She's Not Herneschase... shes a very naughty girl

... and still it comes. Rain, rain, rainity-rain! But at least the grass is the right colour again and it is visibly growing so who am I to moan. Oh yeah I am hingerlish and genetically programmed to moan about the weather

Today is an intense one. We have to continue the training of the poor beleaguered calves for Sunday's Agricultural Show. During the first three days we had progressed from mule-like to not quite so mule-like so the children were becoming quite dis-heartened. Yesterday morning one of them - Gracey - had gone on complete work to rule. Time for a change of tactics

Yesterday afternoon I spent 2 hours sitting on the floor of a stable looking at my feet. It worked. They came up to me and had a lick of my wellies. Then I brought the 'Not Girls' in and they sat quietly too which was quite an effort for my girls (another half an hour) The next stage was to put lead reins on them and sit quietly (another half an hour) and then the big move outside into the yard for 'walking up and down' training!

By 5pm we had them both able to walk independently without 'Gracey calf' performing her big Rodeo leaps and pulling Mog or I across the yard.

We did, of course, adopt an quite controversial training method into our regime. "The Labrador Cow" technique©! Never heard of it Lindow? Well it's like this:

Step One: Cuddle your black Labrador who apparently does a passable impression of a baby Dexter!

Step Two: Put him on a lead and walk him up and down.

Step Three: Lead the Dexters up and down behind him (calling the Labrador a 'good cow' throughout the process is an optional extra!).

Step Four: Tie one of the calves to the fence and just perform the exercise with the Labrador and one heifer.

Step Five: Alternate heifers

Step Six: Send Labrador home for his tea and work with the heifers on their own. Works like a dream.

So today, I am under no illusion that we will have to start all over again from the beginning. I hope Gus is up to another day as a Labrador-Cow

But first to pursuade three children to eat yet MORE scrambled eggs!

I'm all exhausted after a big old debate with Mr Not 'bout Palestine and the current deterioration therein.

To set the scene. Mr Not is a very apolitical soul, which always induces a seething frustration from his wife who gets hot under the collar and jumps up and down waving her 'tiny' fist at most political situations be they local governmental or larger debates played out on the World stage. (I personally blame my Leftism on my maternal Grandma's constant declaration of her love for Anthony Wedgewood Benn when I was a toddler!)

Oops sorry! So to draw myself kicking and screaming back to the point in hand. Today I awoke to my usual half-an-hour of Sky News before day-to-day chaos ensues to find that the fuel blockade to Palestine was reaching fever pitch and gas, food, UN aid etc etc weren't getting through causing total devastation in the Gaza Strip. The worst situation in 7½ years and all very scary.

My reaction to news items such as these is to hit the internet at some stage during the day to try and read more around the subject. My usual source of information regarding Palestine is usually Gilad Atzmon's website (great Jazz musician and Israeli Jew, 15 days my junior, with more first-hand experience of what the Middle East Peace Process means day to day than anyone I have ever heard speak). Next I tend to try the BBC and then if all else fails a general Google on the subject usual puts the subject straight in my head.

Lots of reading later, I came across a blog called Peacepalestine which then sparked a bit of a 'chat' with Mr Not about politics!

Suffice to say that his opinions differed from mine slightly! Dismissive of the whole situation was an understatement with a dash of "what do you expect me to do about it" thrown in for good measure!

Grr Grr Boil, boil, spit

Maybe if all the Mr Nots in this World got together and thought they could make a difference, they would be able to improve the World just a jot (or, on second thoughts, maybe things would be a whole lot worse )

Finally, to change tack completely, we all sat down as a family tonight (a rare occurence) to watch the TV1 tribute to Sir Edmund Hillary which was inspiring to say the least. What a determined bloke and I didn't realise that he had been so personally involved in setting up schools, hospitals etc in Nepal as a result of his experiences.

So that's my day dayed and now I am off to my comfy old, safe old bed. Nighty morning