Letter to a Sister 11

Returned home from Brazil on Wednesday. Was a night flight, so very confused time wise.

At the airport, I decided to change my Duolingo app from Portuguese (no longer needed) to Japanese. Unfortunately, the only Japanese that Duolingo does is for Japanese people who want to learn English. So the lessons taught me how to say “boy”, “milk”, etc. As my English is already fairly good, it wasn’t particularly helpful.
However, I had not realised this until I had actually downloaded that bit of the app. All the instructions were now in Japanese. I had no idea how to get back to the menu bit of the app. I spent ages pressing random things in the hope I would return to the menu page.
Finally gave up and went in search of a Japanese person. Found a Japanese man hiding behind a newspaper in the lounge. Explained my problem (which he seemed to find amusing.) He then had a look at the app, spent a long time exploring the lessons, said they were very good, but was also unable to find the menu bit. Am suspicious that he was just pretending to be Japanese, was probably a Korean spy or something. I still cannot use the app.

Was pleased to find house still standing when we returned. Two boys (who are really men, but they will always be boys to me) had cleared away all evidence of wild parties and all my animals were still alive. There is a suspicious smell in the utility room but I cannot find the corpse.

The kittens are thriving. They’re still all living in the garage. They are named after my childhood favourites: Milly Molly Mandy (favourite book when I was three) and Mary, Mungo and Midge (favourite programme when I was three.) We gave Mary away and she is now called Minerva, which kinda fits with the theme.

Mandy was born first. She is Molly’s only kitten, is bigger than the others and clumsy. I think she may be special needs – has bit of a ‘vacant’ expression.

Mungo will be the house cat. She is very friendly, has long soft fur and purrs really loudly.

Midge is the boy. He has wiry fur, attacks everything (have big hopes for him as a mouser). He also has this annoying habit of pouncing on your calves as you are about to leave the room and running up your leg. Painful if you are wearing shorts.

They are all pretty much weaned. Milly and Molly are driving me bananas (they’re in season again and desperate to go out and find a man.) They will be taken to the vets and spayed on Monday.

One chicken had gone broody when we got home. The boys had removed the eggs but she had collected six (a days worth) and decided that was enough to make a nest with. I turfed her off and took away the eggs (otherwise all the other hens will go broody too. I really do not need more chicks.) She was very cross and swears at me now whenever I go up to see them but I am unrepentant.

The ducklings are all full grown and beautiful. A real mix of colours (so those ‘pure’ silver call ducks I bought at the country fair were clearly not especially ‘pure’! Not that it matters, they’ll all just live on the pond.)
They are all still living in the aviary, when I get time I’ll clip their flight feathers and then let them onto the pond. Once they have learnt the pond is their home, it doesn’t matter if the feathers regrow and they start to fly, they still stay around the pond and garden and Kia helps me round them up each evening and put them back on the pond.

The ducks on the pond seem okay, though some are getting old now. The two black ones have white feathers coming (the duck equivalent of going grey.) I’m not getting any duck eggs because the horrible rats are back in force. Really need to get those cats back outside.

Take care,
Anne xx