Heidi in doggie heaven.

Sadly, on Wednesday, we said goodbye to our faithful pet, Heidi. She passed away peacefully on her favourite couch at around 8.30 a.m.

She been in failing health for quite a while now and the vet said she was suffering from heart failure. She stopped eating about 2 weeks ago and slowly became weaker.
She was a very intelligent dog with a lovely gentle personality and, as she was in the house all the time, she knew every move we made. When she was at her fittest, you could not escape outside without her. She shared Robert's yoghurt - as soon as he opened it up she would get up with her front paws on his chest so he would give her a spoonful.
We have a lot of happy memories of Heidi and we know she is in doggie heaven romping around with Tina, Queenie, Lassie and all the other dogs.

Spring is in the air.

We have had lovely mild weather for some weeks now so it's nice to go out and enjoy it.
Faith and Sophia love getting outside to play and do not want to come back inside. Gareth has been sanding and painting this link box so now it's a great place to jump up and down and make a noise with your feet.
I hope you will take notice of this sign the girls found lying at the back of the house!
The hens have been laying since last week. It's lovely to be able to go out to the nesting box and lift fresh eggs.
The weather has been good too for getting into the garden and planting the vegetables. You could say that I am MORE THAN PLEASED with the progress so far. I have already used the fresh rhubarb twice to stew for dessert.
I re-aligned the planting area to have a better walking space between the beds,
I have planted potatoes, onion sets and shallots, runner beans, leeks, cucumbers, lettuce and strawberries. I also planted a row of blackcurrants and raspberry plants which were growing in various places around the garden. We'll see if they come to fruition - literally!
The shrubs are in full bloom and the bees are enjoying their nectar. This plant was a hive of industry for the bees today and the noise they were making was amazing as there must have been hundreds of them.
The hens spend all day roaming round the garden picking up any tasty morsels they find.
On a good day I can get three eggs. There are four hens so hopefully we will soon see four eggs in the nest.