My lovely visitors .......

..... Annie, Elle and Ollie went back home yesterday after lunch.  It was quite an eventful 3-day visit as Annie's car had to be repaired in Leicester, but that gave us an opportunity to look around the Richard III exhibition in the Guildhall and I managed to use my bus pass for the first time!

The three of them arrived on Wednesday afternoon, and on the sunny but bitterly cold and windy Thursday we went to Bradgate Park.  Annie took some photos which I'm "nicking" here out of Facebook. Ollie had his first "dip" after his operation [you can see the shaved bits round his right leg],

and we had a good look around the interesting ruins of Bradgate House [seen in the background of the photo below], home to Lady Jane Grey, queen of England for just 9 days.

After this we went to an animal farm as Eleanor was very keen to see some piglets - we did, 9 most adorable little Gloucester Oldspots -

                 (Annie sent me some of the pictures she'd taken of the little piggies, here's a selection)

- and as that farm was close to where my friend Pearl lives we paid her a short visit.  Leaving Pearl's house Annie's driver's window refused to close again, in fact it sounded as if it had broken, it gave Annie hours on the phone and a lot of grief trying to get if fixed.

On our own again yesterday afternoon both John and I tackled jobs in the garden, I planted up this washing basket to decorate the stump of the felled cherry tree,

and after some weeding sat down with a cup of tea.  After a while I got worried as I hadn't seen or heard the  ducks and went out searching for them, eventually I spotted them far out in the middle of the large field and chased them back:

As they got a little closer I could see that Captain and his two weren't among them, nor could I find them anywhere in the area of the bottom hut or in the ditch.  So I made the trip up to the new pond and YES, they were there.  They had found the frog spawn that John had carried there the day before [where I've put an arrow in the small picture] to try and keep it safe from the ducks!  I chased these three back then,

and Anke was the first to dive into the food container followed by Candi and Captain: 

No sooner had Anke taken a few beaks-full of food than she was off again on her way to the new pond, leaving the other two looking bemused at the side of their home pond.  I caught up with her beyond what was their enclosed bit of the field before I took the fence down when Honey had got snagged in it.
It was only around 7 pm, but I decided to put them to bed early as it was too risky leaving them to go that far out into the field, remembering that John had seen a vixen on Monday 25th March. It was hopeless, they kept going back on the pond or ran around the hut, so I fetched John to help.  By the time I came back Anke had disappeared again and I went to fetch her back from the nature pond .... she refused to go, persisting in digging at a spot where the frog spawn must have been!  I had to step into the shallow water to chase her out and back home, and even with John's help it proved difficult to get these three in for the night.

We'd had enough of obstreperous, awkward ducks by then and decided to put the remaining 16 to bed as well.  That proved difficult, too, as they all complained that it was still daylight and much too early, but we managed it in the end, and decided to get up early this morning to put up fencing in the hope to keep them from going out to the new pond.  That is located exactly where Anke and her mate Lane spent many days last April and into May digging in the wet ground until Lane became our first fox victim.

I managed to get calcium and mineral supplements, both powder and tablets that fizz, and the last two days I've been adding this to the breakfast bowls.  So far I can't see any improvement in Honey, she still worries me in spite of what the vet said.  Yesterday, Saturday, I left Honey, Gertie and Purdy in the old chicken run all day to give them a rest,

 but this morning I let them all out together again, and photographed Honey walking awkwardly among all the others who were resting, or else swimming in the frog pond by herself.

My flowering house lime in the window from which I was taking the above photos still gives me lots of pleasure though.

This afternoon, at teatime, we had a surprise phone call from our neighbours Joan and Michael who overlook the new nature pond.  They had been watching Anke having a lovely time in the pond ... and then saw a fox chasing pheasants in the field next to us.  Both John and I shot out and found that Michael had already guided Anke back inside the netting we had put up along the old horse fence first thing this morning, at half past six, it had obviously not been Anke-proof.  We checked for holes but couldn't find any, but as I was still standing there and watching Anke was suddenly in the field again!  I chased her back thinking she might show me where she'd slipped through, but no, she went on the outside of the fencing at the back of the big pond and found her way back inside where the netting finished at John's vegetable patch.  I did find a hole then on the field side, patched it with some spare netting, and as I was setting off back home to finish my cup of tea Anke had disappeared again, this time I found her in the ditch behind the pond.  I chased her out, she went round the veg patch again, and while I was still wondering how she'd got through she did it again!  Three times she did this performance, but the last time I spotted the hole in the netting at the back of the pond and blocked it.  It's very hard to stop a determined duck, but I seem to have been successful for now, every time I've looked out for the last two hours I could still see her in the company of Captain and Candida  -  we'll give that fence a good going-over tomorrow!