The chickens are far too kind, as can be seen below, and so we feed them specially, if needed, also but luckily the wet season should be over and, with luck, getting wet will no longer be necessary to do this.

The adopted ducklings give the purported mother a few worries due to their adventurous ways and habits of exploring or latching on to visitors and going for a walk with them or even on their own. It is only when they are really very young that they can be trusted to paddle serenely around their mother.

And it is no use setting out rules as ducks have their own beliefs and just do their own thing, which often bears little relation to what their owners would prefer.

I am not sure if they are related but  there is another squabbling bird of very much the same habits although just at the moment I cannot recall their name. However they make, like the ducks, a pretty picture, illustrating a large family And its internal squabbles.

We took advice from the wise women of the village and decided that it would be useful to add further to our scope and now dancing lessons are amongst the other thrilling opportunities on offer.

I must admit that they seem more likely to generate income than our first attempt at accupuncture, effective as it was – well the client lived and said emphatically that he was sure no more treatment would be required, so he must have been cured.

But hair remains the mainstay as so many like long hair and need to have it best treated, which we can do as we specialise in having the best available soaps and the like.  Using the best is worth it to ensure that our make overs are genuine transformations.

We can take a youngster with a basic hairstyle and create a masterpiece that can be worn at the most splendid occasion. Especially since we can give advice on dress and deportment.  We do rather pride ourselves on the full service that we can provide.

Although it has to be said that we did have one customer who suggested that she was not awfully happy with the result of her new hair style, but we told her it was the latest in the States and she went off fairly satisfied. However deep in my heart I feel she may have had a valid point.

We had been thinking of opening a little shop for some time but somehow we could not get the necessary permits. But driving to tennis one day we saw a caribou taking a mud bath and this gave us the germ of an idea. Some men, and most women, like a decent hairstyle  and add to that nail treatment, foot spas, mud baths and the other things to pamper a body and we had a genuine money spinner, we hope!

So we went into partnership with a cousin beautician and have opened a new business, which we hope will prevent penury, and certainly it is well patronised at present. This may be due to the high standard of snacks we offered initially, as certainly some of our other cost-cutting was a shade over the top. But then one has to make compromises in everything in life so we concentrate on providing affordable styling that suits the wearer, even for gingers.

For those having to penny pinch we can give a simple style that they can easily replicate at home. And for those who really seek the cheapest available style we can let our young trainee loose to help our clients, although personally I might suggest paying more is in fact to be preferred.

But style is a personal choice and who am I to guide the more fashionably minded.

. . .  was quite busy, we wanted to try some new things but regettably the animals we planned to ride escaped causing us a good deal of frustration.

As we suffered when trying to get a decent place to lunch on Valentine’s  Day; while Bogo has a few quite reasonable places they are not  “faine daining” and we did not want to go down to the city house. It is made more difficult by my problems  of needing early nights, of course. But we ate quite well at the Nailon although we avoided the V Day special, interesting as it looked and went fully a la carte as usual. As ever I was placed before Alice’s beautiful beaming smile, which made my day, as it does on a daily basis. This retirement idea is wholly wonderful!

Other things occupied us, sorting out the new young maid in the city house for instance. Quite a good soul but needed a bit of work on knowing what to do. Our brilliant lady helper from the country house went down for a few days to teach and all is now well.

But perhaps the biggest point of interest was the birth of our first grandson, much to the irritation of our granddaughter who told her mother that this was enough “no more, ok?” which rather amused us. In spite of her dislike of being a “lola x 2″ Alice is clearly reasonably happy. As indeed I am. As the poor soul has intials of PM and his big sister has AM and was immediately given the nickname Dawn we think he is likely to be called Dusk, which I foolishly suggested and he may now be stuck with. I have much to answer for in the future, due to my failure to connect brain before speaking!

  All in all, quite a month.

Travelling in the back of a pick-up is very normal in the Phils, but unfortunately when we were recently meant to have visitors from the tennis club it decided to bucket down with rain as a defiant close to the rainy season. There is no pleasure in being soaked so a much reduced group came to see us, although as can be seen a turkey, fish, pork and squid all managed to get devoured!

Six litres of Paul Masson red were drunk leading on to a bottle of Chivas Regal, instead of coffee, which may explain the happy smiles of the  main imbibers, of whom I was, not unexpectedly, one.

However early retirement was a need on the part of one of our welcome guests, and a gentle doze in the pick-up became his choice.

I did suggest that I had an eye opener guaranteed to work on all but the dead but Alice, who is far more sensible than I am, dissuaded me.

The following day there were some comments of the “never again” sort but  I do not believe them and in any case . . .

We’re getting older, but the love sure isn’t over,

We remain as happy together as pigs in clover

(Our pigs are clean and do not live in mud!)

It’s not all fun and games here in the Phils, as mumbling about the recent earthquake should have indicated. After all, getting a decent English breakfast is well nigh impossible, which causes me a great deal of morning irritation, As does the strange American preference for coffee, when my attire clearly shows that there is a far better alternative and that this can be extended into the other parts of the day. Neverthless I have been reading of the advantages of drinking green tea, so have occasionally tried that at breakfast time, or while driving (and to prevent concerns I mumble that in fact Alice drives while I relax) when a Gilbey’s can be a pleasant way of stopping worries over the state of the roads, now almost as bad as those in UK. There is no choice but to run the route daily to get Alice to her tennis, and as all know, where she goes, I go. She gets so much pleasure from playing, and they are a nice bunch at the club, in fact four came round to our country house for a feed and a drink last Sunday, which was rather fun.

Having said that it did delay my getting on with the normal weekend farmer’s duties, but it is an unhurried life and so I can accept being slightly behind in the ploughing.

In any case, life is looking up, since I have found that the lack of state care will not preclude a home in the event of disaster.