Then tonight we were visited by a lovely red deer and her fawn. It had a really good investigate of the back garden for about ten minutes – including a go at getting in to the vegetable cage. R seemed to soften to them after seeing that – though he really hates them passing ticks to the cats (and him of course!).

Then I went down to gather more strawberries by the pond and a tiny frog the size of my thumb jumped out from behind a leaf. I still haven’t managed to get the iconic photo of one on a lily pad though!

On a slightly less pleasant note – Schrodi is currently very busy on the small rodent front. He brought us a dead pygmy shrew this morning, and then about half an hour later R noticed him sniffing in the corner over something alive. I never got a good look at what it was because I grabbed it and put it outside where it disappeared rapidly into the undergrowth. It was possibly a water rat because it was very large for a mouse – but whatever it was it had a savage bite – right through the end of my finger! Nature bites back….