Last night a new fox joined the badger feeding on the nuts. It is interesting as seen in the video that whilst the fox is very skitty and obviously ready to make a break for it – the badger is completely unconcerned and ignores his new companion. I feel very sorry for foxes around here […]

I made J a birthday cake. It is small but perfectly formed as he is always complaining I feed him up too much and he is getting fat. On a somewhat related note, R and I are on a diet at the moment – so I deliberately made a coffee and walnut as J likes […]

Apparently 58% of people in UK regularly do not make their bed in the morning. I almost always do – but yesterday I put clean sheets on the bed and also washed my dressing gown. I put the newly laundered garment on the bed while I looked for my clothes, and turned round to see […]

I knew this would happen but unfortunately the weather turned nasty just in time for the village Gala Day. It seems to do this every single year. In fact the year I helped out with a stall they decided to hold it in the field next to the school, it poured with rain and the […]

Came back from a walk the other day and all the way down the hill I could hear the loud noise of distressed sheep. When I got to the bottom I saw the reason. All the adult ewes had been separated from their (now very large) lambs so they could be sheared. The lambs were […]

Sad to say, although I am a keen cook, I have never made a curry completely from scratch before. That is not to say that I use cook-in sauces or buy the whole thing is a packet (1970’s Vesta style), but rather that I use fresh ingredients, but Patak’s curry paste rather than grinding my […]

Thursday was the most idyllic day since we have lived here (R says I claim this for several days every year). I knocked off work at 3pm and walked up to the waterfalls. It was sunny and warm (about 75) on the way up, but once I was in the woods it was delightfully cool, […]

At this time of year Tora goes all the way down to the village at least three times a week. There is one particular garden which exerts a fascination I don’t understand because he is nearly always there. He will then follow us back through the arboretum and all the way home (if we haven’t […]

As I may have mentioned before, we have 3.5 acres of garden, surrounded by the Donich Water to the right and rear, with forest to the left and a rough track leading to the house at the front. Thankfully, not all of it is laid out to grass, but about an acre of it is […]

I’ve just spent every spare minute for the last few days doing up my bedroom – hence not many blog posts. Here are some of the results – completely finished now apart from a new rug I am still waiting for. Plus a local craftsman is not only going to repair our summerhouse door which […]