House renovations, sheep moving, small world and war memories

Lambs on Theo

Over a week since my last blog.  Got a bit bored doing it and have no megabytes left. Very busy week.  I stayed in Stanley for a couple of extra days while Christophers father came out and helped Christopher to move the last of the sheep for the abattoir from Barren Island to Speedwell.  Christopher and Bruce came out to Speedwell on the 12th and went  down to Barren on the 13th.  They gathered the island and put 28 cast ewes and 83 lambs on Theo.  It was a lovely calm day and they were back at Speedwell by early evening.  The reason for leaving me in Stanley was because the boat leans when she is being loaded and I don't like it.  We have to use portable pens on Theo when we are moving sheep to keep the load evenly spread on the deck.  I do go on some sheep moving trips but only when we are shifting small amounts.
The next day Christopher and his father shifted 86 cast ewes onto Halfway island to fatten for the abattoir over the next month or two. They used the black aluminium dingy for this.   It takes between 30 to 40 ewes at a time.  They towed this dingy with the orange dingy.  It takes about  10 minutes to go across from the jetty.  This is the first time this boat has been used for this.  It looked quite funny because someone had replaced the original rivets with ones with eyes instead of blind ones so it looked a bit like a colander with all these little water spurts.  
Shaun and Tanya came back from their trip to Beaver Island.  Tanya didnt like sailing.
On the 20th Christopher and Shaun went down to George island and put the Pol Dorset rams out on Barren and the Dohnne rams out on George Island. 
Yesterday Christopher and Shaun gathered Twin Ponds. We put the Samm rams out with them and turned them into the ram paddock for a couple of days.  Twin ponds is massive and it takes the rams a long time to get around all the ewes.  Putting them in a paddock for a couple of days helps to get them covered a bit quicker.
Today Christopher and Shaun have been working on Shauns house.  The new kitchen is now all nogged and this afternoon they are going to plasterboard the ceiling.
Tanya is in Stanley doing her weeks hairdressing and I am just doing general household things.  I have my nephew Macaulay out for a week.
Tiphanie has been doing some pub/restaurant work for the last month  in between her uni course in UK.  Last week a customer came into the pub where she was working.  She served the customer and he thought she had a unusual accent and asked one of the other staff who the new employee was  and was told it was Tiphanie from the Falkland Islands.  It turned out the person was the brother in law of my brothers ex wife.  Small world.

My sister Stephanie, my daughter Tiphanie, my husband Christopher and my son Shaun

Val (Christophers good friend) and Bruce, Christophers father

I have decided to write some of my war mermories.  I didnt have a diary, I have no dates so they are going to be random.  Starting with one of the funnier memories.  During the war our house was what seemed like continously searched.  Soldiers would arrive at the door complete with guns and we would have to accompamy them through the house to the different rooms where they would undertake random searches.  My sister Stephanie who I had shared a room with had left home but she had left behind this fancy big handcrafted jewellery box which had been made as a gift for her when she had succedded in winning a scholarship to study in England when she was 12 years old.  This was a great achievement as only 1 a year was awarded and to actually pass the exams to win it was a massive achievement.  Anyway I knew that locked inside the box was 4 bottles of carlsberg beer.  I also knew that I wasn't going to be able to explain to my mum how come I had beer locked away in a jewellery box.  I decided there was only one thing to do and that was to wait until she went into her bedroom then open the box show them the contents whether they wanted to see them or not then lock it again before she came back.  Thats what I did and the beer stayed hidden for a long time until after the war.  Then one day I decided I would have one of the bottles of beer.  I opened the bottle had a couple of swigs decided I didnt like it and sat the bottle on my dads most important box which housed his stamp collection.  Dad came home found the bottle sitting on the box, summond myself and Stephanie who I think must have been back home to explain the bottle of beer.  I clearly remember lieing through my teeth that I had never seen it and had no idea where it could have come from.