Turning Crap into Gold

It's been a while since writing my my last blog. Some of you may have feared the worst, but fear no more, I'm still here. It's just that I've been a little busy and my photo output has been temporarily reduced.

So, a little catching up...

Life is, as always, full of projects. Project 'Get Fit or Die' didn't end in the latter. Next year I'm going to attempt to finish the local 10K without another near-death experience. Project Farmhouse (aka Project Money Pit) is finally finished, with the terrace all sorted, the only remaining job is the driveway, which should be done in the next couple of weeks or so.

In the meantime, the usual torrent of visitors remains unabated. We had several great weeks skiing (on thin snow) in the Pyrénées with all and sundry. 

 

And so to that long term project; the garden. Terraforming has been completed, now swapping diggers for shovels. It's developing into something of a fantasy theme park with lots of odd places around every corner. And there are a lot of corners...

We have Waterworld with Jurassic Pond (you are of course aware that birds are now classified as dinosaurs aren't you?) a Koi Pond, a Lily Pond and soon to arrive, a Lotus Pond. Sounds crazy huh?

 

 

Poo Corner is under construction, as is Narnia and the famous Lamp-Post.

Jurassic pond was finished about a year ago, and is now full of life. The chickens they are a'layin', the ducks they are a'rapin', and the fish, ah the fish...

About a year ago I attempted to buy about 60 goldfish online. Due to my inadequacy in the French translation department, instead of delivering two lots of 30 fish, much to the amusement of the delivery man I took receipt of two goldfish, each about 30 cm long. A hundred quid for two bleedin' fish, 50% of which was rapidly consumed by a heron. 

Not to be beaten down by this setback, I descended on the local pet shop to buy 30 tiddlers. Needless to say, they did not fill the pond with colour, in fact from that day they were not seen again. Until last week.

It appears that the one remaining large fish escaped the heron's appetite and must have been mightily pregnant. To my astonishment, just last week, there appeared at least one hundred bright shiny goldfish, each more than 20cm long! 

 

There were tears.

This rate of growth for this number of fish is incredible, especially as the only food provided for them was duck poo. 

Thus the title of this blog.

Which brings me to an all new project: Project Barn Railway.

Ever since I was a young boy ogling the miniature rail-set built by my brother, I have had absolutely NO interest in building one myself. Until now. With modern tech, instead of having one train chugging around a track monotonously, you can now have up to twelve zooming around tooting and puffing! Wow. Gotta do that! All I need is the space. And voila! Cunningly hidden in the Barn is a mezzanine 13x4 metres. Yup, there is to be housed a mega-mini model railway. Just give me a few years to finish it....

Toot toot!