What is the point of me telling you all this? Well until now these sort of concerts or lunchtime recitals were a matter of happening to be in the right place at the right time. Unless you knew of a concert, or followed a particular choir, many such opportunities would be missed. Now OClassical.com has the answer.

Developed in Cambridge, OClassical endeavours to hold details of all local concerts, big or small. At the moment they cover Cambridgeshire but will soon be expanding to the whole of East Anglia. You can search the site by artist/performer, composer or venue. And you can personalise the site so you can identify favourites and be notified about concerts coming up by favoured performers or composers. And best of all, its all free!

If you are a performer or hosting a concert, you can put all the details up on OClassical for everyone to see.

Gantwells are proud to have been involved in the design of OClassical.

So call into OClassical now and book yourself an evening of beautiful music.

In a previous blog entry on here I noted how I was after a broody hen to raise some chicks for James to see. None of mine were showing any inclination to go broody at the time and I was hoping it might be possible to import said bird to hatch some chicks for us. Well I’m glad that particular plan didn’t come to fruition as, judging by the most recent experiences, it wouldn’t have worked out that easily.

Previously I have had hens go broody at the drop of a hat. Hybrid hens are not supposed to go broody. They are supposed to have had all their maternal feelings bred out in favour of becoming world-egg-laying champion. However, with a little warm weather (or even without sometimes), there would be someone sneaking away to a cosy nestbox and there I would be putting them in the open wire cat basket to try to cool off not only their undercarriage but also their ardour in becoming a mother. I needed eggs, not chicks.

Now it was the other way round of course. And finally, after some rather impatient waiting, my lovely Orpington hen decided that yes, she would like to try this chick lark, and settled cosily in a nest over Easter this year. Excitedly I got more Orpington eggs, six of them, and she sat on them and laid some more of her own to add to the collection. And some more. And some more. And the other hens decided they would help with this new egg collection that was forming so they joined in too. In the end she was sitting on about fifteen eggs. Now I know Orpingtons are big, but even she was beginning to struggle - aside from the fact that we don’t have a cockeral so certainly for quite a lot of them there wasn’t going to be any point.

Then of course it snowed. It was hot, freezing cold and wet by turns. Given my total inexperience she coped with me very well and produced one beautiful healthy hen chick.

Hugely excited by this, of course I wanted to have another go. (James, by the way, the reason for doing all this, was only marginally impressed.)

So I have been waiting and watching. A couple of weeks ago my Aracauna cross and one of the rather mad but extremely friendly hybrid hens we bought at Easter, decided they were going to go broody. They both sat in neighbouring nest boxes for a few days. Once again, I rushed off to buy “hatching eggs” as they are called.

Both broodies were in the main hen house which is not a good place to be for producing chicks. (Hens can be rather nasty and live lunch would soon disappear.) So I moved the broodies to the broody coop - quite big enough for both of them. Big enough, but obviously not good enough. Hybrid (who has a tendency to the hysterical anyway) decided that was quite enough of all that sitting around nonsense and went off the whole idea completely. Aracauna cross was miffed and decided she did want to sit but not “in there” and proceeded to sit outside in the run, scooting back to old nestbox as soon as the door was opened. Ho hum. Back to stage one.

So, not to be defeated, I put six eggs under Aracauna cross. She squashed one, hoofed out two and is sitting on three, in the middle nestbox of the main house which will now have to vacated by all the other hens so Madam can raise her chicks in peace.

In the mean time Aracauna pure has decided she fancies this idea too. She did take the move to the broody coop OK, so she is now cuddling six eggs as of yesterday.

So we are underway again. A.Cross’s eggs are due in a couple of weeks and A.Pure’s a week after that. Updates and “breaking” (get it?) news here!

Lisa is an animal healer working in the Essex, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk area of the UK. She treats all animals from cats and dogs up to horses - and beyond, probably, given the opportunity! You can read all about her healing technique.

Treatment for your animal requires a vet referral but Lisa is happy to discuss your case with you. All her contact details are on the site of course.

There are some case studies on the site too with some lovely pictures of some of the animals Lisa has been able to help.

See some of the other sites Gantwells have worked on in their portfolio.

The Winstanley’s were a local family. William lived at Quendon in what sounds like a lovely old farmhouse called Berries, which sadly has been pulled down now. His nephew, Henry, lived at Littlebury and was the builder of the first Eddystone Lighthouse. Adam Hart-Davis wrote a fascinating book about him a while ago and that makes a good read too.

