Watch this space.

We have this week booked off in order to build the back fence. Luke has dug  up the distorted conifer and now I have cleared away the mass of brambles, wood, stones, washing up bowls, old bin and wrought iron planter along with the drain pipe, old wooden posts and two washing line posts we are ready to get out there and build. When I say 'cleared away' I have just moved everything six feet further back in order for Luke to be able to dig the new fence post holes. I was out in my leggings and work tee shirt hoping not to be seen in that state when a chap came meandering along the field. He, like me, was tidying up the back boundary - in his case, cutting down an overgrown shrub that was blocking light from his Mother's garden. Unbelievably it turned out that we had a mutual friend so we chatted away whilst he reminisced about his childhood in this area. He remembered nipping into the field to steal three fat cabbages for the family's Sunday roast then watching the lazy cows graze once the field had been turned over to pasture. Apart from that one day we had traveller horses in there we've never seen the field used for anything but an occasional trespasser walking his excitable spaniels or the lone fox sniffing at the long grass.
Whilst friends fly off to sunnier climes to shake off their winter blues we are staying put and working hard to get the fence erected and the new chicken finally re-homed in a proper hen house (I spent last Saturday scrubbing the entire wooden edifice with Dettol and water before hosing it down and drying it in the sun). To be honest with you I would rather be on a beach or swimming in warm waters but needs must and our tactic of delayed gratification will hopefully pay off when all the jobs are done (one day?)
Here, although we work long and hard so don't have time to properly enjoy it, we have so much to be grateful for that it would be downright churlish to complain. As I often say, I'm a lucky woman.