Its Roz’s turn to brave the English weather and return to work for a couple of weeks which means I’m left home alone ( apart from all the animals) and I dont mind admitting I’m missing Roz alot. As I’m building some French windows and a patio door at the moment I need to go over to a friends workshop where all the right machines are to be found. I have been trying to leave around half nine twenty to ten-ish. Tonight, in order to actually do this I will have to set my alarm for 7am as the horses, chickens, dog and cat take up nearly two hours. Allowing for five minutes in the shower and two eating weetabix I should just make it tomorrow.

The weather has been fabulous again today which has made travelling over to Barry’s workshop on the motorbike very pleasant. I did get hit in the face by a bee travelling in the opposite direction to me at a combined speed of 84 kilometers an hour ( i was doing 80) which marred the experience slightly as it was very painful and I could hear it buzzing around in my helmet for a few seconds before it fell out. I then spent the remainder of the journey waiting to be stung on the chest as I was convinced it had fallen inside my jacket. I must try and locate my full face helmet….it must be here somewhere…in someones barn…probably.

Tragic news from the garden. No sooner had Judith Little Bowes told me about tomato blight which turned her toms black over night than we contracted it. All our plants stricken in the flash of an eye. Fortunately I have salvaged several kilos that were destined to become chutney tonight until I remembered that I had to write this, so they have a reprieve until tomorrow. I hope they last that long.

Gaffer, our hen who was mauled has not only survived the experience but is broody and sitting on eggs again. She is a good mother in waiting and is very attentive to her clutch but somehow she managed to dislodge three eggs from the nest onto the hen house floor without breaking them. I duly came round to do my egg collecting bit and notice three eggs “laid” on the hen house floor. “How considerate of the other TWO hens not to bother mother hen and lay their eggs on the floor ” I thought, scooping up the booty and letting the obvious mathmatical anomoly sail straight over me. After the eggs had be stored in the basket in the kitchen with all the other eggs I went back to get mother hen off the nest for a walk and a drink. The penny dropped when I noticed she was now only sitting on 8 eggs where previously there had been 11. How on earth had they not broken when they fell and how on earth was I going to know which were the fertilized eggs in the basket. I found out at lunch the following day when my hard boiled egg came complete with a viscous sac of veins, arteries and capilleries and lots of very gooey yellow gunk inside of that, none of it looking very hardboiled. Tess enjoyed it though. One down three to go. Hurry home Roz, I will make you an omelette!!