I am finally here full time. No more commuting down to Kings Langley during the week. I am here to stay and it is great. The sun is shining, Duke is crowing, all is well. Duke our new cockerel is fine but being a bantum (small) and young he seems to be struggling to let the ladies know he is in charge. In fact they know exactly who is in charge and keep him in his place. I am not sure we are going to have any fertilized hens eggs any time soon.

I must clip their wings later as the chickens this morning all made an attempt at escaping over the fence, and most of them made it. So much for meters and meters of chicken wire and electric fencing. Duke and I had a lovely drive up from Kings Langley with the M1 shut and the A1 having most of it's lane closed. He kept crowing at me from time from time to let me know he was OK. I had to climb in the boot with him after a while (I did pull over first) and try and get some water in the carrier with him without him escaping. Luckily I managed that and I didn't have to chase him around the car. 6 hours later we finally made it.

The first vegetables are now planted which is wonderful and thanks to everyone in Kings Langley who gave us all the extra seedlings. So one tiny corner of the field in cultivated. More importantly for the children we have knocked down the nettles in the hedge so the kids can now get inside the hedge where they now have a large den. We all had lunch in there on Saturday. Sunday we went to the beach. 30 minutes and there we were on the sand and having a swim. Harriett managed to surf a couple of waves in so she loved it.

Well I must go and get the rest of those seedlings planted. Being a smallholder calls!