Update

sorty it has been a while...busy, busy. By the end of each day I just fall into bed exhausted. My brain works overtime thinking through everything which wakes me up after a couple of hours. I usually come downstairs and read for a couple of hours. This means I start the day tired but have so much to do.
The back roof is nearly done. It has taken longer due to heavy rain. This has caused leaks into the house that has been very hard to deal with. We now have felt on the roof for the first time which has already made a difference. I hope for the first time this winter we will not be so cold indoors.
We have P's brother and wife arriving next Tuesday for 10 days. This made us decide to sort out the spare bedroom. What a task! We had to build a wall and incorporate a wardrobe into it. If Insay so myself it does look good. We had an old armoire that had good doors but a damaged body. We have used the doors. I will put pictures up when it is finished. We then had to stain the beams and pain the walls that were bare plaster. We bought an old French bed with a padded fabric head and foot. It needed restoring. I have painted the frame with white chalk paint. It took ages to remove the upholstery pins but it is now ready for the new fabric which I plan to do tomorrow. I then have to make the curtain for the dormer window. P has started laying the laminate floor after which he has to attach the skirting boards. We should be ready in time.
Today we took the brood box to our mentor who is collecting our bees next week. He will keep them a few days to settle them in our brood box. Within two weeks we will become bee keepers. I am entirely comfortable around the bees now. My next smallholder meeting is at the end of the month and is about bee keeping. By then we will have had the bees for about a week. All good stuff.
My six chicks are now out and about and mixing happily with the flock. The plan is that the boys will be for the freezer! We all want to be self sufficient with meat. We plan to take on two lambs next spring and keep them until around November then have them slaughtered. We will use a barn and set it up as a store room. We will put a big chest freezer in there and shelving for all the jams, chutneys and bottled fruit. Slowly we are becoming a proper smallholding.
I still do not know what the referendum will bring but am trying to ignore it until I have to do something. Hopefully nothing will change.