Gone but never forgotten

Joyce Ellis

My gorgeous Mum

28th August 1937 - 9th January 2011

God saw you getting tired,

And a cure was not to be,

So He put His arms around you

And whispered “Come to Me”.

With tearful eyes we watched you,

and saw you pass away.

Although we loved you dearly,

We could not make you stay.

A Golden Heart stopped beating,

Hard working hands to rest,

God broke our hearts to prove to us,

He only takes the best

2011 - Happy New Year

Ah, the arrival of another year with all that it will bring.

For us it was a quiet transition from 2010 to 2011 mainly as I has a stinking cold so was in bed with a raging temperature at 22:00.

The chickens spent the day ranging around the garden and enjoying a fresh corn cob in celebration. Even bigger news is that Harriet has now become bored with broodiness - she is THE most stubborn broody in the world and despite everything we do she will just stay as broody as she wants as long as she wants. This time she has been broody for almost 8 weeks!

Harriet now OFF the nest

Throughout the extreme cold and snowy weather eggs have been very scarce indeed with only Tallulah laying the occasional very thin shelled eggs. The end of year brought a thaw and now that temperatures have reached a more seasonal norm Nigella has started laying as well! It's good to have a few home produced eggs again - although it's been noted many times, our eggs are on a completely different level to those bought from shops in both taste and colour and just SO yummy.

They always say that never make any resolutions until after the celebrations of the New Year so you clearly know what you are saying. Well worry not, I'm not a person to make any such rash promises however I do think that there is so much more that we as a family and me as a person can utilise even though we think we are fairly good. I also don't think that we make enough of what we already have SO this year we are going to have a concerted effort at:

• not buying more than we are going to eat
• eat everything that we grow on the allotment and if we can't eat if fresh use it in a different way (chilli and tomato jam I made last year for example)
• using left-overs

and finally

• not buying any cookery magazines for an entire year as I have so many cookbooks anyway so I'm going to use them more

So let's see how we do over the next 12 months

Nigella and Tallulah in a winter garden

So from Hens in the City we wish you a very wonderful 2011 and hope that at least one of your dreams comes true in the forthcoming year.