It's Sunday again,

and I've taken no ducky pictures all week, so sorry.

This morning I found out again how accurate the weather forecasts are these days, we had the predicted harsh frost, all ponds, buckets and bowls had a coating of substantial ice and the hoses were frozen.  But John's new protective cover over the outside water tap by the garage did its job and I was able to fill all the water containers from there.  To be honest, I find it easier carrying the buckets of water from the garage rather than winding in the hoses the day before and unwinding them the next morning, they always get into knots and kinks and are difficult to untangle.

Sad news on Monday, neighbour Jeanette phoned asking if we'd seen their cockerel and hen, these two which used to come foraging in our garden every day:

They'd been missing since Saturday, and we certainly hadn't seen them for two days.  Their disappearance is as much of a mystery as the disappearance of our Bless when Michael and Peaneh were here.  In both cases we had seen no evidence of foxes, and even if a fox had got the cockerel or the hen, surely the other once would have fled noisily?

I did quite a bit of knitting recently, all the ribbing on John's warm and thick jumper had to be re-done a little tighter, and I finished my bodywarmer out of bits and pieces of left over wool and added some ducky buttons:

My lovely daughter sent us a parcel containing a little book encouraging me to get painting again [thank you again, Annie!] and one of the trickiest jigsaws with the most unusual cut pieces ever.  It took John and myself two days to do it and we proudly present the result:

The last three days I've helped a little with the launch of the Indian Runner Duck Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Indian-Runner-Duck-Association/1436031923280679?notif_t=page_new_likes.  It's looking good, I think, and was well received not just in England but in America, South Africa and Belgium!

And now I really must go and write to my brother - I PROMISED ages ago!