Yellow

This post is brought to you courtesy of the colour yellow.  We have plenty of yellow at present - daffodils in variety, marsh marigolds, tulips, primroses and early cowslips...... 

It's just as well. There's not much else - our landscape remains resolutely drab. Buds are loathe to burst and the grass won't grow (much to the chagrin of our farming friends who have cattle still in their winter quarters and diminishing reserves of feed). No blossom either; our fruit trees are bare. It's hard to remain upbeat in the face of this dreariness and I find myself repeating the mantra 'Spring will come. Spring will come' and at the same time regretting reading John Christopher's post-apocalyptic 'The World in Winter'.

So today I focused on the colour we have got - yellow in all its hot, cold, acid, lemon, golden or creamy glory. 

There are strident yellows - Caltha palustris has formed bright clumps around the edge of the pond. I notice there is plenty of frog spawn too.

Plenty of daffodils - these two are rather brash and not really what we had in mind for down the dingle.

Strange because we originally planted only natives - Narcissus obvalaris, pretty and delicate little things.  These 'garden' varieties appeared and now seem to be increasing. The result of mutation perhaps or hybridisation? The good news is that the little natives are increasing too and I hope they will hold their own against their thuggish relatives.

This little flower on the right isn't a primrose and neither is it a cowslip - a bit of a mongrel. It's very pretty and I wish there were more.

Primroses in abundance too - the Glam Ass's planting programme can be deemed a success. What's there not to like about these creamy little flowers? I think as children we used to suck the nectar from the flower heads...though they may have been cowslips. Tomorrow I will go and do a taste test....

A splash of colour's very welcome isn't it?

...and Swallows!

I think it is safe to say that our swallows have returned. I saw them first on Saturday 20th - I guess the ones that I spotted earlier in the week were just passing though, resting on the last leg of their long journey.

At least a pair are swooping in and out of the field shelter - checking if last year's nests are still OK perhaps.

Welcome home. How good it is to have them back.

Naivety. My own and more painterly stuff.

There's nothing I like better than exploring unknown territory - unless that is it's exploring unknown territory when someone else is driving.

So today was my lucky day - I hopped on Chirbury Art Club's bus to Compton Verney where the group were going to see, amongst other things, the exhibition '500 years of Italian Art'. The venue ticked a lot of boxes; attractive surroundings, non-scary Art in bite-sized pieces, coffee, cake and the company of friends.

I must admit that Compton Verney was not exactly unknown to me - having grown up nearby in mid-Warwickshire's bucolic landscape. However, I never visited as a child - it was not then a gallery or a destination and my parents were more than dismissive about the elegant but shabby stately home we passed occasionally en route to buy groceries or on one of those dreary Sunday afternoon drives which passed for entertainment in the early sixties.

My first thoughts as the little bus and its chattering cargo pulled into the car park, was regret that I hadn't appreciated previously that such a lovely place was on my doorstep. A finely-proportioned building of creamy Cotswold stone set in grounds landscaped by Capability Brown for heaven's sake! But then, would an 8 year old really have been bothered and later I suppose ... let's just say other stuff seemed more important. I feel vaguely foolish that as an adult in charge of my own life. I've never been this way before. Sigh. (One day I will make as list of things my parents said which would have been better left unheeded.)  Still, I'm here now and anticipating great delights....

The collections are fine, of high quality and not overwhelming - Neapolitan Art, Northern European paintings, British Portraiture, a Chinese collection and joy of joys - British Folk Art.

The visiting exhibition '500 years of Italian Art', on loan from Glasgow had us admiring a Boticelli, Titian and Belinni amongst other worthy pieces. At the end of our visit when D and I closed the door on the final gallery we'd succumbed to 'Art Fatigue'.

 'It's all a bit of a blur' admitted D 'I seem to have been looking at one fat baby after another....'

And yes, I know exactly what she meant - in the many religious works there were plenty of chubby children - not just the infant Christ but 'putti' too.

