Exhausted

Friend W and I have been to our Exercise Class this afternoon - a class for the over sixties where we exercise our bodies (and our brains)  to music.   Our teacher, S, puts us through our paces and we are at various stages of decrepitude.   Perhaps the most agile of all is our 94 year old W - who skips along like a two-year-old.   W and I have missed three weeks of the class - one because it was our Poetry afternoon and two because of the end of term.   It is good to get back into the routine but by golly all my muscles know about it.


On the farm the farmer has had a break today from his hole-digging
in an effort to complete the second harrowing - I think he has still a few fields left to do.  Then it will be rolling next.

The farmer who rent most of our land intends to let his milking herd out shortly on to our top fields,which fortunately are quite well-drained.   I love to see them on their first foray out, when they kick their heels in joy as they caper about the place, regardless of their age.   They really are the most ungainly creatures, but of course they don't know that do they? 

In the holly hedge around the vegetable garden one or two blackbirds are foraging for worms - a sure sign that the first bird babies are being born.   Now is the time to keep putting out more bird food - the least work the parent birds have to do the more time they have to conserve their energies.   The next few weeks really are a testing time for the bird world.

It is galling to hear that the temperature in London is something like twenty-four degrees today, whereas up here it just about reaches double figures.   There really is a North/South divide today.
But last night was the first night we managed without lighting our wood-burner, so Summer must be on its way.