Autumn
The croquet set has retired to the hall for the next six months but leaves are holding on valiantly and the berries are rich red. Both swans are safely back and visiting four or five times a day (more if they become bored). Elsewhere the chicken count stands at eleven but two Buff Orpingtons are in the pipeline and the roosts are beginning to look like a tube train carriage during rush hour.
I don’t think anything has changed inside the house this year – it may be good or bad. Minka is well and domiciled almost permanently at stroke height on the kitchen table. Her eyesight is so bad now that she is blissfully ignorant of the swans and despairingly, they have given up hissing at her.
The sheep are being coaxed off the hills and the wood shed is full.
