Decadence of country life....

It was pandemonium here the night before last. The sheep from next door, on noticing that the grass is always greener, escaped to our patch. Our neighbour was out, so hubby and I tried to catch the blighters, fearful they'd wander away off our land and over the common; our fields are not sheep secure.

It was hot and humid as we lashed up and down a buttercup and clover meadow... so pretty. so D.H. Lawrence, till I noticed that hubby was carrying a tin of Strongbow, supping between bouts of chasing! Chav, and he wouldn't even give me a sip!

Defeated, we waved at a friend who was off to the pub in the next village, asking him to check the hostelry for the official shepherd of said sheep. Pretty soon our neighbour reappeared with his crook. Jesus like, he ushered the prodigals back to their own field.

Later, when the kids were in bed, I wandered out to the garden to start the nightly plant-watering ritual. Coming towards me up the gravel drive was Willy the Shetland pony! He was dressed in his fly suit, complete with face and ear mask. In this get-up he looks like he's wearing armour; off to a short-person joust at any moment.

He was clearly fed up with his lonely field, (the other ponies had been taken to a show jumping event for the evening) and delightfully he'd found the gate to his field open!!! (School boy error that one!) Fortunately he was on a mission, not to escape, but rather to enter the field nearest the stables. I obliged, opening the gate for him and shutting it firmly behind his little bottom.

The animals on site are certainly full of personality.

The chickens have been on a go-slow for a little while and I've only been reaping 4 eggs a day instead of my usual 8 or 10. I cook a fair bit and swap eggs with pals at school, so I'd really like at least 10 eggs per day. Today I received a call from a friend of a friend who owns an egg farm: They have 13,000 chickens and have agreed that we can pop over on Saturday morning to pick up some of their older girls at £1 each. I'm going to let the sproglets choose two more chickens each, giving us 12 in total. Can't wait.

We finally bottled up the Elderflower champagne. It smells great but looks like scrumpy cider. We await the results. I don't think we'll even try it for about a month, although by all accounts we'll need to burp the bottles once a week, in case they explode!