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Gavin and Stacey (the pet lambs) are now off the bottle and outside being small sheep full time. That makes life easier for me, but now we have a loopy lamb that gets her head stuck through the wire fence at least three times a day. We can hear her baaing when she gets caught and are now keeping the wire cutters permanently at the ready in the field barn. She has little horns which prevent her from extracting herself and is obviously a few threads short of a woolly jumper! Despite being in a large clean pasture she finds the attraction of what is on the other side of the fence too much to ignore. We’ve cut so much of the wire to set her free that soon the whole fence will disintegrate.

Speaking of being ‘off the bottle’... I have just been balancing above our murky green pond trying to reach fresh young beech leaves to mix with gin to make a drink called Beech Noyau. No don’t even ask, I have no idea what it will taste like, but its reputation has travelled before it and it’s supposed to be brilliant! There are a number of different recipes but I have decided to follow the one that adds Brandy too, and then I have to let it stand for a while (but not too long!). I make masses of sloe gin each year but just thought I should experiment with a new recipe. Well, we shall see, but in the meantime I had to use some of the gin (right now) for a small drink as I’d bought such a huge bottle! (does anyone need an excuse really?)

At the moment we are eating lots of fresh wild spring plants from the hedgerow (and watercress from one of the ponds) mostly in quiches and soups. We have masses of wild garlic or ramsons (allium ursinum) around here which is fantastic plus I have just found a clump of three-cornered leeks (allium triquetrum) near our fields (in case you're wondering I've included this picture!). I hadn’t seen it before around here.

Whilst Better Half (BH) is away gallivanting around Holland with his sons this weekend I’m going to be smoking masses of salmon up our huge old chimney. I’ve been doing it the traditional way for over 10 years. The resulting salmon tastes divine, but I end up a bit kippered myself from nipping up the ladder to check the temperature out!

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