Torquil and Captain Rupert woke up very early before it was even light, all was quiet all was still and all was white.................................

Let me at it.........as Torquil put his sticky mits on the window and Captain rupert clawed at his hutch door.

Not actually sure Torquil enjoyed it but Captain Rupert did.

Torquil has been making friends with Captain Rupert, they have learnt they have the same interest in crusts of bread and carrot tops. Its great they have found this common ground as I think Captain Rupert had been suffering from depression since Torquil was born, I never thought it would effect a rabbit so much, but Captain Rupert is a very cuddly rabbit and I completely underestimated the effect of a little person would have on him.

Torquil is enjoying the great out doors his crawling and pulling himself up on the nearest object he can get too. Which reminds me I was going to do a post on how he got his name.

It goes back to just over a year ago and K and I trudge about camping up mountains in the Pyrenees...I was about 14 weeks pregnant. On the last day we had to walk back from Spain to France though the breche de Roland...a gap in the mountains. We had to go quickly .....the weather was meant to be turning......with the clouds closing in..... I huffed and puffed my way with the ever growing bump.

I just made it to the mountain hut on the french side when it started to Thunder.....K followed behind after he attempted to get to the top of a little mountain near by......He rain down to the safety of the hut with the thunder and lightening crashing and banging behind him.

We had been lugging a tent around for two weeks.......well K had the tent.....I had all the fluffy stuff like sleeping bags..................He thought that night we should brave the hut.............I'm not very keen on huts as they are full of black mould and you have to sleep on bunk beds with lots of snoring people.................tents so much nicer.

So we spent the afternoon in a nice warm hut with a lovely cosy fire going eyeing up the thunder storm and trying to decide what to do.

It was my great idea to get down the mountain away from the hut and the black mould....There was still thunder but it did not seem as bad.

Until a third of the way down it got very dark.......and then it was clear the thunder storm was coming directly down our valley. When it passed over us we crouched down low in the best place we could find. It was really very scary

We made it to a little cabin where we met a french man from paris, he had cleaned the hut with a feather he had found and it certainly was a welcome sight.

Torquil comes from old Norse......The god Thor and his cauldron where he brews his thunder or strong soldiers. Its also an old Scottish name.

More soon, I have managed to do a little drawing and have a head brimming with ideas for pictures.

Thank you for all the lovely comments on my last post....so long ago. And I left you in such suspense what the bumps name is.

Well we left it right to the last moment before registering his name, keeping our ideas top secret. It was very scary registering the name....had we made the wrong decision is he going to hate us for it.

Kimball wanted something with a good meaning....which I think deserves a post all of its own.

Better not keep you in suspense any longer.......the name is....Torquil George Ellis Morrison.

I will explain more in another post.

Captain Rupert was not too keen on Torquils arrival, which surprised me, he got very Territorial and spent ours guarding the door way. They seem find now. But sadly the Captain has not been too well, I really hope its not because of Torquils arrival. I'm giving him lots of tasty pickings and cuddles.....he seems a little better but not his old bouncy self, fingers crossed he will improve more.

Its been a busy few months with Torquil growing enormously quickly, he is 16 weeks and must weigh about 18 lbs.

We have ploughed on with the diy, a very low moment for me was when Torquil was 6 weeks old crying and I had the Kitchen floor covered in grout.....don't try laying 50 sqm of tiles with a baby!!!

Glad we got it all done its lovely to have all the extra space in the house. And thank you to all the parents for helping out with the tiles and painting. K has declared a summer break from DIY, although he has sneaked in a few little jobs.

I have filled the conservatory with Tomato plants and the veg patch is not doing too badly for a bit of neglect. Torquil has been helping me harvest the broad beans.

More soon..........

J

x

The Bump........................"There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, 'Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!' (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge."..................

All rabbits need a pocket watch for it is rude to be late for tea, which inevitable..... too many distractions......a daisy......a primrose.......something new..... forever running late for one reason or another but they are reliable and always turn up.

Our bump also lost his pocket watch............... I sent captain rupert to find the white rabbit.........

to see if he could help.............. he did eventually after an extra large helping of carrot cake.

They found the pocket watch among the daffodils.......... the loud ticking gave the game away........but it had lost its minute hand.

