bits and bobs

There have been lots of things I have meant to put on here but have now forgotten most of them!
I am still working on the district until Friday and then I have few days on the ward before we go on leave on 31st July. We will be spending 4 nights on Ascension Island on our way back to UK and I am really looking forward to the chance to relax and enjoy some sunshine. Then our time in UK will probably be quite busy visiting everyone, shopping etc.

Today is very wet and cold and there is snow forecast. Simon was disappointed that the shops had sold out of sledges when we had the last batch of snow. We drove out to Cape Pembroke yesterday afternoon and it was the wettest we had ever seen it. Simon enjoyed the challenge of driving through deep water and finding a route between bogs and sand dunes. This is the main track out there.
On Saturday morning we had a trip to the Common and collected 12 sacks of horse manure ( the horses are back there now for the winter). I am hoping to collect quite a bit more before we go on holiday but may not have the time. I borrowed an angle grinder and cut up the old sheets of corrugated iron to go around the bottom of the fence around my vegetable patch but have not finished screwing them up yet. I built a second rockery but there is likely to be a third at some point as I am still finding lots of rocks.

The earwig population has decreased although there are still some around. However mice then moved into the polytunnel, nibbling holes through the bottom of the plastic to get in. I have trapped 4 but suspect there are more.

At Easter one of the shops opened a big new supermarket to replace their old and cramped store. It is much easier to get around with wide aisles and a bigger range of products. The biggest attraction for all the children was the fact that it has Stanley's first automatic doors. There was a bit of a price war between them and the other main shop but it didn't seem to last long. The other interesting shopping experience a few months ago was when the co-op were selling off old remaining stock having closed down last year before we arrived. You could just make an offer for much of the stuff or pay £10 for a mixed box or basket. Their stock control was obviously rather lacking as there were huge quantities of some things like out of date spices (in fact most things were out of date but some by several years), safety pins and clothes pegs. So we now have a lifetime supply of wooden pegs, washing up sponges and paper petit-four cases. Also several tins of lemons for making marmalade.

In fact I have cooked one pan of marmalade and by adding some orange peels it was not too bad, although not as nice as my usual. The garden centre were selling off green tomatoes at only 50p a kilo at the end of the season so I made some nice chutney to replenish the store cupboard.
There were some very large cypress trees growing right next to the cathedral but they were damaging the foundations and blocking the light from the windows so they were cut down a few weeks ago. It does seem a shame to cut down trees in a place where there are so few but they were definitely in the wrong place and it is nice to be able to see the building. This picture was taken when we were walking on the other side of the harbour recently.
The Stanley triathalon takes place next Sunday and one of the nurses I work with wanted to enter so Simon and I and another person are making up a team with her. Simon is taking it very seriously and has been training. I can only swim and cycle slowly and can't run at all so will have to walk my bit. Each team of 4 complete an Olympic triathalon between them, doing it like a relay, first swimming, then cycling then running.