– and ten chickens are missing, presumed dead. We have found a few bodies, but it probably hid some for later retrieval. It happened in broad daylight at about 5 o’clock this afternoon.
Can’t blame an animal for following its instincts, but if we have a sighting of it, we will shoot. Sorry, but it doesn’t understand restraint, how could it, and it will be back for more.
The cock is wandering around on the Ups and Downs and won’t come home. Luckily, the mother hens with young chicks are all right in their small runs, but the mother with half-grown ones was killed, with three of the youngsters and there is only one left.
Sad as it is, it’s part of having free-range chickens in the country, and it’s one of those things. The Sage is just relieved that none of his particular pets have gone this time, but the next-door field that doesn’t belong to us has not been cut for hay yet and it’s ideal cover for a fox.

It needed ten days of heatwave, but finally, this morning, I have turned off the Aga. It is done with reluctance really, as my alternative means of cooking are three table-top items, none of which is any substitute. There is an electric oven with two cooking rings, which is used for most of the cooking. However, as it has to go on the counter top, the rings are uncomfortably high and I can’t see into the saucepans. Of course, I can’t put it on the table, which is lower, because of the electric lead. There is a grill, which is fine, which can also be used as an oven, which is not brilliant. Then there is the microwave, which has a combination grill. Between them I can do most things I need to, but it’s more effort and we have to eat off cold plates.

For the first few years we lived here, the Aga was on all the time as it was my only means of cooking and provided all our hot water as well. Then we had a run of very hot summers and my temper frayed. I’d spend an hour watering the greenhouse and picking the vegetables, then prepare them and cook a meal, by which time I was growling. I’d shove it all on the dining table and mutter ‘give me a drink, I don’t want food.’ I’d settle down after a while of course, because I rather like food.
So we had an immersion heater put in, bought the mini oven (the other equipment had found its way into the kitchen over the years) and the Aga goes off in the summer. Though, after the first few puritanical years, it occurred to me that if I did want to do a lot of cooking for a couple of days, or make jam or something like that, there was nothing to stop me turning it on just for a day or two.

The Archdeacon visited, so all 6 parishes in our group joined for a service in one village church. It is in a village bisected by the Norwich to Yagnub road and, having parked at the village hall (where I’d dropped off my contribution towards lunch) I walked the half-mile to the church, glad that I had changed out of the frivolous shoes I’d worn earlier in the morning. Even so, I wished I was tall enough to be able to get away without high heels. It gave me the opportunity to notice how beautifully looked after all the houses and gardens are – I’d certainly let the side down if I lived there, as I don’t notice weeds until they actually trip me up or until I can’t hack my way through the undergrowth.

The church is really pretty too. It is usually kept locked, which is a pity as churches should be available to anyone who wants to visit them; understandable however, as it is set well back and not visible from the road. Either side of the archway between the nave and the chancel* are some really pretty wall paintings – frescos I suppose – with flowers, and angels above. In the chancel there are more lovely flower frescos on the window returns (I’m showing my ignorance of architectural terms here) and the wooden chancel ceiling is painted too. The church is beautifully cared for, with polished brass which you can see is always looked after; newly and occasionally cleaned items have a fleetingly different look to them, which you can recognise but not necessarily describe. Maybe I was in a particulary relaxedly mood-to-be-pleased, but I noticed that the altar cloth, too, was beautifully embroidered. The only things in the church I didn’t particularly care for were some of the Victorian (I think) stained glass windows, which I found rather too heavily colourful for the delicacy of the rest of the decoration, though some of them were attractive in themselves.
I don’t know anything much about stained glass in churches, by the way, having simply three recognisable categories ‘old’ ‘Victorian’ and ‘modern’.

*Parts of a church – the nave is the body of the church, where the congregation sits, the chancel is the section where the choir and the minister sit and the sanctuary is the area around the altar. Churches always are built facing west to east, with the altar at the eastern end.

That’s about it really, except that the Sage has bought his birthday present and cheerily announced how much I will have paid for it. Oh good, now he has what he wants, or will come Saturday, as I have confiscated it until then. Unfortunately, it’s a metal detector, using which is, in my opinion but not his (obviously), one of the deadliest boring things in the world, so there is no danger of more togetherness in the Sage/Z household. I wanted to buy him some really nice tables and chairs for the garden, but I acknowledge that ‘giving’ something you really want yourself is not much of a gift. Maybe I’ll buy them for myself as an advance birthday present instead.

I have been considering my World Cup strategy. It can, of course, be ignored altogether, but that seems a little churlish for an event that is of such importance to so many people in so many places and means you cut yourself completely out of conversations in the pub.

