So long since I last wrote here, I'm not sure why I feel drawn to begin again.
Much has changed but even more remains the same. We still live in the same house, same village. We now have four grandchildren, three boys, one girl. They are sweet and generous little things and have no problem with sharing, especially the cold virus.
Jonny, the son for whom I began writing this blog, now lives in a lovely cottage just a couple of miles down the road from here. He had a fabulous five years out in Shanghai where he met and married his beautiful Mingming and now he is training to become a Physics teacher. He already has degrees in Engineering and Architecture so physics is a subject which interests him.
My younger brother has abandoned the delights of a rural life in Lincolnshire and has bought himself a wonderful canal boat with which to take in all the beauty of the canal system. Quite a lifestyle change! Much more fun and varied, I should think. At the moment he is on the canals of Cheshire, quite near our older brother.
Somehow I don't think he'll be missing the heavy local clay soil and the crazy local drivers.
Village life chugs along, I imagine, although I have been out of the loop since before Christmas when I was felled by a particularly vicious influenza virus.
Alas, our old chum Arnold, the horse, is no longer resident in his field. He was taken back by his previous owner about a year ago. I confess that I dare not enquire too deeply about what they have done with him. I hope he is still grazing happily, perhaps in the company of some other horses.
Now that Jonathan has a cottage of his own, I have been able to take over his bedroom and transform it into a craft room. Finally my sewing, painting, printing and assorted craft bits are all in one place. It still needs to have some more bookcases built up one wall, but how I enjoy being in that room. All I need now is a coffee pot and an armchair and I could be in there until Spring.
The hens are not happy. They are so used to having the freedom to roam Owl Wood and now, thanks to the restrictions imposed by DEFRA, they have to be confined so as not to have any contact with wild birds. We have them confined under an old gazebo, with netting sides and with access to their large hen house. They have lots of stumps, tables, buckets and things for them to hop on and off, shelter next to, enrich their lives but they still feel cruelly deprived.
A £5000 penalty for breaking the rules means that like it or not, they have to remain within those boundaries.
We no longer have beautiful Bennie the cat but we do still have Sparky and Millie. Toby Too is still with us - a very different dog to old Toby - but I love him despite his funny ways. One of his funny ways is that he gets upset if I take him for long walks, he becomes very afraid and stressed. I have accepted that he is only happy in the local barley fields and along the railway line.
So my real walks are taken alone.
The vegetable gardens were somewhat neglected last year as we helped to renovate the cottage down the road for Jonny and Ming Ming. We hope to rectify that this year although we have taken a couple of beds away, we are not as young and energetic as we were ten years ago. Five large beds plus the large polytunnel should still be sufficient for our needs.
I think that is about it for now.
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