Z is still an unreliable blogger

 I've just found some comments that needed approval.  Sorry - no idea why they didn't go through automatically.

I now have, supposedly, got back my other blog - the .co.uk one - but I have to do more to be able to get it visible and it's beyond me.  I'm going to have to bother Ronan, which I really hate to do.  But I don't understand anything.  

September has been tricky.  I haven't wanted to talk about it, because I use blogging to be a positive and cheerful Z, for the most part and that wouldn't really be possible.  However, the short holiday was really excellent and I finally did get the catalogue finished - typing on a coach is difficult and a strain on the eyes, but it's possible.  

I really want to whinge, but it'll be much better to write it down when it's all sorted out and I can look back and pretend it wasn't that bad after all.

We did finally find both tortoises.  Wince searched out one while I was away and I found the other when I came home.  They weren't buried very deep, but camouflage is good.  Now, both are in their autumn indoor quarters, but Leo (the tortoise formerly known as Anastasia) is just as determined to go to sleep and  burrows down as far as he can.  Fyodor (ex Natasha) is eating enthusiastically and is active.  I'm not quite sure what to do, it still seems too early for full hibernation.

Scrabble, the oldest bantam, died last month.  She was ten and a half years old and, until the last week or so, had been very well, but I think she had a mild stroke or a seizure, because she seemed confused one evening and didn't know how to eat.  After a couple of days, she managed again, but she kept twitching her head to one side.  I left her in the henhouse, she wasn't distressed and seemed happier with the other chickens, going out every day and then onto the perch at night, but I didn't really expect her to recover.  Eventually, she retreated to a nest box at night - still enjoying mealworms, fed by hand as usual - but for the last couple of days she couldn't even get up there.  I brought her indoors for her last day - which was my birthday, as it happens.  It's par for the course.  Russell died on a grandchild's birthday and Tim died on my son-in-law's.  Rotten timing all round.

Now, I have ten bantams, all 5 or 6 years old.  I need to decide in the next six months whether to get another cockerel or not.  These are all descended from our original flock, dumped in the churchyard more than 35 years ago and, if they die out, I won't necessarily stop having chickens but I won't have chicks.  I honestly don't know.  It's easier without a cockerel - simply because my lovely little girls are such good mothers, they vanish and then turn up 3 weeks later with a brood of chicks.  So, if I don't want chicks, I can't let them free range.  And then there's the problem of surplus cocks.  But they are such dear little hens and I don't want to lose the family.  I suspect I'll regret either decision.