A clock mender was what was needed thought the mad hatter......The doormouse yawned and sleepily said he knew a good one....... Off Captain Rupert went with a leap and a bounce and a stop here and there to nibble all the yummy spring flowers......... The clock mender bent down and looked carefully and said I'm sorry I will have to order a new hand. I don't have any in stock which would suite such a fine pocket watch. Please come back next week..........

and captain rupert did and the watch had a shiny new minute hand..........

The 1st of April the bump arrived 19 days late (because he lost his pocket watch) weighing almost 10 lbs.

Post......
for Captain Rupert from his brother and half sister.....

Spring has sprung and Captain Rupert is making the most of it. Inspecting around the daffodils.

Luckily for me he rather does not like the taste but prefers juicy bits of grass and cabbages. Mmmm he talked too much to those pesky pigeons and has made the first, two ever raids of the veg patch......I think I have fixed the pigeon problem and his raiding.

We made our deadline of a working bathroom for the 13th!!!! (No news there yet). What a relief. It seemed like the dust and dirt went on for ever but it was ten weeks from the first internal wall being knocked down.

We have even had our first dinner in the conservatory with a little heating through from the living rooms wood burner and a dust sheet on the door opening because we have not decided on them yet. Theres still lots to do but we feel we might get there one day.

(View down the stairs what ever would I have done without Hetty all the dust and dirt. Living with a concrete floor was very dirty it made the space seem complete if a little bare once new caprets went down)

(View up the stairs into the bathroom...and my piece of wood work a shelf above the bathroom door....Before the stairs came twisting round in front of the new bathroom door and the front door was the bottom left of the stairs to bit of the white door frame in the front right of photo...thats hard to imagine let alone follow)(Shower instead of the old back door)(This was the door way into the bathroom, K built in the sink and some cleaver lotions and potions shelves, we will revisit the doors to the cupboard underneath)(The wall is no more between the toilet and the bathroom making such a difference in the space, I have always been after a roll top bath and was so worried it would not work in a small space but I think it does as you can see all the extra floor underneath)

Two posts in one day! The sun is out..... Captain Rupert is full of the joys of spring, talking excitedly to the blackbirds, singing with the robins and planning cunning invasions of the veggie patch with the pesky pigeons......


He did let slip exactly what he got up to in the snow of a few weeks back.


He sneaked out of the garden to join all his feathered and furred friends for an ice skating extravaganza on the village pond of all things.


The ducks did look on in great disapproving amusement, they had never seen such a commotion, and all they wanted was a little bit of water to have a paddle in, not frozen sleepy stuff.


But its in a rabbits nature to make the most of such exciting events as a frozen pond and snow and how the young rabbits and their friends enjoyed themselves.











Great Aunt velvet stayed by the warmth of the stove and although her bones did suffer awfully in the cold weather she baked fresh supplies of cakes and soups to keep the young rabbits warm. The squirrels enjoyed the day too and brought a supply of their finest chestnuts to roast to keep paws warm..... very useful if you had happened to spend slightly too much time sitting on the ice...........................................................

We have been flat out decorating and trying to get the bathroom finished for when the bump arrives, its due on the 13th of march. I had taken some pictures of the progress but can't up load them at the moment as we have a sickly laptop. Its looking good though and we no longer have house pipes to fill the bath up.......we have taps!

We have been very lucky and received a lovely award and must say thank you to Amanda.

The authors of this award say that blogs who receive this award are exceedingly charming. This blog invests in proximity in space, time and relationships. These kind bloggers aim to find and be new friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandisement. Our hope is that when ribbons of these awards are cut, even more friendships will be propagated. Please give your kind attention to these writers."

I would like to give it too all the lovely bloggers who have been leaving Captain Rupert and I wonderful comments or who follow and pass by and take an interest in our wonky words and pictures....thank you to all of you........

I would like to say thank you to My tiny little Plot for the post on what to plant on the shady side of the garden. Our veg patch is unfortunately a little shady which has its advantages with less watering but it left me thinking what do people plant in walled gardens on the shady side. I have ordered my seeds for the year and plan to start planting in the next week or two.

Have a lovely weekend, we are tiling the shower and painting skirting board and putting up more plaster board and Captain Rupert will be over seeing checking he approves but I think he liked the building site when it was a little more messy!

