Going back a couple of weeks

The last time I wrote, I think, I mentioned Caramel laying her eggs into a nest she'd made in the abandoned greenhouse. I took out the 5 eggs that were in it the next day - if I hadn't I'm sure some predator would have done. She took a look at the empty nest the next morning, but never went there again. Instead I have found her half-eaten eggs [a distinctive, almost round shape] in various places in the duck run. There also seems to have been some kind of dispute between the "girls" as I found pecked and half eaten eggs even inside the nesting box in the hut. Thankfully they appear to have settled their animosities, in the last two days all eggs were sound.

During last two weeks I've had Ollie's company, the Boag family's dog. He's a lovely old boy [about 11 I think], and although the ducks were a bit wary of him he ignored them entirely. Unusually for dogs he loves cats, but that love is not reciprocated by next door's cat Lucy. This time she even smacked his face after they'd come nose to nose, and the poor dog cried. Annie came to join us on Thursday afternoon from her time in London and she and Ollie left to go home this morning.

Here now some photos from the last two weeks:

I appreciate the view I have after the bird-food birch was lopped

On Sunday 26th it would have been John's turn for the flowers in church,

so I did the bunches - the garden still has a lot to offer in the way of flowers.

Ollie's greatest delight is a dried pig's ear he gets every afternoon at 3.

Carl's family had given Ollie a lift from Annie's on their way back from a Volleyball event down south, and Val had "delivered" Ollie to me on Sunday 26th night. There had been such a nice "selfie" sent over of Carl and Ollie that I tried to do something similar ................ sadly I don't have Carl's skills with the camera!

Ollie: "Can I go now please, Omi?"

Confrontation with Lucy -

but he soon got over it:

Pat and Graham love Ollie too. Graham in particular always threatens to kidnap him!

Both P&G were wonderful again with the enormous gardening help they give me. The picture on the right shows Pat packing up to go home after she'd cleared the whole row of raspberries and two paths of weeds.

Ollie with all three of his "toys" under his chin, placed there by Pat:

This is how he stayed next to me all the time I was on the computer making the final adjustments and corrections to the book of reminiscences from some of the people of Coleorton. Our Heritage Group had been working on it for years, the book has gone to the printers now.

Ollie came in helpful on occasion, I made him sit and stay near the gate to the duck run, which made the ducks go in very fast at bedtime instead of exasperating me by running around the hut two or three times!