It is good.

I’ve just been looking at the last post to see what’s happened in the week since and there’s a fair few things really. Hello! by the way.

The chicks are now four weeks old, they’ve been outside for a few hours a couple of days this week, not today, because the wind and rain has been horrendous, but they did for the two days prior to this. They loved it, after learning to negotiate the ramp in the coop. They’re still not sure, but they’re getting a bit braver.

The electric chicken netting has arrived and is sort of in place, but not finished yet. We’re hoping to finish that this weekend and aiming for the chicks to be out permanently in about 1 1/2 to two weeks time. They’re getting far to big to be in the cage they’re in, so they’ll love ranging in a much larger space. We’re really hoping we’ve proofed it enough, I guess we will see.

Chris has returned to work this week, so it’s just me and the boys at home during the weekdays now. It feels strange because he is back at work but we are still supposed to be distancing and staying at home whenever possible. It isn’t hard, because the test centres are still shut we still haven’t got a valid test on the car, so I can’t go anywhere anyway (and that’s fine by me). I heard that tests were being extended by four months, but when I checked, it said ours had expired. I think it might be because we’d had it tested and it had failed, Chris took it for a retest when lockdown first happened and found the test centre closed.

Things are growing in the greenhouse! It’s so exciting, I can’t describe how much I love growing things. Every time I go in, I seem to notice something else germinating or that is getting new leaves. We have a line of French beans and two rows of peas, broccoli, cabbage, leek and turnip seedlings, tomato plants, radishes, beetroot seedlings, cucumber and butternut squash.

We are waiting to see if the sweetcorn and carrots germinate, the seeds were a bit older. We also have a load of pots with annuals growing and are waiting for them get big enough to plant out.

It is still strange for me when I contemplate us living here, I’m beginning to realise that it is actually the ideal place for us in a lot of ways. The place and the possibilities are what I’ve wanted since I was a kid. It feels strange too because I ‘ve read a lot of diverse opinions recently, mainly from different Christian camps about gifts and God and abundance and hardship and not expecting anything or expecting loads or if you expect loads are you into the prosperity gospel and therefore ‘bad’ or are you just seeing God how He is, a God of abundance, but! whose plans are not our plans, who sees and knows everything and therefore even if we were to lose everything, we should still have joy because of knowing Him….Trusting Him means trusting Him whatever happens, whatever you have… so yes, I get that, I get trusting Him is more important than anything. but personally I also find it hard then to fully appreciate what we have, that there’s no guilt in having this. I guess I’m a work in progress and that thankfulness and knowing His love and reading His word is key.

It hit me last night as well, living simply is not wrong. I think I get the impression sometimes that everyone seems to think you can’t live simply any more and that makes me feel like I have to ‘accomplish’ things or race through life impressing people. The thing is, I don’t, I can live simply and well with the family, growing veg, being with our family, putting them first, praying simple prayers that have powerful impact and as God said when He made everything ‘it is good’.