However back to William. He was a writer and very enthusiastic about Christmas. They were a religious family and he thought that a lovely way to celebrate the birth of Christ at Christmas was to have huge family parties with lots of food and general merriment. They sound a lovely family and Alison’s descriptions of the preparations for Christmas - riding into Saffron Walden to purchase all the food and Anne’s cooking on the days leading up the celebrations make for wonderful feel-good reading. There are even some of the recipes from the cookbook Anne used in the back of the book.

I should have said that William lived from 1628 to 1698, so through the Puritan period when Christmas was banned (although the Winstanley’s along with many others, continued to celebrate). However it was William’s writing that encouraged people to start celebrating Christmas again when Charles II came back to the throne. William was a prodigious writer producing his own newspaper and an almanac that came out every November under the pen name of Poor Robin, as well as several books.

The book is produced by Poppyland Publishing who have some lovely looking books on their website.

If you are interested in history, local stories or just want a heart-warming read for Christmas I can highly recommend “William Winstanley - the man who saved Christmas”. You can buy it from Amazon or direct from Poppyland Publishing.

TiddlyWiki is still fairly new and the help wiki link I looked at was practically blank. It took me some while to find any useful help and I finally found this pdf Tiddlywiki cheat sheet at nothickmanuals.info

However because it took me so long to get started I thought I would keep a note here of my progress with Tiddlywiki for reference. So here goes.

Getting started

Getting started actually wasn’t too bad as there is a ‘tiddler’ (an entry) already made called Getting started and you just click on the links within it to update the name of your wiki, subtitle etc.

What is a tiddler?

A tiddler is each one of the entries that you make in your wiki. When you click on a link to them in one of the menus, or linked from another tiddler, then they open up on screen, if they are not open already. They will then stay open until you close them. There is a link in the right menu to close all the tiddlers (which is a bit scary when you first start as you will give yourself a completely blank screen! Put one or two things in your Main Menu first!).

Saving

You do need to save changes to the wiki once you have entered something (not something I am used to doing as I did expect that to be done automatically). It gives you a message to say that it has been backed up and it will create a backup file in the folder where you are storing the wiki.

Changing the theme

Tiddly Themes and Tiddly tools. OK, I’m lost at this point. I’m just trying to change the menus really and have got carried away with changing the whole design. Will come back to this bit later.

Main Menu

Click on your Getting Started link and that will give you a link to your “Main Menu” (the one down the left hand side if you are using the standard Tiddlywiki design, and it only has Getting Started in it to start with). You can add any of your tiddlers to the Main Menu using the link text of two square brackets [[ your text for your link, the pipe character | and then the name of the tiddler you are linking too, closing with two square brackets again ]].

Default Tiddlers

The Getting Started tiddler also offers you the opportunity to list your Default tiddlers or those you would like to open up automatically when you open the file.

Cheatsheet

Tiddly Wiki Cheat Sheet

The Magic of Making is currently James’s favourite DVD and it’s one of those ones that even Mum and Dad are still watching, no matter how many times a day it is played in the Gant household.

The Magic of Making is all about how things are made. On the first DVD there are bottles starting with the sand and cullet, woolly jumpers starting from the sheep and even church bells. Each process is explained with easy to listen to and easy to understand narration and is clear but not over basic. So it is appealing to James’s ears as well as ours. And the filming has been beautifully done so you can see the paper when it is very first formed and picked from the felt roll that has helped create it.

Have a look at the MOM (Magic of Making) website for a preview of one of the films and details on how to order. The DVDs are available from the Early Learning Centre and Baby IQ. But we bought ours at the Black Sheep Brewery in Masham, who feature in the films. And as a lover of the Yorshire Dales I would of course recommend this is the best place to buy it!

I know there is another DVD coming out shortly and I hope there will be a series of these fascinating, educational and yet, relaxing to watch, films.

Anyway, I feel we are moving on to another stage and growing out of one or two of our suppliers. So I thought I would make a note here of the companies who we have found to provide good products, a good service and have enjoyed working with over the last couple of years. Some we will continue to do business with I hope for many years to come, but James and I would like to recommend them to you if you haven’t come across them yet.

