Return to blogging

At last after 18 months or so of not being able to get posts posted on this blog, due to major technical ineptitude on my part I have at last worked out what has turned out to be a very simple problem and so am now able to pick up the blogging habit once more. Since my last post which was back in August 2020 (!) life has of course carried on through the Coronavirsu pandemic and all its impacts on everyone's lives. The social restrictions kept everyone at bay for so long and although here out in the countryside we did not suffer as badly as many people it is nonetheless a relief to see how things are easing. In Wales we are still required to wear facemasks in shops but that has become the new normal and so one doesn't think about it now, except when one realises that you've inadvertently left your facemask in the car and have to make a hasty shame-faced exit from the shop, to return seconds later disguised and apologetic. Life on the farm is as busy as ever, the cows still have to be milked whatever is going on in the outside world and we still have the seasonal round to keep us on track. Spring is beginning to send out small hints that it will appear eventually in its full glory. This week I found the first snowdrops peeping up through the grass on the side of our driveway and the early daffodils are shooting their green spears through the lawns. Small coral buds are appearing on the oak trees and the birds are beginning to chorus joyfully. A year ago, On New Year's Day 2021 in fact, we had a new grandson born to Younger Son & his wife and so now we have a sturdy one year old not quite toddling but crawling at great speed to entertain us all. He has proved a great charmer and his older cousins (11 & 8 years) who are also here on the farm find him great fun. We have always had a collection of dogs around the place belonging to the three households and the Farmer & I have for many yers had his working collie, while I had the company of my Jack Russell terrier, Dottie and a stately black Labrador Hattie. Sadly just a week before Christmas we lost Hattie who died in her sleep, after havein been visibly fading away over the preceding few days. She was thirteen years old and had a full and happy life as a gun dog in her younger years and then a contented retirement lying in the sun. I do miss her and I think Dottie does too...she no longer has her Labrador-sofa!