Windy morning.

What a morning! Gusts of up to 33mph and my new cloches with the first sowings all over the place!

I am confined to barracks as I can't stand upright! The sheep have a shelter but huddle under the wall at the top of their field. Betty and Becky are looking very pregnant and it will be just like them to wait for a cold snap to produce their lambs because they do it every year. Then I sit with my binoculars trained on them, running up the field every now and then in a panic. The first year we had to help Betty as the milk wasn't coming through and we've had 4 new lambs die very early on in 4 years so not too bad. Last year there were no fatalities at all but I did see the fox stalking Becky's single lamb. She was very assertive with her and she ran off.

Two nights ago the fox was making his eerie barking noise at night. They have taken next doors chickens and ducks and from a chicken breeder on the top road but so far we have been trouble free except for one Boxing day when it broke into a temporary arc and took 4 cockerels that were in there for fattening. Not a feather left!