I’M so lucky. I sit, read, eat and write at an old fashioned kitchen table, in front of a big floor-to-ceiling picture window, that looks out on to my garden and to fields and trees beyond.

It means I have the benefit of the beauty, without any of the work and responsibility.

But what really intrigues me is the amount of life and action that goes on.

I have two squirrels that happily play tig together, but also fight and even knock on my window if I am a little bit late in putting out their daily ration of nuts.

We also have two pheasants who visit and proudly strut about the garden, ignoring us completely.

Then yesterday our resident stoat caught a rat and dragged it off into the bushes; I’m hoping it was a rat and not one of my squirrels, though why I should consider a rat a more suitable victim, I’m not sure.

The birds who visit my garden are so very territorial, but there is no doubt that my resident robin is ‘boss man,’ and, should that big grey pigeon, who is forever lurking in the ‘wings’, have the temerity to try to eat before Robin, the bird table king, has dined, then he gets seen off in quick style.

At the moment the sheep are grazing in the field and I can’t help thinking that their thick woolly coats must be absolutely wet through, but I am assured by my all-knowing men folk that they don’t feel a thing and that their coats are fully water proofed.

But to me they always seem such sad creatures mooching about, quite silent, heads down, with a ‘let me keep out of trouble’ sort of look about them.

I wonder if it’s because they know their fate.

  • I was out for a meal the other evening. It was a group thingy and I got to thinking why people think eating out is such a treat.

Rarely does the food meet expectations and, then, if it does, we eat far too much. Well, I know I do.