Life in the 1960ies cont...

It appears the generator I thought ran on diesel was actually a twin flywheel petrol Lister engine, what would I do without a son who remembers these mechanical details from such an early age? We also had a kerosene fridge which was a devil to freeze and even worse to start up again after the periodical defrost it had to have. You had to watch  that the wick was not  crooked or that it started smoking and set the place alight. One night we left our teenage guests to baby sit and warned them to watch it didn't smoke, which it did so they took the fuel tank out and doused it. So I had the joy of starting it all over again in the morning as it was meat day that day and a half a sheep had to be cut up and stored in the not very large space of the fridge
Our other delight was a Phillips wireless that ran on a 32v DC24AC inverter. Before that we would have batteries which always ran out just as the exciting part of the play was entering its climax.So frustrating.....We needed a constant supply of firewood for the green Metters wood stove which was the only way of cooking ,be it 107F outside or minus 2F . The winters were very cold and wet then and cooking was an absolute joy with a woodstove, yummy roast dinners and bread and butter puddings or marmalade steam puddings , we ate like horses then but worked it off so easily by the active lifestyle we had. .
In the first few weeks we had been at Hughes Park, I was standing at the kitchen window gazing across the horse paddock on a hot January morning, when I noticed a figure dressed in 19th century clothes, long dress , bonnet and a basket on her arm. She was walking along a track which skirted the high hill and led into a narrow valley where I finally lost sight of her. I thought it must be someone from the Big house, but when I asked who would have been brave enough to wander out in such heat, no one had. I came to the conclusion it must have been a ghost as there were no houses or cottages in that valley.
Hughes Park was very run down at that stage and the place was crawling with rabbits and foxes. The first time we went shooting rabbits along the Skilly creek, we left the rabbits lying where we shot them intending to pick them up on the way back.They had all disappeared when we went to pick them up, the foxes had grabbed everyone of them! Later we had a professional rabbit trapper until the myxamatosis took hold and got the numbers under control.