Chick chick chick chick chickens

So yesterday in the absence of my friend Suzi (desk mate and primary stabilizing influence at work) I did some major chicken research in my lunch hour. Finding an Araucana breeder was more difficult than I imagined and now I have discovered there are two different colours of Arucana to choose from (this is a very bad thing, more choice is definitely not needed!). They come in he traditional white which I believe is referred to by those in the know as Lavender or the very striking black and red which seem to be less common. The list of specialist breeders was quite short and quite a few didn't have photos of their hens or the conditions they were kept in and so were ruled out for that. The breeder that looked the most promising is based in Quedgeley, Gloucester. They have photos of the birds on their website and although they are a commercial breeder they are okay with us visiting as long as we let them know when we are coming and we dip our wellies on the way in (this is a DEFRA requirement on all farms now I believe). So it looks like we might be going to see them on my birthday on the 11th. I will try and get my camera charged by then so I can put some photos of the brood (and hopefully relations of my chicks) up on here.

Violin lesson tonight, the heat isn't agreeing with Benji the violin at all, I had a broken A string when I took him out to practice the other night (thankfully I had a pre-stretched one ready to put on otherwise I think I would have abandoned practice because of the heat), it cooled down a little last night (indeed enough for the witchcat to seek out a spot on my bed) but it supposed to get hot again today. Really hope I get my results tonight, and obviously hope I've passed, I'm sure it didn't take this long last time.

A quick note on my knitting as I haven't mentioned that for sometime even though I've been doing it. I have now moved on to Christmas Knitting (with the exception of Fi's wedding present which counts as seasonal, some baby clothes that I have to start for Michelle (a pregnant friend from work) and a Jumper that I thought I might attempt for Raverly's Summer Olympics which runs from the 8th - 24th August (if I get Fi's project sorted in time I might do that instead as its a bit more urgent than a jumper for me, but at the moment that's looking doubtful). Right totally updated I better get back to it.