So I will watch some matches. And I will choose a team to support in each. The nub of the strategy is, simply, to cheer on the underdog. I think this could be a great deal more fun than becoming dreadfully partisan and, since most of those I root for are doomed to lose anyway – not every match of course, but in their groups, there is little need to feel I am jinxing their chances.

So, yay, Ecuador, well done. And go for it, Trinidad and Tobago.

My summer jollity is assured.

is that each hot day could be the last. So, even though we will, any day, start grumbling that ‘the garden needs the rain’, we love it really.

My husband overestimates the Power of Google. “Do you remember *Uncle* Shag?” he enquired. “You never met him, he sent us a carving knife set for a wedding present and he died not long after. Then, his daughter wrote to let me know when her mother died too.”

Well, I remember the name, hard to forget really.

“I’d like to get in touch with the daughter again, can you look her up?”
“What’s her name, where does she live?”
“I don’t know, I thought you could Google Uncle Shag.”
“Has he some reason to be immortalised on the internet? What was his first name, anyway?”
“I don’t know, what’s Shag short for?”
I played it straight.
“It’s not short for anything, it’s a nickname. Anyway, even if you knew, how would that lead me to his married daughter, when you don’t know anything about her?”

Well, I did my best. He knew Shag’s father’s name, but unfortunately it was William Wallace. You Google William Wallace and see where it gets you. I looked up the place where he used to work, but it doesn’t exist any more. I tried the 1901 census, and got sidetracked into looking up our families instead.

He says he will search his memory for a few more clues.

So we made hay.
A good crop this year, because of all the May rain. The farmer who keeps his dry (that is, very pregnant so not being milked) cows on the Ups and Downs cuts the hay and he says the cows love it, probably because it is neither sprayed nor artificially fertilised, and it is a tasty mix of four types of grass. When ragwort or thistles grow, we weed by hand. That is, pull them out before they seed, I wouldn’t want anyone to surmise that we go over a 4-acre field with a trowel.


And, although you’ve seen the wisteria already this year, the evening sun on the house always makes it the best time of day for a photo.
With a better view of the Tudor chimney and you can see the Victorian ones too. This house has had a good many alterations in 450 years.

Yes indeed, you can see the creeper growing over onto the roof at the gable end. And, you’re right again, that is a bramble growing through the hebe in the foreground. Time to turn our attention from the vegetables and towards the rest of the garden I suppose.

8am

I was standing at the kitchen sink, washing lettuce for a salad. I was going to a committee meeting followed by a lunch party and everyone was taking some food.

Ro came down the back stairs, we greeted each other and he rummaged in the fridge for his lunch, which he had packed up the night before. He picked up his car keys and then looked at me.

“Hm, nice dress,” he said. “Yes. Nice.”

Made my day.

Yesterday’s pictures are just a little misleading as actually the artichokes are still tiny. They look as if they are almost ready to eat, but they will be weeks yet. I have cut the two largest cucumbers and one of them will be the centrepiece of tonight’s meal, the other having been cut for Al, Dilly and Squiffany. Again, you can’t really judge the size; the largest is about 9 inches long, but there are far too many for such a young plant and taking them off as soon as they are big enough to eat will save its strength. One year I tried removing the first few fruits, thinking it would help the plant grow quicker, but it seemed to discourage it and I didn’t get any more cucumbers for some time, though I can think of no reason for that. Tomatoes have set but are still tiny, and some of the physalis are in flower. They have pretty pale yellow and brown flowers. I can’t say that Cape Gooseberries are a favourite fruit, they are just not something to eat by the bowlful, but they have a pleasant enough flavour, look pretty and keep for ages.

The Sage has been to the farm to say hello to some of his favourite cows. Patty Pan, Big Pinkie and Foster are the ones he knows best and they came to say hello and were disappointed that he didn’t produce apples from his pocket for them. He was remorseful and promised to visit again soon but I’m not sure that cows entirely appreciate anticipation. Foster will come and spend a few weeks on our field (known as the Ups and Downs as it was used for small-scale gravel extraction at one time and is very uneven) soon but the other two have fairly recently calved and so are doing their duty in the milking parlour twice a day at present.

The Ups and Downs are marked on one old map as Anglo-Saxon earthworks and on another as Anglo-Saxon burial ground – I don’t know on what basis and no digging has been done on the land for the nearly 80 years it has been in our family. Yesterday I was explaining to Squiffany that, if you look at flowering grasses, you can see how many different varieties you have. She carefully examined the different grass heads and looked wise, but I suppose 14 1/2 months is a little young to expect her to identify Timothy, Creeping Fescue and the like with any certainty. She was polite enough to humour me, anyway, and I appreciate that. As it was half-term last week, I did not look after her (mother is a teacher so was on holiday too) and by yesterday she evidently missed us as she came marching up to the door and made herself at home.