England: Chuck's last hour has struck

One of the things I quickly noticed in England is that the English love to talk about the weather. A woman told me that when the British talk about the weather, they actually mean themselves and their mood. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to confirm if this is true yet, but...the sun is shining! For a week, it has been raining cats and dogs, and finally, finally, finally we had a couple of sunny days. That makes picking up dog poop much more enjoyable. We took a look at Barwell, the village where we currently live, during these days. We visited all the attractions that Barwell has to offer. Except one. In 1956, a meteorite fell here on Christmas Eve, shattering into a thousand small rocks and attracting quite a few geeks (according to Jan). Dave was particularly interested in the insurance case that the meteorite fall triggered (and has still not been resolved to this day). Anyway, because of that, Barwell has one more attraction than the 0 sights it had before, and we were happy tourists. By the way, when I say 'village,' it's not comparable to ours, for example. What Dave calls a village here has a pub, a fish and chips shop, a supermarket, four restaurants, three kiosks, and nearly 9,000 inhabitants. In addition, Barwell participates in a national flower decoration competition and has numerous parks as well as a beautifully designed cemetery. I would say it's more of a small town, but oh well. Sara and I had a coffee at Pat's Cafe and then sat in the park for hours, chatting. Jan's mother stayed with us in the house in the past few days, and they baked scones before going to a show in Leicester. They are big fans of the British version of Let's Dance, and a couple of participants are currently on a tour of the UK, which they checked out. On Sunday, I went to church with Jan and her mother. I expected a normal church service, Anglican, maybe Catholic or Protestant. But Freda is a Unitarian, a very liberal religious community that accepts all religions and worldviews. Individuality and awareness are highly valued. Accordingly, influences from all world religions can be found here. When I went to the church service, I didn't know all this yet, so the whole thing was very disturbing for me. The ministers wander from church to church, so none of the 12 participants knew the speaker. In his sermon, he was, to put it mildly, very enthusiastic about comparing the world's religions and their dogmatic methods with the tolerance of his own church. But the altar area was very beautiful, and there was music (I even knew one of the songs and could sing along loudly). Afterwards, of course, there was tea. The old ladies didn't like the minister either, so in the end, it was a nice experience. Meanwhile, Sara went with Dave to gundog training, where he prepares Star for further competitions (the ones with the dummies from my previous post). Today, we worked hard on the farm. We cleaned out the chickens and ducks (which is a lot of work with 20 chickens and after 2 weeks) and did the usual program with the dogs and cats. In addition, we scrubbed the entrance gate and cleaned the house. A few days ago, I started a long-term project that I want to tackle in the next few weeks while I'm still here. Jan and Dave hold dog training in the barn, and there is an open attic halfway up to the roof. Since the two have been living here for 12 years, a lot has accumulated there, and I have been rummaging around and sorting old clothes into trash and charity, packing everything into new boxes and organizing everything. It's a lot of fun because every now and then I get to take a look at their old photos and mementos. I would have liked to take all the books with me. Not so pleasant, though, because the rats have eaten through everything in the past twelve years, and after throwing away the fifth mummified rat today, I postponed the rest for the next few days. Sniff sniff.

Unfortunately, there is also bad news. Chuck has to go. Chuck is the loving combination of a chicken and a duck (chicken + duck = chuck), and since he only makes a mess and doesn't bring anything in, Jan will have to sell him. She thinks he might earn her a pound. Useless, poor Chuck.