It’s the first day with the big group all back and everyone is comparing Christmas presents and illnesses. Chest infections have been popular over Christmas (and continue to be popular as an excuse for not working outside!) and new phones seem to have been popular presents.

My phone is now over a year old and is seen as a positive antique. If it hadn’t been for the unfortunate conjunction of phone and cup of tea I’d still be using a four-year-old phone. It had survived being dropped in the washing up water but the tea was a step too far. If I’d been having a virtuous day it would have been OK but I’d backslid and put sugar in it, and phones don’t cope well with sticky stuff. An ancient phone isn’t a problem to me, I’m still old-fashioned enough to see a telephone as a communicatiion device instead of a platform for games and music and searching the internet.

We’re waiting for lambing at the moment and had a couple of goes at moving sheep. They didn’t work well, as sheep despite their reputation for following the leader, don’t like to walk across muddy ground. The driving of ducks and geese went better, but mud isn’t really an issue for them, and as dusk came they made tracks for the barn with a minimum of drama.

Meanwhile the guineafowl have been invading gardens again, so all is well and truly back to normal.

I really must remmeber to start using the camera again…