Two happy Westies wagged their tails as they said good bye and headed of to their new home. Hope they have settled in well and enjoying these sunny spring like days.

Snow Bunny

Its snowing......it makes everything snow pretty, the view out of the window could be in a snow globe.
Who's foot prints are these???

They belong to a certain little gray rabbit......Captain Rupert is not so sure about all this white fluffy stuff it does not taste too great.

He hopped out with a little bit of hesitation for his morning constitution

He sniffed and tasted the white fluffy stuff and search high and low for some of the much tastier green stuff.

He has not made it inside yet to warm his paws infront of the woodburner so he must of found some of the green stuff but I think he is rather enjoying making snow bunnies and playing snow balls with his feathered friends from the bird table.

All visitors please report to the site office.......

The new site office is located underneath the bath, if you have large sensitive ears it would be advisable for you to wear ear protection......health and safety and all that........due to the sudden bashing, hammering and general demolition on site its very unpredictable and finishes very late at night.

It all went mad between christmas and the new year with the start of the inside building work, which has meant knocking down lots of walls and stairs. I was prepared for dust and dirt but it was much worse than I could imagine. Captain Rupert was not so fazed and watched on in bemusement, from the relative safety of his new site office....since someone removed the stairs and he could not hide out in the make shift camps under the beds.

With half the stairs missing for a week was interesting indeed and very tricky at night, with a down stairs bathroom....... captain rupert was not the only one who found it hard to get upstairs, I seriously thought about camping out in the sitting room...but the contents of the kitchen beat me too the floor space sheltering in the relatively warm and dust free zone.

K got the new stairs built quickly which was wonderful, I was very impressed. Knocking walls down and making the stairs go straight down meant we can now get to our bathroom at the bottom of the stairs. K also had to build a new door frame and I'm building a shelf in the space above. To do this we had to build a porch and knock a big bit off outside wall down. It was a very cold and chilly night the front door got moved out into its new position.

A slight slow down in the stair building was tanking out the space underneath for K to have a wine cellar. Captain Rupert thought he should inspect this space and is not really sure there is enough space for wine in K's new wine cubby hole. If only K had let him do the digging in all that lovely dirt under the stairs, he could of built a inside burrow with twists and turns and ample storage for bottles of wine.

If not in the site office Captain Rupert can be found in the new hall, he can make a quick retreat through the new bathroom door back into the site office, very important for cabbage leaf tea breaks and any sudden loud sounds when his not wearing his rabbit ear protection, up the stairs, although his not so bothered now he has his very own site office, a quick warm up by the fire, or a breath of fresh air away from all the dust a chance to clean the dust from between his ears and whiskers.

(notice the trip hazard of the old plumbing and the two white stoppers which used to supply the sink which had to go for the new door, K will run new pipe work around the other side. of the room.)

Escape to the garden from the hall is made possible by the new french doors that replaced a kitchen window.

Captain Rupert is most puzzled the old back door has gone, and is going to be replaced by a shower of all things.The old bathroom entrance is going to be blocked off and a recess for a vanity unit made.

But for the time being it makes a great emergency escape route from the site office too the new french doors for captain rupert even if the idea of open plan kitchen bathrooms for me at least has not really caught on and I'm relieved to only have two doors into the bathroom rather than four which we had at one point.

And I'm going to get more kitchen space as all the doors are being blocked up. The kitchen is another project for another time, but it will be so nice one day to change the dark green tiles.

Confused about all our walls up and down, well we are its very strange when you go to the back door and its not there anymore. It has made such a huge change as the house is very small and its opened the space up, although its hard to show that in the pictures.

I do now feel we are on the home straight and will all feel loads better once the plasterer is in and it all looks better.

Oh.......captain rupert has a visitor to his site office.... he was expecting someone to advise on some top secret plans his drafting in some of the darker cooler depths of underneath the bath. He has been keeping lots of odd bits of wood away in the site office, I keep wanting them for fire wood and his not letting me, saying they are very important for his building plans. I think we have been giving him ideas.

He might tell me off for letting his plans slip.......... but I think his drawing up plans for a fox deterrent, come scarer that can be fitted to all all his friends houses to keep the big bad fox at bay maybe not sure........ his keeping it secret.