Here I am at last, I keep meaning to keep this blog up to date but god knows where the time goes, anyway, here we go.
At the end of April we went to the UK to see all our friends and relatives, or at least as many as we could fit in to one week, it was great to see everyone and every day for us was like a whirlwind visit. We stayed with my brother and his wife in Framfield which was excellent, they looked after us and kept us amused, Maria and Ian became cook buddies and spent a lot of time discussing the pros and cons of bread making etc. We did go out walking and the bluebells in the woods around the area were amazing plus we also managed to go out with our old friend Nic and the Coakham Bloodhounds on their daily exercise, it is an education riding a bike with 40 hounds running around you, not to be missed.
The days passed too quickly and then we were on our way home, normally we drive over but this time we flew and hired a car, it all went very well and made our life much easier, Maria managed to snap a few pictures from the plane on the way back, and although it was a brilliant trip getting back home was lovely, own bed and all that but our depest thanks go to Ian and Chris for really making us feel at home.
Since we have returned we have had plenty to do, veg garden is all planted, new greenhouse is great, we have sawn and chopped wood for us and Maria’s parents woodstores, two weeks doing that is more than enough for anyone but its done now for another year. Maria has sheared the sheep with her new Burgon & Ball and Jakoti shears, both of which she says are brilliant and seemed to take her no time at all. We have also relaid our pathways which were originally pieces of stone with new anti slip slabs because the stone has always been slippery and muddy in the winter, we helped our nieghbour repaint the outside of his chalet plus last but not least we have cleaned and sorted our sheep shed ready for the hay which we will start to scythe tomorrow morning at 5am and please let us have a few dry days this week……….
The garden looks spectacular as usual, especially the rockery but the flowers in the meadows just make you wonder how nature manages to do it so magnificently without any effort at all, we are mere amateurs in comparison.
The other day we went to look at the new observation tower that was contructed above the village, it was good for me to take a few pictures from but I wonder how many people will go up there, it looks quite impressive but a bit out of place for this area I think.
Thats about it for today, we have just been out to move the bee hives around to make space for another one so we have six hives now and we hope for loads of honey this season, as you can see they are very busy so fingers crossed for the harvest.
