![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hazelchazSaturday in Northwich, Cheshire, part 2 of 2. (See Part 1 to start at the beginning of this report.)
From there we went to the Cheshire Ice Cream Farm This is a dairy farm, where you can go in and see the cows, and buy ice cream from a couple dozen different flavors. They also have a big hutch with rabbits, that seem to be living a cushy life. They've got these big tubes going in and out of their pens -- rabbitrails, you might call them? -- and lots of adoring kids visiting them.
They also have birds. Apparently they stumbled into rescuing an owl, and then another owl, and now they have a bunch of owls that have been pred in captivity and they take care of them. The big glorious ones were the Eurasian Eagle Owl (Bubo Bubo). There's a big sign that reads, in part, "These birds are fed on a diet similar to that found in their natural habitat and other foods may harm them" (meaning, please don't feed the owls). There's also two pages of facts about them, which includes the following: "Prey: Mainly mammals from shrews up to foxes and small deer. Also a wide range of birds including owls, reptiles and amphibians."
"Owls are cats with feathers," said Sue. They're carnivores, they hunt, they're also lazy and aloof.
Okay, so we figured out why they've got the rabbits: they're lunch for the owls. In fact,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
frostfox told us that closing time is feeding time; we were there about half an hour before closing time, and we noticed the owls suddenly take a great interest in something to their right... which was coming up the path. When the man with the Jack Russell terrier came in front of the cage, they had the owls' full and complete attention. The owls knew it was getting on towards dinner time, and look! here comes dinner!
The dog seemed oblivious to the fact that there were two big birds of prey that could have him for lunch. The dog owner, though, was very vigilant about keeping the dog away from the cages.
On the way out, I stopped to snap a picture of the brick farmhouse, which seemed almost deliberately picturesque. Picturesque with intent, you might say.
As we headed out on the country roads, we passed Beeston Castle. A big pile of rock on a very large hill. Didn't go up, though; that would have been quite a hike.
We ended up at Borders Books, which has a Starbucks upstairs, where Sue's friend Ann-Marie Olsen is manager. She bought us hot chocolate or other drinks, and snack cake or two to go with. She told us that she had one person working with her that night -- four or six people had all taken the day off, or called in sick. (Or was slacking off to go out that night, of course.) One young persoon said that s/he wasn't feeling well, and it must have been something they ate; Ann-Marie told them to take it easy. This young employee will learn, if they haven't already been told, that food poisoning cases are taken very seriously by food establishments in the UK. Ann-Marie can't allow this person to come back to work until they get a note signed off by their doctor that they're no longer suffering from food poisoning, she's legally not allowed to let them work any more hours until then.
While driving around, I noticed that the highway signs are still marked in miles and yards; and the fractions are slashless. So 1/4 would look something like 14.
We stopped at the Tesco in Northwich where we bought two 16-packs of ibuprofen;library_lynn has a sore knee that's been hurting longer than my little ankle thing, and we both had been prescribed 400 mg doses of ibruprofen. We checked out using the self-service lanes, and as we scanned each box it brought up an informational message on screen to the effect that we were not allowed to buy more than two boxes of ibuprofen. We thought that was odd -- for one, it seems laughably easy to circumvent at the self-serve checkouts, and of course the fact that back home we can buy bottles of 50 or 250 of the things.
Something else we learned that afternoon, which I hadn't noticed, is that not only are the UK license plates (licence plates?) on the cars big and very legible -- but they're color coded. The ones in front have a white background, the rear ones are yellow.
When we got home, Sue gave usbohemiancoast's correct address. We'd mailed Alison a poctsacrd from Plockton to the wrong address, so we sent her and malwen another one at their Walthamstow address.
frostfox cooked for us again. Freshly cooked chicken, with salad. A little peanut butter satay sauce for her and me, plain for Lynn. Yummy.
