Time Out

Another beautiful day today, Easter Sunday, to sit on the patio catching up with my blog while the morning dew is still fresh on the grass, the girls are snoozing in their shelter, the furries are arrayed around the garden and the birds are singing. After a week off, I feel myself really starting to relax and enjoy the tranquility of the morning.

We've achieved huge amounts this week: we've put the greenhouse up and sown tomatoes, chillies, pak choi, melon, swet corn and runner beans; we've prepped two seed beds and installed spring onions, chantenay carrots, mixed lettuce, wild rocket and cucmber in one of them, and lots of herbs in another.

We've planted 100 willow trees (!) to develop horse-friendly hedgerows and begin coppicing for firewood as part of the ongoing drive towards sustainability and we've constructed and installed "Chateau Poulet", otherwise known as a fruit cage commandeered for the new chicken pen, complete with paddling pool:

An array of chums have been to visit this week; Chris and Steve followed by Mark, Gina & Estelle with their little JRT, Chester, which has been splendid. We all went tramping around Dering Woods to witness the spectacle of the bluebells and to get lost after going off-piste and spending some considerable time battling our way through the undergrowth in an effort to return to civilisation. The bluebells were truly spectacular!

Horses
Meanwhile Gualter has been growing like a weed and has had his first leading lesson. Given that he's such a feisty little bugger it went remarkably well, so more to follow on that today.

Q is back at work after his time at sexy camp and seems to be enjoying it, and it's good to be having lessons again. I am hoping to get him out to a local yard for a lesson this week while I have time, and there is talk of a clinic with Andrew Murphy for Mandy's clients, so I particularly want to get him to that if possible, and out to that venue beforehand to make sure that we don't spend the entire time getting him used to the place :)

Tigre seems to be doing very well and is spending up to 12 hours a day out at grass in his pen, which keeps him to a pleasant simmer. He and Q have settled back into their daily snorting and breathing contests while grazing peacably the rest of the time.

Next week we have quite a bit more to do: install the rest of the CCTV, lots more planting, connecting up the remaining water tanks, planting more willow trees, irrigating the fields from the water butts, lots of weeding and more work with Littlun. We keep threatening to have a quiet day and invariably end up embarked on some major project that keeps us busy until late. S'good though.