Raindrops: The suppliers of James’s boots and waterproof trousers that have been admired by many. Their products are well made and are delivered fairly quickly although you do sometimes have to wait as the waterproof trousers in particular are so popular they sometimes run out.

Yellow Moon: A huge range of art and craft products, and kits. Yellow Moon will give cash back to your local school or nursery so find out if they use them and then just add their code to your order to support your school or nursery.

Letterbox: Excellent for toys and all sorts of personalised things too. They supply the name labels that you need to sew or iron into clothes for example, and James’s named lunchbox came from Letterbox. And they are great for birthday presents for other children too. Ask for their catalogue to browse - there is so much that its much easier than trying to look through everything on their website.

Red House Books: Even though we have our own Spiced-apple Bookstore, we still want to promote Red House. They do a lovely range of children’s books sorted by age range. If you get their monthly newsletter then they also include little articles by children’s author’s, illustrators and reviews from the children themselves.

Nippers: Nippers were brilliant for those first major things you need to buy. Their shops are all run by mums who have been there done that and know just what is good and what isn’t. The nearest store to me is as Whaddon near Royston but they have a store locator on their site. Nippers also used to run mornings where you could get hand and foot prints put on vases and plates which they then fire for you. Great for Christmas presents that first Christmas.

Or there’s Bricolage: based in Newport near Saffron Walden.

Baby hand and foot casting: We had a cast of James’s little foot made for my Grandmother, James’s Great-Grandmother, who can’t see too well. But she could hold and feel his little foot. There are lots of places that do it. The nearest to us was Elsenham. But there are kits you can get to ‘do it yourself’ too.

And I don’t know where we’d be without Cheeky Monkeys Playbarn - from toddler up this is a great place for the boys to wear off their excess energy (and girls too of course!)

So we hope you enjoy browsing some of these sites. We’re not on commission, honestly! but like to pass on useful information. And if you come across similar suppliers that you would like to recommend then please let us know.

It is one of those decisions that I hate. Do I need to call the vet or not? There are so many factors involved in one of these decisions. Obviously first is the animal’s need. Having the vet out is not known by many animals as the most pleasant experience, however good the vet. So if its not really necessary then it would seem better not to. But it is much better to call earlier rather than later. If a situation has deteriorated then it can mean a lot more veterinary intervention which could have been avoided.

Then there is the timing. Invariably whatever is going to happen, happens on a weekend, or in this case a bank holiday weekend. And don’t forget this isn’t just a matter of popping an animal into a carry basket and going to the surgery. With donkeys it is always a call out job and over a weekend that means an emergency call out rather than just the standard ‘farm calls’ that are bookable during the week.

And finally there are the circumstances of the problem. In this case Pru - its always Pru - or very often. Margo tends to get real emergency things like something stuck in her eye - vet call, no hesitation. Pru goes for the more under cover stuff when she might need a vet or she might just need to stand in the sun for a while and rest. Anyway, in this case, Pru had had a little bit more grass on Thursday than she had of late. I had also got some nice new barley straw which I had decided to feed along with their hay, i.e. a change of diet. And Pru is so sensitive to things now that any slight change can have an effect. And the straw was so nice I had got a bit carried away and given quite a large section of straw the day before.

Finally of course there is her general medical history. She has laminitis and has had for many years now. She also has bad hips. And both donkeys were in season leading to some boisterous playing around and probably Margo jumping on Pru’s back, not to be recommended when you have bad hips.

So when she came out of the stable just occasionally lifting her back hoof off the ground on Saturday morning, what do to?

Well Friday night I had checked their feet and there was some heat in that hoof. (Always keep a stable diary and keep a note of such things, as well as what you have fed them that day.) But there was no heat Saturday morning. I checked the foot carefully, cleaned it out and checked the white line which didn’t seem to have any stones or holes. The white line is the part of the hoof between the sole and the outer wall. It is where donkeys commonly get something called seedy toe and as the white line disintegrates is can lead to little tiny bits of soil or stone tracking up into the hoof and causing an infection. This creates an abscess which often needs poulticing and certainly needs veterinary and perhaps farrier intervention. (Image from: http://www.miniaturesforu.com)

I walked her up and down the yard and there was no sign of lameness. Her back was dipped gently and naturally. (Another tip - watch your animals closely and get to know how they carry themselves. They will show signs of pain in their body. If Pru is uncomfortable on her feet, she will hump her back in an effort to relieve pressure on her feet.) And she was looking relaxed and happy. She ate her breakfast and tucked into the hay (with less straw this time) quite happily.