The Folk Art Collection came as quite a relief after rooms of more serious Art, having a guileless charm of its own. Here are depictions of everyday-life by self-taught painters; the prize ram or heifer, pugilists, street scenes, landscapes with carriage accidents and wild bulls; the largest or smallest; the drama of the day. The Fine Art of the chattering classes might be the art of galleries and high places but this is art by the people, for the people. This wonderful collection was amassed by the late art dealer Andras Kalman and exhibited here at Compton Verney courtesy of the Peter Moores Foundation.

Perspective and scale are frequently awry, anatomy suspect and distorted. It doesn't matter - these are confident pieces and great social statements.








It seemed that having a dog in your picture was almost a prerequisite. Once a couple had caught my eye I couldn't help spotting more. So instead of a plethora of putti, I give you plenty of pups:

......and for cat lovers this gorgeous tortoiseshell:













Isn't she just the loveliest thing?

The cruelest month.

April. Cruel? Damned right it is. 












 Long Mountain. Friday 12th April.
 

This year at least, Eliot's opening lines to 'The Waste Land' seem hugely optimistic:

'April is the cruellest month, breeding 

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing 

Memory and desire, stirring 

Dull roots with spring rain. 

Winter kept us warm, covering 

Earth in forgetful snow, feeding 

A little life with dried tubers.'

Lilacs stirring? No way. Nothing. Dream on. True, a few of those 'dried tubers' have come to life, daffodils and crocii, somehow forcing themselves through frost and snow. How powerful those shoots must be to break through the iron-hard soil and into the light. Such is the urge to grow.

There are very few other signs of spring up here on the top of our low mountain.  I estimate we are perhaps a month behind previous years, even taking into account that more than once in previous years a late fall of snow or frost has shaken us out of our complacency and literally 'nipped things in the bud.'  Robert Frost observed April's ways in 'Two Tramps in Mud Time:

'The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You're one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you're two months back in the middle of March'

If I look carefully - very carefully - I do believe I can see buds on the big trees in the dingle. There's a new denseness about their branches, a fullness that I swear was not there a couple of days ago.  Then I swivel my head and see drifts of snow, lying in the hedge-bottoms, if not in the garden then near enough to remind me that we've a way to go yet. Sigh.

It would be too easy to sink into gloom and pessimism on seeing winter's dull days stretch into a long-awaited spring so I'll snatch any small joys while I can.

Blog on a G String

Come February and our thoughts turn the YFC Drama Competition at Whitchurch.

It's always a stressful time, especially the build-up to the performance when the cast's lack of urgency,  inability to learn their lines or turn up in any numbers to rehearsals leads to much wailing and many sleepless nights on behalf of the directors. The likelihood of the performance being a disaster is more than a possibility - it's a probablity.

However, miraculously it never is. The Club pulls out all the stops and while 'triumph' would be an exaggeration, once again, they do well. We breathe again.

Come March it's time to put the show on at home in the Village Hall - except this year due to the way that Easter has fallen we're a little late and they will be on stage this Saturday. By now of course, any urgency the cast mustered for the County Competition has evaporated and lines have been forgotten and there isn't even the spur of The Dance Afterwards as encouragement. We feel the stress levels begin to rise once again....

Chirbury and Marton entered the One+ Competiton - rather than produce a full-blown drama they have a 6 minute spot on stage in which no more than 10 of them can perform anything of their choosing. They chose to do a take on the popular 'Mrs Brown's Boys'. What else could they call it but 'Farmer Brown's Boys'?

Well, a cast of 10 with a witty one-liner each made for about 5 minutes of script. Blink and you've missed it. For Whitchurch that met the criteria but on home ground we needed to put more to it - which is where we, the 'Advisory', got together, sharpened our pencils and got creative.

Where to start? Well 'knickers' always gets a laugh. Or a smirk. Or a snigger. So 'knickers it was. Our production could start with Mrs Farmer Brown going through the laundry.

