Too Early for Spring, Death of a Peahen, Delicious Turkey & Happy Christmas Visitors

Well, here we are at the very end of the old year and with such mild weather in stark contrast to what we were enduring this time 12 months ago. It is so mild that the birds are singing and in the garden yesterday I found narcissus in full flower & a couple of of very frail looking primroses! Daffodil shoots have been visible for a couple of weeks now & I have seen snowdrop shoots in the hedge banks for a month or more.
The holly trees are still covered in berries...is that portent of a hard winter yet to come?!

Tragedy struck last night in the form of the 'gentleman with sandy whiskers' who took a fancy to our sweet peahen and she is no more! Over the last few weeks the Farmer has been feeding the peacocks outside the kitchen window and they had become quite tame and appeared regularly at breakfast time for their daily morsels of bread or cold potatoes. I hope Charlie Peacock won't now go into a decline & pine away with loss of wife number 2.


Christmas came & went very quietly in our household. We had one of our home-reared turkeys which was quite delicious though far too big to fit in the oven! The Farmer decided to bone it  and then rolled it up with stuffing & sausagemeat and it then fitted perfectly. Boning a bird in that way is great, it means there is no fiddling around carving the bird & every scrap is eaten. ( The Famer & Younger Son did talk about putting a woodcock in a pheasant in the turkey, but we left it too late to gather the necessary birds. Another time we will definitely try that rather medieval way of cooking a fine roast bird.)
The presence of our 11month old grand-daughter was lovely. At that age all she is interested in is the wrapping paper which was was very sweet to see.
Our guests in the cottage over the Christmas weekend kept themselves to themselves & said they had had a very happy time just being on their own and thought the cottage was perfect for their Christmas holiday & I must admit it did look lovely with the Christmas tree lit up and a roaring fire when they arrived.