Physio, a reluctant Land Rover and ducks

I went to see my Physio on what is, for the next ten weeks one of my three sessions a week, and luckily she had time at the end to do something extra and manipulate my shoulder which is giving me gyp at the moment when I turn my head to the left.  My children gave me a wheat and herb bag a few Christmases ago which after heating in a microwave can be applied to an aching area.  I've been using that for the last couple of days to try to ease it and my Physio had something similar which I used during the other physiotherapy I was having.  

It does seem to ease the discomfort somewhat.  My last visit to her ended in me being stranded in the Land Rover in the supermarket car park opposite the practice.  My remote got me into my old Discovery but the immobiliser then cut in and prevented me from starting the engine.  (Luckily it wasn't snowing, this was taken the week before in my lane.)

After about ten minutes of sitting there trying again and again and thinking to do – the remote casing wouldn’t be opened by me – where would I buy a suitable battery – how would I get home if I couldn’t fix it – another, newer, Discovery with English plates drove into the parking next to mine.  I was over at the driver’s door almost before he’d switched off the engine in the hope that he would be able to perform a miracle.  The driver, Gerald, turned into my knight in shining armour.  He managed to prise apart the remote and discovered that it was not a flat battery but a broken battery housing which meant that the battery wasn’t getting a reliable contact.  After a few minutes, while I kept turning the key in the ignition and he wiggled and held the broken housing to get a contact, the engine sprang into life and I thanked him profusely and drove straight home where I had a spare key and remote.  How lucky was I that he happened along?!  Apparently, it now needs soldering and hopefully will then become the remote on the spare key ring.

As I drove off to the Physio this afternoon one of my Muscovy ducks had flown up onto the new hen house.  When I came back she was in the veggie patch nonchalantly wandering about.  I've had these particular birds for a couple of years now and they've never come over the fence - it's high but obviously can be breached by flying up to the shed roof in stages first.  I don't mind them being in the veggie patch while there's nothing there, and certainly in Cornwall they used to wander around the general garden without causing any trouble, just eating all the revolting, large orange slugs we had there.  I'm not sure though whether they will be a problem with the veggies when the warmer weather comes and they're starting to grow again.  I only have three Muscovies now, the second from the left in the photo was dead, uninjured, in the field last summer when I went up one afternoon.  Another is sitting on hen eggs in an old cat basket.  I remove them from her each day, but she's really broody and I can't decide whether to let her have some to hatch out - and just hope she won't try taking them on the pond with inevitable results!

This is not a photo of a starving cat!  Purrdy, here sitting on an old staddlestone this week, seems to be getting bigger and bigger.  She is so heavy to lift now that I have to make a second attempt when I pick her up.  

So February has arrived today, but looks much the same as January.  Will this rain never stop?  There is nowhere for the new rain to go as the ground is so saturated and because the verges are so soft, vehicles are ploughing them up as they pass one another on the narrow lanes.

Three things I like:

1.   Grinding up stale bread to make breadcrumbs for my lunchtime chicken pieces.
2.   Collecting fourteen eggs from the hens today, the most in a day this year so far.
3.   Finding another tin of Quality Street which I'd forgotten about.