And so it came to pass that props were needed. 

Big Knickers were no problem and three pairs in most fetching pink, lilac and cream (size 6OS) were bought from Tuffin's Pound Store. Bargain. But the thong - the G String - was another matter. Thongs are seemingly unavailable in rural south Shropshire. I was beginning to think that I'd have to get the sewing machine and a few scraps of ribbon out when as a last resort I tried an outfitters in Bishop's Castle.

I call it an outfitters because it's a store stacked with items of clothing and footwear of every description for every sort of person and purpose - and if you don't fancy ready made there is wool so you can knit-your-own. There's a veritable mountain of shoes and boots and a cobbler's workshop - complete with hoary old cobbler - at the back.

I made a bee-line for the underwear department. It was fairly comprehensive, again most tastes apart from the truly outrageous were catered for - but sadly there were no thongs or G Strings on view. I'd have to ask. At this point I rather hoped that there was someone else apart from the old cobbler working there.

Indeed there was. "Do you have any thongs...G strings?" I asked.

She looked at me blankly.

"Erm, those uncomfortable knickers that erm...you know, erm, string up the back."  I continued, hoping to avoid the words 'crack of bum'  "They're not for me - they're for the Young Farmers Drama."

The penny dropped. "Cheese-cutters!" she exclaimed and led me to the last 3 pairs in Shropshire, adding that somewhere in the store there were more. Plenty in fact because they weren't a good seller. (Well, no I can see that they wouldn't go well in this temple of comfort-based clothing.) 1 pair was sufficient. I could have them for a £1. Bargain...though obviously not as much a bargain as the 3 giant size pairs bought previously.

Cheese-cutters then. Ah! The importance of language. If only I'd known the local terminology I could have saved myself a lot of searching.

P.S. If you're passing they'll be on stage in Marton Village Hall on Saturday evening around 8.30pm.
There will also be cheese, wine and puddings. While I can't promise a slick and polished performance (although there are still 3 days to go and I live in hope) I feel fairly certain that it will be, as ever, a good night out. All welcome.

Holding out for a hero

At times like this what us girls need is not some suave well-mannered new man but a bloke from Powys with a snow blower....

Cometh the hour, cometh that man bloke.

He and his mate on the digger are making glacial progress along the lane. One blows and the other scrapes.

I stumble across the drifts at hedge height to meet them for a progress report.

There is a vague possibility that they will reach us later today but I'm not holding my breath. Tomorrow maybe? My new friend tells me he'll be back 'on the bins' then and doesn't know if they will find anyone to replace him on the 'blower. So when we'll actually be able to drive out is anyone's guess.

In truth that's not really a hardship - there is still food in the freezer and we have not resorted to burning the furniture yet.

We can just sit it out. It's those who have to work in such conditions - the farmers and the road clearers who are the heroes of the hour. I don't think that anyone, ever, got mentioned in despatches for staying indoors and looking out of the window.

A gap year....

Do you suppose that if I creep back in here quietly, don't bang any metaphorical doors or switch on any metaphorical bright lights, I can settle back in without any fuss - without disturbing anyone?


It's not that I've been anywhere in the true 'gap year' sense - the past 12 months have been spent in much the same way as the previous twelve months, and indeed, the twelve months before that - mooching around the top  of this low mountain. There have been highs and lows of course but somehow recording the minutiae of life in the small mountain kingdom lost its sparkle and it seemed the best solution was to take a break.


But now maybe I should open the door again and let some of the day-to-day events creep in - how else I am going to know, in years to come, the date when the first swallow arrived or what the Young Farmers did in the drama competition or indeed just how deep the snowdrifts were in March 2013....

...and since that question was on every reader's lips, the answer is deep. Very deep.

Behind these drifts is a field gate - but impossible to reach today. Trelystan is cut off.

