It’s amazing how things always come at once. I spent days working on finding the best new walk in deep freeze, Although if the winter is going to be as hard as they are predicting I could probably do without one anyway!! Just leave the food out and it will stay frozen! However that is not really what we need to do. So to get a new walk in freezer, we need to revamp the freezer shed, which means new cladding on the outside, as the old stuff really is past its sell by date and will probably fall off soon anyway, and then insulation, oh and moving the water softener. Well the softener is about 25 years old or more, probably more I suspect. So it is very worn, hideously ugly and a nightmare to move, consequently that means a new one, and I might tell you not many people can give you advice on water softeners, but I now know far more about them than I did before and really wanted to know anyway. However a new one will hopefully be on its way soon and is much smaller, much neater and hopefully easy to put in as I can’t afford to pay someone to do it! It is interesting though, we de-commissioned the old softener and I can see a difference in the water quality in a couple of days and not a good difference, so we really do need a new one.

Stupidly at the same time I wanted a shower in my bathroom, because on a bad day, having two baths in one day, which could happen, is wasteful of water and heating oil, and time consuming as well. So what did that lead to – the electrics need to sorted out!! Oh and the plumbing. I now know why the water in my bathroom tasted so utterly disgusting, but having now got rid of the now defunct header tanks in my loft, the water pressure is higher so all the loos leak, and the dogs water drinker, and the washing machine in stock room, and so on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I guess we will sort it all out but boy it’s all a great deal harder and more expensive that I needed at this time of the year.

It’s a glorious day, the autumn colours are amazing and we have some of our regular photographers coming, so I guess it is a good photo day as well. Simon is off to India next week, he is going to be helping them get ready for the coming breeding season and looking at helping one of the other centres get ready for artificial incubation and rearing. The new doors on the Hawk Walk are making a huge difference to the warmth for the birds, the handles are on, they are closing more easily although some need to be adjusted, and we don’t have to worry about the birds. I am now looking into the tubular heaters and we will be set for the winter for the trained birds. Just need to win the lottery fairly soon!

All the birds are going well and improving and Simon’s merlin should be loose before he goes away! Finally Alexandria is getting fitter as is Lady Isabel, and I am pleased about that in fact today Alexandria flew brilliantly as did Banded Krait my merlin.

We will put the next chapter of the Mozart book on the website on opppppppppphs wrong, it is November 1^st, I hope people are liking it, bear with it, I think you will enjoy it. And ...............I have bought an iron and the ugliest iron board in the whole world, so I can start to look less untidy, of course it would be better if I actually got the ironing board out of the van where it has been sitting for four days!!! It will happen though.