We’re still gradually forking over the kitchen garden. It’s taking a while. I dug up the last of the leeks today, in a clear hint to LT to make his fabulous Leek Quiche. There are enough leeks to make at least two of them, but we may well freeze what’s left when he’s made one.

I also pulled quite a lot of rhubarb. Does anyone have a good recipe for rhubarb chutney or relish? I’ve found some that look promising on the BBC Good Food website; one with dates and a couple with ginger, but personal recommendations are always best. Tim likes to have some fruit and yoghurt with breakfast but, if I have that, it’s all I have and I usually want something a bit more sustaining. Otherwise, we don’t tend to eat cooked fruits because we don’t have puddings. So I don’t usually bother a lot with rhubarb, but this year I’m looking for jobs to do that aren’t the turning out and deep cleaning ones that are needed but aren’t happening to any great extent. Cooking fits the bill quite nicely.

Otherwise, what is happening here is the cutting up of wood for the winter. We plan ahead at the Zedary. We have enough wood left for maybe half a dozen open fires – or we had, at any rate – which will probably be enough. There is also some smokeless fuel to add to it. But there was a sizeable dead tree from three and a half years ago, which was just lying on the Ups and Downs and, today, it’s finally been cut up. Also, the knotty logs that couldn’t be split, the pieces of oak from the tree on the drive (these will be kept for a couple of years to dry out) and the Scots pine that fell down the winter before last. We are having nothing to do with this industrious chop and splittery, we’re employing someone. No need to go near each other, we can talk from a suitable distance and I’ll pay the money into his bank account. It’s rather good that some things carry on, as if life were normal at some level.

I must tell you about the young bantam Slapper, whose name has been changed because it really isn’t kind. But she is a bit of a pain.