A bit of sunshine

It's amazing just how much a little bit of sunshine can brighten your day. We're in to week two of the school holidays and, as I'm sure you can imagine, the kids are bored and fighting. In order to kill a bit of time today and also do something good for the community, we took a trip to the dog refuge in Aunay. It didn't take long to appreciate why the girl in there was wearing ear defenders and, after some initial confusion about why we were there, the kids had a look round the pens and chose Cow-boy. No need to panic here as we're not getting another dog, just volunteering our dog walking services. He was quite a lively chap, similar looking to my sisters dog Bear, slightly undernourished and desperate to lead the way. After a 3 mile circuit Josh and Kirsty were ready to take another one out where as Peter said "never again". There is a monstrous Saint Bernard there but I think that might be a mission for another day when I don't have the kids with me.

With the warmer weather on our side I've been pottering around the garden pruning trees, digging over beds and clearing up fallen leaves. Best of all I got the lawn mowed on Sunday for the first time this year bringing the jungle back under control.

Uncle Kerry and Sylvie arrive next week for a few days and, if we're really lucky, they will have an infra-red camera with them that we can set up to monitor the owl boxes. It would be great to know if we are getting any activity yet. The breeding season for barn owls is any time of year when there is an abundance of food.