Simple living in the country - back to basics

Cheery_Daff

Merlin's_Beard said:

Poor chicken. Birds are so good at pretending to be not as ill as they really are, and so difficult to know exactly how bad it is sometimes.

Yep, that's it 😕 We're pretty good and sporting something's wrong and whisking them to the vets, we spend so much time with them, and we did that with Sunshine last week, but they couldn't find anything specific, so couldn't do anything other than generally making her feel better. Chicken medicine isn't particularly well advanced. There seems to be stuff they can do for reproductive things, but this seems to have been a heart issue 😕

KajiKita

Sending hugs to both of you. I‘m glad Sunshine had you as her humans - she would have had a good life with you and her flock and would always have felt safe and cared for. Sometimes it is just their time to go though. 

KK x

Tescodealqueen

So sorry to hear about Sunshine  sending hugs xxxx

Suffolk_lass

I know you will be sad about your chicken but you gave her the best life. 

I'm so please your boiler is back working. I'm also hoping for you that the lack of toilet and snacks was inconvenient rather than anything worse 

Cheery_Daff

Thank you all. We buried Sunshine this morning, and the others had some extra dandelions in her honour xx

Yes, fortunately there were no further incidents on the way home 🙄

Cheery_Daff

Evening MSE chums. 

A long day today. Buried Sunshine Chicken, and then off to see Mr Cheery's dad. I fitted a new door on the washing machine 🙄 and strimmed the jungle of a front garden, and took the dog for a half hour walk (he usually only gets taken round the block - he's am elderly dog and has a garden to pootle around, but I try to do a bit of a longer walk when I'm there, for interest if nowt else). We did a fair bit of cleaning, and Mr Cheery took his dad out for some errands while I did the garden. Oh, and we ordered him a Tesco club card - he's been paying the higher prices because he doesn't have one, and they won't just give you one in store any more 🙄 They gave him a number to ring, but I managed to order him one online that should come in the post 🙄

Anyway, finally made it home about half an hour ago 🙄

A gentle one tomorrow I think. My only plan is band practice late afternoon for about 3 hours. 

Next week is another busy one - working at home Monday, and then off to London Tues-Thurs. I don't usually do quite so much gadding about!

Cheery_Daff

Afternoon MSE chums. 

Slow day today. I did actually go for a run this morning, very excited! I've signed up for a race in June with a friend, and I've also signed up to the Cancer Research UK 'Iron May' challenge - doing the distance of an IronMan over the whole of May (not just in one day ) Challenging but doable, and will hopefully give me a bit of consistency in my race training! I like that it's free and has no specific fundraising target - makes it feel manageable.

I'll need to do 2.4 miles of swimming (equivalent of 160 lengths of 25m pool), 112 miles cycling, and 26 miles of running in March. Running will be fine - I'll be training for the race so should really be doing more than that anyway. Swimming more challenging - if I only go once a week I'll have to do 32 lengths each time, which is quite a bit for me - I'm not much of a swimmer... And cycling - again, if I only go once a week, I'll have to do over 20 miles each time, so I'm probably better doing two shorter rides each week, but then I'll have to fit in 3 runs, 2 bike rides, and a swim, every week for 5 weeks. 

Anyway, I am appallingly unfit, and doing far less exercise than I've done in years, so this should give me agood shake up. Enjoyed my extremely slow run this morning (lots of walk breaks) and looking forward to gearing up a bit! 

We also had a cafe trip, and I did some plotting and scheming. Just going to do a bit of banking, then do some beaky duties. Band practice later, and I need to clear enough space to work in the study tomorrow, and start getting my stuff together for my trip to London on Tuesday. 

Just finishing this nice cup of tea first though... 

Suffolk_lass

What a great challenge!

On swimming training, can I suggest that you aim to swim for 30 minutes on each visit. It does not have to be continuous, except that it is better if you don't get out of the pool. If 4 lengths is all you can manage without holding on to the end or standing in the shallows, do the four, stay and rest, recover and watch others for a minute or five, then try and do two more, 1 more, 1 more on that trip. If you always aim for 30 minutes you can break it down into number of trips in a fortnight, but you will find your stamina improves remarkably quickly, especially with running and cycling. Maybe think of a rest length of backstroke too, so that when you are tiring, you use different breathing and stroke muscles, and as you are improving, this will help add one more to the total.

In my case, I swam at college in my twenties, studied it for my degree from a technical, not a performance perspective, I taught non swimmers survival techniques and then did nothing for 30 years. I started at eight and was up to a kilometre within two months. I might be unrepresentative with some sort of muscle memory but the technique is classic, and it will work.

Cheery_Daff

Thanks, good suggestion, I'll do that. I might get in a swim or two before May to start building up.

I had a few lessons a while back when I entered my first triathlon 😂 I've never been able to do front crawl, and my head-out-of-the-water breast stroke leaves a lot to be desired... But while I do occasionally quite like a bit of pootling up and down the pool in the morning, swimming is never going to be a big love of mine so your suggestion of 30 min sessions is a good one.

At our pool, you book for a 45 min slot - and I often end up late, leaving myself about 20 mins, in which time I usually manage 16 lengths (400m). So I think if I gave myself the full time, started gently at the beginning of the month, did a bit of resting after a few lengths, and accepted i might need more than once a week... I'd build up nicely. 

Right. Working at home today, and there is a LOT to do. Also need to prepare for tomorrow's trip, which I'm not feeling too enthusiastic about right now I confess. Only got back from the last one on Friday and it feels like too quick a turnaround! I know plenty of people go on far more work trips than this all the time, but it's not for me!

redofromstart

I hate swimming, and am very poor at it, but I found it was like the couch to 5k thing, took me 3 visits a week over 4 months to build up to doing 100 x 25m lengths back when it was a cheap afternoon thing to do after I had finished being a student.  

Good luck with the challenge, sounds like a good plan to me.