20th October 2011

We had a full house this weekend.  The Jolly family joined us from Northern Ireland, to celebrate Johnny Graham 18th Birthday. It was a fancy dress party with the theme "The boat that rocked". 

It was great fun! What a bunch..

                                                                                                      
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The Jolly family,

The  Andrews gang

Ready to rock !

The next day it was Justin Jolly's 16th birthday. It was lovely to be able celebrate it at Sutton Mawr.  We all had a massive Sunday roast, ate far too much!

The Birthday Boy

We have finished our alteration to the main reception.. We think its a great improvement. Guests can now relax on comfy chairs in front of a woodburner .

Just been out to check on Bluebell, still no calf!..Will blog photos of puppies on Wednesday, their eyes have just opened.

16th October 2011

Decided to take Dora and Tiger Lily to Barry Island for  a run around.  There was a number of dog walkers, the tide was right out. Took a few photos... to show you what you were missing...

Dora and Tiger Lily loved it..

The sun was just going down...

not many kids on the rides

Rosie puppies are getting cuter and cuter every day.

Their eyes are still closed.

Rosie is quite happy us picking them up..

Bluebell still not given birth, How much longer?

14th November 2011

The days are getting a lot shorter. The sun went down at 4.30pm today.

We moved all the pigs around on the weekend. Stella and  Ruby were too muddy so we moved them to a new paddock. They are delighted. The move went like clockwork... It seems to either go really well or really badly!  There is no in between. As a friendly pig farmer told me, when I first started. " you only have one chance at moving a pig". He right if it doesn't work first time you might as well give up!.

Rosies puppies doing well. Here are a few photos

They still have their eyes closed.

This is the only boy and he is tiny.. The girls at definitely bullying the poor chap!

I am checking on Bluebell all the time. She has still not had her calf. I have been told it can take weeks from when they first show signs of labour.  It must be any day now.

10th November 2011

We had a bit of a shock this afternoon. Rosie and the puppies suddenly disappeared! We spent hours trying to find them. We looked all over the house, in all the out buildings.  We had given up. Then Alice found them in our bed...She had picked them up individually and taken them upstairs. They were very comfortable. We have now made a more suitable bed downstairs.  Polly Daisy and myself carried them down. Rosie didn't put up much resistance.

The two girls are absolutely enormous!  talk about girl power, the boy is starving, so twice a day we make sure he gets some milk. Rosie only has 2 teats working.

Here are some photo...

One of the girls...

all fast asleep....

Bluebell is in labour, we are checking her every few hours. The vet has told us she is having a large calf so fingers crossed

6th November 2011

We had a very busy weekend at the farm.  Moorhen has given birth to a black bull calf.  We are going to call him Mutley Moses or Spooks. They are both doing really well

Rosie had puppies on friday night. She had 6 in all 2 girls and 4 boys. She had them in Polly's bedroom. Polly was a brilliant vet with the assistance of her elder sister Alice. Unfortunately, the first one was still born. Then we lost the smallest black one, the next day, and last night a third one died. The 3 which are still alive are doing really well and we have one girl and two boys left. They are mostly white with small black and brown spots.  Rosie is being a brilliant mum.  Experts do say that jack russells have very small litters. So it possible that Rosie can only feed three successifully.  Rosie is very protective so photos are not easy. I will put loads on the blog when I can.

We have lived in Barry for 14 years and have never been to the Barry Island firework display. Well we did on Saturday night with Polly and 6 friends and it was tremendous. Must of been 7 thousand people all on the prom and down on the beach.  The night was ideal for fireworks and we were not disappointed. Really good display, everybody was on great form and brilliant atmosphere.  Well done everyone involved, which was mainly the Barry Rotary Club.. We will be there every year from now on!

2nd November 2011

The clocks have now gone back, and you do feel winter is on its way.  Its still very mild. but there are massive amount of berries on the Hornthorns, which if,  old wife's tales are to be believed, we are in for a cold one!. I hope its not as cold as last year -15c.

We harvested all our lavender from around the courtyard. This needs to be completely dry before removing all the heads.  We then place the lavender heads into small embroided sacks to place in the guests rooms.

Today we went on a long walk from Barry to Aberthaw. It was beautiful day, lovely walk along very interesting coast line and passed the power station, which is Wale's largest polluter!  The walk took over 2 hours and we got picked up in Gileston by R D taxis.

When we got home on the news was all about a massive landslide at Porthkerry Caravan park, which we walk through. 5 Caravans nearly ended up in the sea. Luckily no one was injured.

29th October 2011

We had a fantastic night out. The theme was "the boat that rocks" 70's night. The girls went down to Kutz and co Barry for a bit of hair styling. They looked brilliant. It was in aid of Velindre Hospital and held in The Bear Hotel. We danced the night away, all the moves came flooding, back John Travolta watch out!

                                        The Thom Family... fully trained egg collectors.

We had a lovely family stay at Sutton Mawr over the half term break.  We got them fully trained, so they were collecting, packing and stamping the eggs!

This morning woke up to no water. Called welsh water, who very politely told me, its nothing to do with them. Our water main crosses under another farmer field to the main road. All in all ,its about 200 mtrs. As the man from welsh water said "finding a burst pipe in that lot, is like looking for a nettle in a haystack". He advised me to lay a new water main. This would mean digging up the farmers field, which has recently been seeded. The farmer  Edward Thomas kindly shot  over and we sorted out a route. I ordered the digger....


Well luckily we found it!  I had to dig the area out, which resulted in me getting very dirty and wet. After finding the problem, I was a bit stuck so I had to refer matters to my very patient neighbour Martyn David (plumbing expert) who directed me through the whole process.


In addition to this  BT arrived for the 5th time to sort out our telephone line as our broadband has been down for the last month. Vicci has being going nuts. I have wasted hours on the phone to Sky. We have had a new modem, new power supply, new filter, some rewiring of the internal phone lines.

But today they find the real problem. When I  was giving the house a haircut as it was covered in ivy and goodness know what else, I accidently nicked the phone line with the hedge trimmer!  It is always my fault.....


Anyway we are now with water and broadband, Hooray!