Darren Steele

My ride on mower that we bought in the Summer that we bought the house is slowly falling apart. It’s hit trees and walls. Been ridden with 5 people clinging to it all over the place. The starter mechanism is held on with a tie-wrap, the collection tube is held on with a bungee chord and the front of the body work has fallen off. Now as you can see from above the skirt has snapped on it. It may be time for a shiny new one!

Took this picture during our relatively mild Winter. The picture was taken using the camera on the iPhone 4S.

I was taking the children for a fun Saturday morning out at the car wash [ yeah I know how to show my kids a good time ] when we spotted this Hillman Imp. It was the first car my Mum ever had. Made me smile. As a child I used to sniff the exhaust pipe whilst the car was running. Ahh, the innocence of 70s children.

After my recent run in with the chicken seller who wanted a ridiculous amount of cash for some more chickens [ to feed to Mr Fox ] I decided to grow my own.

Incubator and eggs from ebay – let’s see how this works out then!

isn’t it just the coolest thing ever?

Finally chopped them all down one side…and more importantly tidied all the branches away and nearly got around to burning them all. Chopping hawthorns is a nightmare of a job

Operation “chop the crap out of the Hawthorn bushes” got off to a flying start today. I’m halfway down one side of the garden and it’s only taken me about four hours. Jesus. I need a tractor with one of those Hawthorn chopping attachments…or a light sabre…or a big fence!

There’s still a shit load to do though 🙁

In an attempt to regain some space in my big boy shed I decided all the children’s toys just had to go. Since taking them all to the tip was quickly pooh poohed by the rest of the family I had to move an empty shed from the chicken coop down to the other end of the garden. Getting the shed back into pieces was easy enough, carrying it down the garden was kind easy enough too. But finding the good weather, motivation and requisite skills to put it back together eluded me for weeks. On Xmas eve everything came together in a perfect “storm” of enthusiasm and mild weather.

I can’t help but feel I’m getting better at this DIY business. I managed to take off the old, broken, security light. Strip the wires and drill some holes and then attach the new security light to the wall all without a single mistake. Yes I know the wall is looking awful but if we ever get around to extending then this wall will be coming down so we’re loathe to do anything about it.

…doing “Mustang Sally”, with assorted Wignall backing singers.

Saturday November 20th 2011 – My Ma’s 61st birthday party