I checked on her later in the morning and then again towards the end of the afternoon. She was wandering round the field with Margo. So perhaps she had just slept oddly. Perhaps her back was aching from Margo leaning on her. Perhaps the straw was too much of a quick diet change. Perhaps it was all of those. But for the time being anyway we don’t need to disturb the vet. Thank goodness.

As I said at the start, this is just my experience. I am not a vet but I have got to know my animals over the years and I would recommend you do the same. Watch them and learn from them, and if you are in any doubt then get the vet out. Most surgeries provide a 24 hour service and if they only come check your animal and say it will be fine then that is much better than missing something serious.

1. Check your animals every day
2. Watch and learn how they move, what they do
3. Don’t ignore any signs of unhappiness - not eating, drinking, interacting with companions
4. Keep a stable diary and make a note each day of what you feed and anything unusual - it really doesn’t take a minute and can be invaluable
5. Check your donkey’s feet regularly and learn their natural temperature and condition
6. Have the farrier out regularly
7. If in doubt - call the vet!

Happy donkey-ing!

Resources:

1. The Laminitis Trust
2. Seedy Toe
3. Books:
1. Keeping a donkey
2. Donkey Breed Society Books

We were off to Hatfield Forest, Takeley near Bishops Stortford, a beautiful old Forest that was the hunting ground of many Kings over the years and is now owned by the National Trust.

Hatfield Forest was mentioned in the Domesday Book (now awailable on line!), passing from King Harold to William the Conqueror after the Battle of Hastings. It is thought that Henry I developed Hatfield Forest as a royal hunting forest in around 1100AD.

Not that any of this particularly bothered two small boys, sitting under the shade of one of the huge oak trees in the forest, consuming crisps and sandwiches like they had gone out of fashion. They were slightly late having lunch as the driver (me) had got a little lost getting there. But we were still in plenty of time to enjoy our picnic before setting off to see Mr Muddle.

Mr Muddle’s Magic and Theatre Show was why we were in the forest at all that day. We all sat around on the grass and enjoyed the antics of Mr Muddle, his Uncle Monty and Pete the Plumber who was actually a pirate. The children enjoyed it and joined in wriggling their fingers to make the magic work and calling out enthusiastically when Pete (Pirate/Plumber) tried to steal Mr Muddle’s sandwiches. And the way he could put his hand into a box and have it appear in a window way behind him was amazing! It was hot sitting in the sun but it made such a pleasant change from all the weeks of rain and the ice creams and drinks we had afterwards were all the more enjoyed.

We sat by the lake, just outside the Shell House to eat our ice creams and then had a walk round the lake and into the cool of the trees. We found thistle down to look at and the boys enjoyed climbing around the trees before we made our way back to the car.

There are all sorts of events on in the Forest including regular clubs for children. There are plenty of walks and cycle rides and schools can book educational visits too which I think is really good. It’s a beautiful place to find nearby. (I would just like to find a way of getting to it without having to go round that horrible huge Stansted airport roundabout!) We will definitely have to try some more of their events.

I first discovered Doreen Tovey on a summer holiday years ago while I was still at school. In fact, it wasn’t me who discovered her, it was my grandmother who, until her eyesight deteriorated, was an avid reader. (She now has books read to her instead so she doesn’t lose touch.) Anyway, Grandmother was a regular at the mobile library and knowing I liked cats she thought I might like one of Doreen’s books about her siamese. Well, we were all in for a real treat. We became addicted to the sales of Solomon and Seeley and the donkey Annabel, as I’m sure countless others have.

Doreen gives a voice to the cats but not in any twee sort of way. She really does seem to be able to voice their thoughts but in the main its the views of their owners that are put across as Doreen and her husband endeavour to keep up with their four legged family.

I’m writing this on a hot, summer Sunday afternoon when it is too hot to do anything except lay around and read and these would be the perfect books. Or curled up in front of the fire on a cold winter’s day when it is contrastingly too cold to do anything. They are a relaxed, easy reading but they will have you rolling about the floor with laughter.

And the best thing is, they have all just been reprinted and are available in paperback. So order now from Spiced-apple’s Bookstore - you are in for a treat.