Our lane and the bigger lane it joins have filled in with snow - yes, we did have quite a lot but it's those pesky winds which have been the problem.


We can walk up so far and then any progress is impossible.

Our farming neighbours are coming over from Fir House by quad bike to feed the stock that is over here. By the chorus of 'moos' currently coming from the barn I guess that someone has just turned up with a bag of feed.

By now we're resigned to staying put - the larder is reasonably well-stocked....although I imagine in a few days time our diet will comprise of curious odds and ends. There is a comforting amount of sloe gin. And plenty of marmalade. The Glam Ass seems to have got over his attack of cabin fever, is less grumpy and has taken to his shed making dozens of bird houses. (Each one a work of art.Trust me. Orders taken.)

The snow blower was spotted yesterday making slow but dramatic progress in our direction but has not been seen since. The driver apparently said it would take 2 or 3 days to get to us and has probably been diverted anyway to clear the road over Long Mountain where feed trucks need to go.

So we'll sit tight. I have a lovely new computer with lots of 'bells and whistles' to explore so will be happily occupied until the roads are cleared or a thaw sets in.

Oh, and another thing. Yes, British Summertime starts on Sunday. No comment.

Bird Brained?

What was I saying only a couple of posts ago? Nests? Height above ground? Potential predators?

Birds - were you listening?

Apparently not. Sigh. The nest below does not conform with the 3ft (1m) above ground safety rule. Not only that, it may be reached by a series of log steps and is also clearly visible from most places in the front garden.

(Trust me, it's in there at about 10 o'clock from the orange thingy)















My father always told me that the Blackbird was not a very bright bird. Q.E.D.

In which cattle marinade themselves perhaps?

Hmm. Young Farmers and Beer. What does the song say?  'They go together like a horse and carriage...la, la, la, you can't have one without the other' etc.... Or something.

Last evenings YFC jaunt to Ivor's Wagyu Beef farm was a case in point...these were beer drinking cattle. And these beasts could slurp with the best of them! The Glam Ass and I tagged along, ever curious observers.

For the uninitiated Wagyu cattle are of Japanese origin and are noted for their particularly marbled meat - a quality which enhances both succulence and flavour. In recent years the trend in this country has been, led by supermarkets who claim to reflect the wants of the consumer, for leaner cuts. Fat is the Devil's spawn and must be excised at all costs. I would concur with our new friend Ivor - a marbled steak is a wonderful, toothsome thing. Ivor is ploughing a lonely furrow in commercial terms though - his is a one mans campaign to put flavoursome high quality meat with FAT in it back on our plates.

But back to the beer. In Japan, this highly prized breed is cossetted; its muscles massaged and, to stimulate appetite, promote relaxation and a feeling of well-being, they are given beer...a feeling that most YF's will know well. Ivor's not one to buck a trend so he too indulges his cattle, talks to them, caresses them and has done a deal with the local brewery, Monty's, so that they might enjoy a litre or three of ale of an evening. (Do click the link - it's a pretty good beer for people too.) The result, he assures us, is an unstressed animal and an unstressed animal makes better eating.

We meet Abramovitch the bull and his offspring too - they are rather similar to the Limousin X beasts we are more familiar with but take longer to 'finish' - and there's the rub, this all makes for a more expensive product. We tasted some and it was good - I shall be looking out for some at our local butcher. Worth it - definitely - for a special meal. I'll create a demand.

Bird time

I've been meaning to write about birds for the past 2 weeks or so mainly because - joys of joys - the first swallows put in appearance at our end of Long Mountain on 14th April. Their arrival coincided with the end of a month of unseasonable warmth and the arrival of a climate which would send any right-minded bird straight back to Africa. A sight to lift the spirits none-the-less.

However, it seems these were passing through. A few days later a lone bird sat on the wire which crosses the lane, slowly and elegantly flexing first one wing and then the other. It was there long enough to raise my hopes that 'our' swallows were indeed back. But nope. Another passer-by. Today another two twittered, tweeted and stretched on the same wind-swept wire before they too launched off into the grey skies which have been this month's signature sky colour.

