Just ...

... a quick word to say everything is fine here although the weather continues to be atrocious - I nearly got blown into the duck pond early this morning while doing the water buckets and ducky breakfast.

Our Austrian visitor - one of those who bought the 2009 duck calendar for the German Duck Forum and wanted to visit us ever since - didn't stay as long as we'd expected, she wanted to do some more research at the Oxford Bodleian Library.  She brought us this yellow duckling and a great bunch of daffodils in bud which opened overnight:

So that the duck lovers reading this are not entirely without ducky photos here are two of Dotty, I caught a rare glimpse of her out of her little pond at the feeding station: