You would not believe the day I had Saturday just gone. My morning started with a horse ride with friends. One of my good buddies and I meet to exercise our horses a couple of times a week. She is a little older than me, had a hip replacement a few years ago, but is just “unstoppable”. Occasionally, we meet with a neighbour, who joins us on our ride. This girl’s horse is a “kicker” and never admonished for his bad behaviour. We try to give him a wide berth, especially when cantering, as he will often start off with a buck and kick out. Got caught out Saturday; he behaved when we took the first canter, but on the second, he was closer to my mate than I realised and “whack” he let fly and caught her full on the ankle. Any way, all well nothing broken, but it was quite a crack and is very bruised.
Pal came back to mine for coffee and after we had loaded her horse into her trailer and she had left I thought I had better check on the ewes and lambs. I got a feed scoop and made to go into the shed where we keep all the animal feed. As I opened the door I must have disturbed a thieving squirrel, who in his blind panic to escape, hit me full in the chest and climbed over me to get away. In doing so he scratched me and drew blood. I took myself off to A&E in the nearest town for a tetanus booster and the medics also insisted I take a high dose antibiotic because of the the risk of infection from wild animal scratches! The nurse said “squirrel attack”, as she put it, was not one she had encountered before! I was very lucky going in early afternoon; apparently, I hit the lull between morning rugby injuries and the later expected afternoon football injuries; I was seen very quickly and soon home. My best beloved suggested from now on I shout to warn the squirrels before I open the feed shed door. So far we have been unable to stop them getting in this old pig sty building and the little so and so’s have chewed holes in all the feed bins.
Anyway, got home , made myself a cuppa and popped upstairs to do something, when ~GOS shouts from the front door. “I have just had an accident and killed the cockerel”. As I have told, you GOS stands for Golf Obsessed Spouse; most days if not playing a golf match he devotes part of the day to practicing in the garden. Usually this entails “driving” off the lawn and down, across two of our paddocks. As he lifted his driver on this one shot, Clyde the cockerel chose the self same moment to hop up on the garden fence. “Bang”; knocked stone dead by the ball. Unbelievable! He didn’t have an eagle, an albatross, or a birdie, he had a rooster!! What a day and they say things come in threes!
We do had have some exciting news as well. Family in Switzerland have taken the plunge and are now first time home owners. They took possession of the keys to their new apartment on Saturday. It’s all been quite stressful as you can imagine. Although, the procedure seems more straightforward than in this country and only took a matter of weeks from making an offer, to getting the mortgage and signing up. In Switzerland the purchasers engage and pay for a notary who acts for both parties. Jolly expensive legal help though!
Generally we skype Switzerland every weekend and “madam” is growing up incredibly fast. Her language has suddenly come on leaps and bounds. Though some of it now is in German and she always says “merci” for thank you! At last, after 20 months she is sleeping through. It is not many weeks until they come over again to see us.
Been a bit obsessed myself this week with trying to paint the wood anenomes that are suddenly blooming all along the banks of the stream by the bridge and on one bank above the church. They are such delicate little flowers, only about 6 or 8 inches in height; it’s very hard to capture them properly.
Perhaps I’ll have finished this for the next blog. Next week’s efforts may be a bit delayed as I am going up to North Wales for a few days walking. Hoping we do Cader Idris and that I have time for a bit of sketching. Although I won’t be doing much of that outside if it keeps on raining!
Illustrated Country Diary 
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