From there we went to the Cheshire Ice Cream Farm This is a dairy farm, where you can go in and see the cows, and buy ice cream from a couple dozen different flavors. They also have a big hutch with rabbits, that seem to be living a cushy life. They've got these big tubes going in and out of their pens -- rabbitrails, you might call them? -- and lots of adoring kids visiting them.
They also have birds. Apparently they stumbled into rescuing an owl, and then another owl, and now they have a bunch of owls that have been pred in captivity and they take care of them. The big glorious ones were the Eurasian Eagle Owl (Bubo Bubo). There's a big sign that reads, in part, "These birds are fed on a diet similar to that found in their natural habitat and other foods may harm them" (meaning, please don't feed the owls). There's also two pages of facts about them, which includes the following: "Prey: Mainly mammals from shrews up to foxes and small deer. Also a wide range of birds including owls, reptiles and amphibians."
"Owls are cats with feathers," said Sue. They're carnivores, they hunt, they're also lazy and aloof.
Okay, so we figured out why they've got the rabbits: they're lunch for the owls. In fact,
frostfox told us that closing time is feeding time; we were there about half an hour before closing time, and we noticed the owls suddenly take a great interest in something to their right... which was coming up the path. When the man with the Jack Russell terrier came in front of the cage, they had the owls' full and complete attention. The owls knew it was getting on towards dinner time, and look! here comes dinner!The dog seemed oblivious to the fact that there were two big birds of prey that could have him for lunch. The dog owner, though, was very vigilant about keeping the dog away from the cages.
On the way out, I stopped to snap a picture of the brick farmhouse, which seemed almost deliberately picturesque. Picturesque with intent, you might say.
As we headed out on the country roads, we passed Beeston Castle. A big pile of rock on a very large hill. Didn't go up, though; that would have been quite a hike.
We ended up at Borders Books, which has a Starbucks upstairs, where Sue's friend Ann-Marie Olsen is manager. She bought us hot chocolate or other drinks, and snack cake or two to go with. She told us that she had one person working with her that night -- four or six people had all taken the day off, or called in sick. (Or was slacking off to go out that night, of course.) One young persoon said that s/he wasn't feeling well, and it must have been something they ate; Ann-Marie told them to take it easy. This young employee will learn, if they haven't already been told, that food poisoning cases are taken very seriously by food establishments in the UK. Ann-Marie can't allow this person to come back to work until they get a note signed off by their doctor that they're no longer suffering from food poisoning, she's legally not allowed to let them work any more hours until then.
While driving around, I noticed that the highway signs are still marked in miles and yards; and the fractions are slashless. So 1/4 would look something like 14.
We stopped at the Tesco in Northwich where we bought two 16-packs of ibuprofen;
library_lynn has a sore knee that's been hurting longer than my little ankle thing, and we both had been prescribed 400 mg doses of ibruprofen. We checked out using the self-service lanes, and as we scanned each box it brought up an informational message on screen to the effect that we were not allowed to buy more than two boxes of ibuprofen. We thought that was odd -- for one, it seems laughably easy to circumvent at the self-serve checkouts, and of course the fact that back home we can buy bottles of 50 or 250 of the things.Something else we learned that afternoon, which I hadn't noticed, is that not only are the UK license plates (licence plates?) on the cars big and very legible -- but they're color coded. The ones in front have a white background, the rear ones are yellow.
When we got home, Sue gave us
bohemiancoast's correct address. We'd mailed Alison a poctsacrd from Plockton to the wrong address, so we sent her and malwen another one at their Walthamstow address.frostfox cooked for us again. Freshly cooked chicken, with salad. A little peanut butter satay sauce for her and me, plain for Lynn. Yummy.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-08-18 08:08 pm (UTC)You are loved you know,
Selina
no subject
Date: 2005-08-19 07:34 am (UTC)I can't imagine someone who is ready to slit their wrists being so easily thwarted, but whatever. I bought 2 packages on 3 separate occasions, with *no* intention of taking more than the recommended dosage at the recommended intervals.