Young Pugsley started back at school today – he’s still not all that strong, so will do half days until he’s up to managing full time.  I went over to fetch him today and his mum can manage tomorrow.  We think that, by Wednesday, he’ll be able to stay and he hopes so too.  He had been sent home some work and will easily catch up anyway, but he said that lots of things have happened among his friends, so he’s been hearing all the news.

LT is back in Reading for a few days and I’m holding the fort here.  All fairly uneventful so far.  Still bloody cold and I have to take a bowl of water out to the chickens every day, though at least I don’t have to refill it a couple of times during the day.  It’s supposed to be warming up in the week, I haven’t sowed any seeds in the greenhouse or garden yet and am going to buy in some plants instead.  In theory I could still sow aubergine seeds etc but it’s hardly worth the bother of setting up the propagator.

All being well, I’ll acquire three more chickens on Thursday.  A friend in the village can’t keep all her hens and asked me if I’d take some of them.  I’ll put them in Rose’s spare coop to start with, but I need to measure up to see whether it will go in the outdoor run, which I’d prefer, or in the big greenhouse.  I think they’ll be all right, once they get used to each other.  I still want to breed a few more of our remaining bantams, it seems such a shame to let the strain die out.  My remaining bantam, Mona, hasn’t laid any eggs this year yet and I’m not sure how old she is or whether she’s capable of it, but Rose’s four all lay and they’re only three years old, and one of them often goes broody.

Our little Squiffany is going to be thirteen years old tomorrow.  I’m just leaving that here.  Thirteen.  And here she is at 14 months old.