Tuesday 29 November 2011

Number 5

The other day we brought another budgie into our home...yes budgie number 5. Her elderly owner had passed away and she was up for rehoming. We have room and lots of love so here she is even though she wasn't planned!



This is Bonny in her old cage
She is called Bonny and a real sweetie. She's 3 years old. At present she is in a separate cage in different room to the others while she has 30 days quarantine just in case there are any health issues that come to light. Birds hide illness very well, but when they are under stress such as moving to a new home for example, that is when any problems will come to light. Hopefully all will be okay but it is not worth taking the chance and risking the health of my existing birds.


Bon has not had much to eat yet, but that is normal with new home jitters. She is quite fat under all her feathers so I am not too worried at this stage. She's very active. I have put her in a large cage and she is having great fun flying about, climbing and exploring.

On the same day we got her, by coincidence a friend phoned us about another budgie that needed a home so we have agreed to have that one as well. I don't know yet whether it is a girl or boy, all I know is that it will be yellow. Hopefully it will be here this week...so by next weekend I could be the owner of 6 budgies!

pizza potatoes

We just got a bigger halogen oven...I've had one for a while but I found it too small for family meals. I'm really enjoying using this new one. The other night I did pizza potatoes...it's a way I try to get DH to eat more cheese lol. I'm try to make him acquire the taste so he will eat more 'basic'food...he has very 'select' taste buds lol.


You just bake the potatoes in their jackets and then scoop the flesh out and mash it with some cheese ( and or onion ) and seasoning. Put the mixture back into the jacket shells, top with the kind of thing you like on pizza, top with more cheese and rebake for a while. It's real comfort food for these dark and dreary Winter days. If you were feeling wildly health conscious you could have a salad on the side I guess...I personally would like baked beans with them but I always forget until halfway through eating them and then it's too late lol.


Sunday 6 November 2011

New friends

...Not only for me but for Elliot too :)

This is Buzz ( yellow face, grey, greywing budgie )

Now he has a blue cere, but this was on the day we got him when he was only about 6 weeks old. He is a lovely gentle character and adores Elliot.


These two beauties are Suki ( albino budgie ) and Timmy  ( sky blue normal budgie ).

For a while it was just Buzz and Elliot, but Mr D fell in love with a couple of birdies when we went to a pet centre...quite a distance from home. I told him we had to walk away but he was so enthralled with them we made the journey again the next day to go and get them, thankfully they were still there! I was planning on getting more but maybe not for a while! I'm very glad we did though as they are lovely birds. Suki is more timid than Timmy but they do both come onto my hand for a feed :)

I gave them a quarantine period just in case! Yesterday however they were all officially out of quarantine and have been having fun together. We have 2 large cages now ( and a small starter cage ). I expect they will all end up in one cage eventually but they have the choice when they are out flying to go back to which one they feel happiest in. The sound of gentle chattering in the background is so soothing and makes the house feel so homely.

I am having to hoover 2ce a day as a lot of seed husks blow around from Elliot and Buzz's cage. Timmy and Suki are in a new design cage called a vision M02, there is practically no mess at all from their cage, I highly recommend it to anyone that was thinking of getting birds. I have the medium size as I only intended it for quarantine but if I got another I would get the L02 which would be larger.

Evolving some more :)

Since taking the plunge and learning to drive I have found that it really IS good to face your fears and push yourself into unfamiliar territory...in fact I am finding familiar territory somewhat boring these days...that is most unlike the old me lol...in my quest to leave my old mouse-like persona behind and be the kind of person I want to be, I have taken up a new challenge...

...A couple of weeks ago I started martial arts training...Shotokan karate to be precise. Yes it's true! I've been nagged by certain family members to give it a go for a long time and lately even the instructor started encouraging me to try...so I thought what do I have to lose? Perhaps my teeth and a straight nose? LOL hopefully that won't happen, but I do have much to gain...the martial artists I know all have a certain confidence about them, not cocky or arrogant, just a self confidence that I wouldn't mind myself. I have to say that even though I have only taken 4 lessons I am enjoying it immensely! I ache like anything after a session but I know that will improve once my muscles have got used to being used in a new way. There is a LOT to take in... new words, a new kind of body co-ordination...I've known my left from my right since I was a teeny child but you'd never know if you watched me just lately...My driving instructor discovered that I am not very good at translating mirror images or detecting small changes in a series of movements and that my auditory memory skills are non-existant, in short, I have the attention span of a Goldfish...by the time Sensei has got the end of the sentence I have forgotten the beginning of it. Something else that became apparant when I was learning to drive was that I am slow at processing things...this has again has come to light in my karate class, but I am a lady of a certain age and not a spritely teenager...one of the black belts said to me  " we have no failures here, only people who give up!"  When you think about it, that is a very good saying which you could apply to many areas of life. I do not plan to give up when it gets hard...well gee, it is hard now lol...but if everything was easy where would the challenges lie?...life could be very dull.

I have to wear a uniform, for those of you who don't know, it's a white canvas suit called a gi.They are a bit of a devil to dry but I guess it just means I will have to be very organised in my laundry rota. I have long hair, down to my waist and I have to tie it back for karate which is a bit like being in school lol...You are also not allowed to wear jewelry, just in case you cause yourself or someone else an injury. It's a whole new world to me and it's making me think. Most exercise I have enjoyed in the past has been the type of thing that I do alone, walking swimming, running etc, so this is another way I am being taken out of my comfort zone...I am not looking forward to doing the exam/gradings as you have to do that in front of a hall full of spectators, but it is part of it, so I will have to accept it just like everyone else does!

So there you go, another step forward :)