49

The Crofter is better. His flu has subsided and he is smiling again. A bit.

Down at The Croft it was all go this morning even though the rain was intermittently lashing down, the snow having gone and the ground having turned into mud. Mr Crofter had already mixed up the feed when I got there. We whinged at each other. Dad crofter came in and whinged too a little bit - with a smile on his face - as he usually has.

The rain stopped and we all ventured out. Dad first feeding the ducks and turkeys in the garden and then off down the muddy croft to get more chickens and more ducks their breakfast . I didn't follow having been caught out before with the quagmire ground threatening to eat my wellie leaving me hopping around on one boot . Of course the Crofters have special wellies. They are yellow. Very fashionable round these parts.

Crofter man wanders off with his WheelLewis. An interesting contraption specially concocted to bring bales of silage in for the coows. Although at this point the coows - or at least one of the coows, the small male one since you ask, wagged his head severely and then fiented a charge sending me quickly dodging back across the garden, ducks and turkeys scattering hither and thither. It was, I might add, a moment that sent my heart thumping a tad. I know the coow was in the byre and I know there was a heavy metal feeding metal thing between us, but that's just not the point.

Dad crofter, back from the ducks and chickens down t'croft, conducted an interview with said coow and noting his feelings [apparently, I had strayed into his personal space] and decided against a disciplinary. I went home to half a bottle of vintage NightNurse.