Chester the 'brave' hunting dog has sniffed out 2 nests: a Dunnock with these most beautiful bright blue eggs and that of a Robin.




The Dunnock has chosen to build in a little topiary ball at the back of the house - not a particularly private or secret spot - as you can see from this rather uninteresting picture of our terrace.

The dog's sensitive nose sniffed out the Robin's nest, beautifully crafted in a clump of sedge and grass - a little soft mossy cup with 4 tiny speckled eggs. We called him away but he obviously filed it away in his dog-brain as some thing which needed further investigation. Two days later he seized the opportunity for a bit of hunting and dived in...emerging with a mouthful of Robin. Why is the death of a Robin the saddest thing?

Chester was chastised and sent to his bed but I'm not sure our rantings will have much effect - he is hard-wired to hunt. It is in his nature. Curiously he has not taken much notice of the pair of ducks which look as if they might set up home near the pond - or maybe their presence has bookmarked for future action too. Advice for all birds around here would be to nest at least 3 feet off the ground.

The Trelystan orchids show promise - last year Powis County Council's hyper-efficient verge mowing team did as instructed by the Wildlife Trust and didn't mow until late summer. They managed to escape predation by sheep, lambs and rabbits as well. Let's hope they have another good year. This is the first one coming into flower - another duff picture as I was too idle to get out of the car.

I hope and believe this stretch of roadside is being treated as a nature reserve - it will be interesting to see what emerges if things are left to grow and seed rather than being scalped.

So. We await swallows and sunshine. The soil is moist though so maybe I should be out there sowing seeds. It's not raining at the moment....carpe diem.

What would you do?

Come on Internet chums - your ideas and inspiration please. Just what would you do with the likes of this?

This here's my collection of potsherds - none are particularly old and none are particularly interesting...but I did think that if one individual piece is uninteresting, then together they might make music.

They are the cracked and crazed history of here; the story of the cack-handed residents of Lower House - the Vaughans, Bebbs, Smouts, Parrys and Bowens. Plates which slipped through those fingers. This is a story of dropped pots, the sense of loss; chagrin perhaps. Maybe some were lobbed in anger. Who knows. There are tales to tell.

These remnants of farmhouse meals felt the clatterin' of eating irons - and perhaps one or two of the more delicate fragments hint of a life which wasn't always one of privation on top of a low mountain. There are one or two pieces of delicate bone china.

It is my regret that I do not know their tales. Who, for example, broke Mother's lustre jug (a fragment remains) and who brought back from Aber', (or Borth maybe), that gold lettered cup, a present for 'Mam' - of which only the letters 'pr' and 'fro' remain. I wish I knew. And what did the rest of this fragment say? Did a bad boy let this slip through his fingers...










I've picked them up out of the soil, many from the old midden, a few from the top soil we brought in and some, serendipitously, from mole hills up on the field.




What to do with them all is the question. Any ideas?

I toyed today with making a platter shaped mosaic - it entertained me for an hour this morning. A tea pot stand.....nah. What I would really like to make is a monumental mosaic rabbit - and I do mean massive scale here - but the probability of finding enough potsherds for that project is remote. Dream on. Sensible suggestions please.

Dusk. Trelystan.

My feet crunch through thawed then frosting snow. Behind me the moon, on the cusp of full, glows warm. A torch, up here on the field tonight, will not be necessary.

I close my eyes the better to hear the night.

For a start there's a stupid plane disturbing the peace of the small mountain kingdom. 'Go plane, just go.' I urge. And indeed it does - on it's way to Manchester or Liverpool perhaps. Then at last there is silence...but not silence because the world has sounds.

Is that an owl over there in Badnage Wood? I think so. And there's such an orchestra of sheep and lambs too - baa's and bawls and bleats, call and response...but never harmony. Ah! It's a discordant modern piece.

