Police Stops, Shopping and Lambing Time

We had to venture out yesterday to get some Layers Pellets for the chickens, even though they barely lay eggs now that the girls are all in retirement,  they do need these to help with the calcium levels in their little bodies and as a good base feed.

The Police were out in force in our area, stopping all non-essential journeys and turning around visitors to the area who were trying to have their daily exercise far from home.  Here in Wales no unnecessary journeys are allowable, even a ten minute hop in the car to take your dog to a park or beach is not allowed.  If you can walk there fine, it's the unnecessary car journeys that are being clamped down on ... and with good reason.  

We were about to be flagged down when one of the officers recognised our truck, it is a distinctive model and there's only one other one that we've seen locally, so they knew immediately who we were and where we were from, so we were waved through with a smile.  It gave us both a real sense of belonging, which was nice in these strange times.

Anyway when we got to the farm supplies shop it was closed.  We did notice they now operating a 'phone your order in from the gate and pay over the phone' technique so we plugged the phone number into Alan's phone ready to join the queue on Monday morning.  I'll go along for the ride and as neither of us will have to get out at all there will be no problem, and it's surprising how a simple ten minute car ride with a change of view lifts the spirits.

While we were out yesterday we called our neighbour to see if she needed anything and managed to pick her up some cat food from the local Co-op who were operating a 'one in, one out' system at the door.  Getting ourselves a couple of necessities and a couple of treats while we were there.

Which category do the doughnuts fall into, well I guess that was the necessities camp!!  A sweet treat will stop me murdering Alan, so he agrees totally with my categorisation.  He got a couple of  'red stickered' almond cakes, so perhaps I'm safe too ... for a while.

The shelves were pretty empty in the Co-op, so we made the decision that if we need more shopping we will venture slightly further afield in the opposite direction to Tesco and leave the small Co-op for the people who live the most local to it, a lot of whom are elderly and walk through the town to get there.  We are 3 miles from Llanrwst and just over 8 miles from Tesco in Llandudno Junction, but of course we have the cars so that is not too much of a problem. 

First thing every morning we see farmer Thomas in his Landrover driving slowly round the fields over the road from us and on the opposite side of the railway track.  He drives in twice a day to check on his sheep, who are currently in the process of giving birth in the fields.  Outdoor birthing is quite common in this area and at this later time of year.  It is the more mature sheep that have birthed easily before that are left to their own devices except for daily welfare checks.  For the past week there has been one lamb running with all the sheep, obviously an early arrival, but over the last 24 hours three more little playmates have joined him.  No more hanging out with the grown-ups for him.

Sue xx