Good weather for ducks and antics in the restaurant

We saw a couple of fun nights going on in the restaurant last week.. the first was a ‘Mission Morogoro’ Ladies’ Evening, held last Friday, 16^th November. This involved a glass of wine followed by a talk from Jane Brook of ‘The House of Colour’ -- she gave an overview (to the 50 or so ladies that were listening) on how best to buy the right colours in clothes for your skin type, as well as how to accessorize!  (We have never seen this many ladies all be this quite - not at all normal in the Jinney Ring restaurant!)  After this the Centre's own Jenny Muschner of Blue Lemon gave a short presentation about their soaps -- then everyone chatted as normal and had a good look at the stalls.  The event was to raise money for the African charity supported by Bowbrook group of churches and happily it raised £570, the cheque is displayed above!

The winner!

The second evening witnessed was much "sweeter" - the Christmas themed "Pudding" Night had some delicious puds on show (not that there was anything except corn for us!).  Chef Shirley had made a gingerbread house as a raffle prize for everyone that came - this was fantastic and was won by the youngest "pudding eater".  Shirley is making another one which will be raffled for charity over the Christmas period.

Just one of the lovely puds.

We also had an unwelcome visitor in the restaurant last week - at 4 am in the morning we were forced awake by the Centre alarms going off, a window had been forced and a young man entered the building.  Fortunately, as the owners live on site they were very quick to react to the alarms and the intruder left empty handed - we are not used to having this sort of rude awakening in the gardens. (The police visited but did not ask us ducks for descriptions, oddly.....). It is a sad state of affairs when you have to have CCTV and alarms everywhere (they even watch us in the gardens) but we can see why when this sort of thing happens.

Aside from this excitement, out here in the garden - well, it has been "a bit wet!" hasn't it? and windy too? The ponds have overflowed once and the garden is extremely "squishy" -- just how we like it, with plenty of worms around.  The wild mallards seem to have flown off though - probably to get some richer pickings in the flood zones locally, yum yum! 

We are now getting excited about the lights going on in the gardens on Saturday.......

Carpets and Santa

The girls in the gift shop have had a very busy few weeks - first of all they have been preparing the new Jinney Ring outlet in Kidderminster - it is part of the newly opened Museum of Carpets. (located next door to Morrisons supermarket) The shop ladies also look after one other "off site" shop at Bodenham Arboretum so they will be pretty busy this Christmas looking after all of them.

Jinney Ring Buyer Carolyn with Catherine from the Museum of Carpet in the new gift shop 

While all this has been going on they have also been getting ready for Santa's visits here and the grotto is now complete, and in the garden we can see lights going up.

Santa's Grotto - ready for his visits - located in the gallery area upstairs

The men putting the lights up today have been good to watch and it looks like we ducks are going to have some new lights in the garden for December.  (I do hope they don't keep us awake at night - but then we are used to being in the 'spotlight'!) These lights were used on the canal for the last few years but this year the team are sticking on dry land, well dryish -- we have made it nice and muddy down that end of the garden.  

Nick, Paddy and the crew putting up lights in the gardens ready for December

The Christmas lights are going to be switched on by Santa and West Midlands Search and Rescue as part of the Craft Fayre weekend -- should be fun as there are lots of extra crafts people here that weekend.

Finally - a little note about the new ducklings - they are now outside in the pen but are finding it a bit chilly as they did get used to a nice warm house, they are spending a lot of time inside next to the heat lamp at the moment -- it won't be long before they venture out a bit more though.

Late Ducklings and Horse trouble!

It has been a couple of weeks since my last diary entry, as my scribe took a break from us and we did not see each other to catch up.  Putting this to rights now...

Out in the gardens the temperature has definitely dropped - winter feather 'duvet' definitely called for now!  Water getting a bit chilly too -- but obviously not too chilly as we had two new arrivals on the pond from one of my girl fiends.   As has become the habit, these were given over to the care of humans for a while to ensure that can grow a bit before they get let out in the big world -- not before they had a good swim on the ponds though!

Our pair of Aylesbury ducklings are now being looked after by Charlotte and her Mum who live at the back of the Jinney Ring, so they have not gone far.  Charlotte has decided, if they are male, they will be called 'Ant and Dec'  ... as it will be a while before we know I guess this will stick (there must be some girls names that will work with this too...??? Answers below please! ).  They will be put outside in the heated pen very soon now so that they don't become house ducks!

Ant and Dec - which is which, the perpetual question!

The two chestnut mares have gone from the adjacent fields now, as it was getting too wet underfoot. However we have heard serious news about Floss (the older one). She has just been rushed into the nearby equine hospital for an emergency operation on her intestines.  So far so good but the next 48 hours are critical, she is 26 years old so not so young, we are keeping our wings crossed for her!

Floss (at the back) has had emergency surgery

Around the Centre everyone is starting to get ready for Christmas with some lovely things in the gift shop and all of the craft units working hard to build some stock.  Lights and trees are being planned, as is the Christmas Fayre on the first weekend of December.  Busy Busy Busy!