Drill down beneath the sheep sounds and listen - there is the roar of the stream which rises up near Cym Duggan and follows a stony path to the Rea Valley, picking up the name The Lowerfield Brook along the way. (Up here of course it is not known by that name - it is an anonymous watercourse - though I imagine that given long enough we would call it more than 'the stream'.) Tonight it roars and tonight the conifers sigh; a gentle soughing sound.

I don't think there is any other sound...oh maybe the odd rustle of a roosting hen...but otherwise the night has some sort of purity. By moonlight and the snow's reflected light my opened eyes see black and white in great detail. That ridge and furrow over there, just beneath the church? Is it part of some ancient landscape or the remains of 'The Long Mountain Experiment' aka potato planting on uplands during WWII? And just what makes the medieval farmer a more 'romantic' proposition for me than the latter day potato planter I wonder?

Ah well. I turn to the south, into the moon's light and towards my supper.

Who'd be a sheep eh?

This morning

I don hat-scarf-coat-gillet-boots - unearthing all my cold weather gear from where it has been stowed away a little too soon - and trudge up to let the hens out. Through a blizzard. I soon regret leaving my gloves behind. It's only an itsy bit of April snow. Nothing serious surely?

Not surprisingly as I raised the pop holes on houses one, two and three, the hens squawked 'blow that for a game of soldiers' as they saw the whiteout conditions, and took to their perches for a day of clucky grumbling'. And who would blame them?

I wasn't expecting this - too far south, too far west etc but at 2.00am this morning snow was indeed falling. And it is falling still, some 18 hours later. Thank goodness that as it has fallen there has been something of a thaw because otherwise the white stuff would now be up to the eaves. (As I type this I notice that the sky is now clearing and the moon is out.) We lost the electricity at breakfast time and the snow filled the lane shortly afterwards. We've spent a lot of time today just looking out at the window.

...and this afternoon

But who would be a sheep? Up until now the weather has been perfect for lambing. The little fields around us are used as nurseries and ewes and lambs spend a few days there, bonding before moving on and joining the bigger flock. Even yesterday evening we were watching some week old lambs running and jumping as the sun went down. Such simple pleasures, such joyful sheepy games. This morning though was a different story as their mothers led them to shelter in the lea of a hedge, out of the bitter wind. They seemed such scraps of things struggling through the heavy wet snow. With the lambs parked-up the ewes continued to graze, pawing at the snow to find the grass underneath, giving an occasional bleat to their shivering offspring.

John brought a big bale of straw to shelter some lambs in a particularly exposed field but mainly they manage to find shelter of some sort. I remind myself that wool is brilliant insulation. Here in our field is a kind of sheep refugee camp - they are hunkered down in a fold in the land, sheltered by a thicket of blackthorn and out of the worst of the weather. A couple of old ewes seem to be babysitting.

I click the camera off - it's too cold to stand out here fiddling. The wind is coming from the north and driving hard little crystals of ice into my face - it's a bit like being sand blasted. Indoors seems like a very good idea.

Sheds. Stuff. Sigh

The Glam. Ass. is building a shed. No, make that another shed.  We have a number if you add up all the various structures in garden and field - and I'm not factoring in the deluxe model he had built for our absent neighbour in this equation either. They're all too robust and well constructed to even hint  at 'shanty-town'  but I am thinking 'hmm - shed world'. Just how many sheds does one man need I wonder?

Now, while I'm undeniably proud of my man's shed building prowess I'm sighing just the smallest of sighs. A shed is like a shelf - until you have one there's nothing to put on it. But once in existence it becomes the home of Stuff which then takes root and multiplies and, like a pernicious weed, is damned hard to get rid of.

This latest shed will become 'The Tractor Shed' and the little yellow tractor will move with all its kit and caboodle from the Field Shelter where it currently lives. The Field Shelter will become the Timber Store, housing all the er, timber which has been accumulated over the years for various as-yet unfulfilled wood working projects. This is a Good Thing - as it means that the plastic sheeted stack of wood that sits just inside the front gate will move out of my line of vision. However there is always the danger that having the space to store yet more timber, and indeed tractor kit, even more will be acquired.

All I ask is a couple of square metres to keep my hen food bins and a bale of shavings in. That should be possible.

......actually what I really would like is one of these. But not for anything utilitarian. Just for me.

Amongst other things...

There's a gap on the perch of the Henhouse-on-Wheels tonight. Mrs Scraggy-Neck has clucked her last. She is no more. The matriarch of my small flock has gone to her final roost.

At 7 years old she was the last of my original hens. A good layer in her day but latterly an indulged older bird. She'd earned the right to first dibs at pellets and corn and the right to peck viciously at any lesser bird bold enough to stick its beak in before she did. I was quite surprised at just how heavy her lifeless corpse was - not many dinners missed there methinks.

For the curious she earned her name via a run-in with Chester, the 'brave' hunting dog. He grabbed her head, she dodged, skin tore and ouch! That must have hurt. I suppose on the basis of 'whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger' she survived, recovered and thrived - but bald of neck and one ear less.

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Hasn't this weather been wonderful? The farmer's tan is coming on nicely thank you...but I can't bring myself to shed sufficient clothes  to make myself less piebald. It is only March for heaven's sake!

The garden has called. Beds have been tidied - jobs which should have been done in the back end' really. I never feel too guilty when I see Monty Don on Gardeners' World as behind as I consider myself to be. If it's alright for Monty, it's alright for me.

I've had a go at digging out some of the bindweed which has plagued us for the last few years. Our garden was a virgin plot in 2005 so I can only assume it came in as miniscule pieces in the topsoil. Click on the link to find out more about what is in reality a very attractive plant - particularly when growing somewhere else. I'm rather depressed to discover its roots can penetrate up to 5 metres deep - and know all about spreading rapidly. However I'm quite pleased with the amount I dug out yesterday - there's something rather satisfying about unearthing and carefully extracting the fleshy white roots. I've decided it is actually quite a clever plant and knows where it will be safe - lodged in the roots of something precious perhaps or down where the top soil becomes impenetrable shale.

Seeds have been sown in the greenhouse and outside a bed of Broad Bean 'Express' and another of Peas - 'Hurst Greenshaft', have been put in. I have grown both before and they have proved good do-ers. Also at the last count we have 12 spears asparagus looking promising - this is a tad earlier than last year.

Above, in another fuzzy iPhone photo, is fat white Wilson sunbathing on the newly sown peas. Nice warm earth I suppose. Persuading him to get off without disturbing the soil too much was a trial....and then I turned around and he'd got back up again. It doesn't really matter if a few peas are askew does it?
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Lambing is well under way over at Fir House - what wonderful weather for it too. As the ewes lamb they spend 24 hours or so penned and bonding with their lambs and then they can come out onto the hill. At first they are put in smaller fields so the bonding process can continue - a post-partum sheep is easily confused I understand and in smaller groups there is less likelihood of lambs getting lost or muddled up.

We now have ewes and lambs on our little fields - slightly nervy mothers and their tiny offspring, scraps of things - almost too small for the big red numbers painted on their sides. They arrive in the stock trailer from Fir House and are decanted onto the grass - their first taste of the great outdoors.

Now here is something of an interesting observation. I've leaped to my feet I don't know how many times today at what I've assumed to be the imminent arrival of lambs in the stock trailer. But no - some bird out there can imitate the squeaks, rattle and jolt noise of said trailer as it bounces down the lane. Just as back in the day starlings latched on to the warble of that 70s style icon the 'Trim phone'  and had homeowners running to answer that non-existent call. Clever eh?
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PS I have another Herman friendship cake on the go. Anybody want a portion?