Grudge...

Gosh it's been a while! I've been stupidly busy the last few days, working, knocking the garden into shape and of course getting out and about in the sun over the weekend! The girlies had fun in the sun too...

And you can really tell Spring is here with all the wildlife that was out and about... there are now dozens of New Forest foals...

And there is plenty of waterfowl about including this gorgeous Mandarin duck...

And these totally cute Canada Goslings...

And with the arrival of chicks in the garden SURELY it's time for BBC Springwatch?

I'm pretty gutted that Bill Oddie won't be presenting this year (sadly he's suffering from depression) and although I'm sure his stand-in Chris Packham will be fine I can't quite bring myself to be pleased... You see I still hold a bit of a grude about him from a few (ok.. ok... about 12) years ago. The occasion was at a fun dog show held up near Winchester - my girls (Bella and Chloe at the time) had done well in the pedigree classes and we thought we'd do our bit for charity and enter a few more of the fun classes. Sometimes at these shows they get a 'celebrity' judge to officiate over the fun classes, and this time it was Mr Packham...

One of the classes we entered was 'Dog the Judge would most like to take home'. When you own a Newfy you only really enter this as a joke... after all, no matter how gorgeous Newfies look, you never expect the average punter to want a dog that spends most of it's time, wet, slobbery and is as big as you are! Anyhoo... Chris came down the line-up and dutifully patted all the dogs, and asked a few questions etc. Then of course he deliberates to build the suspense and selects his winners... If I recall correctly first place was a Springer Spaniel - good choice I thought, we all know Chris is keen on the great outdoors so this all made sense!

Then, shock of shocks, Bella is selected second!! We trot forward into the winners line-up. After the rest of the places were determined Chris comes down the line-up to award rosettes and dog-chew prizes. All was well with the world!

As Chris gets to me he says well done and then surreptitiously mutters - 'Your dog is great... If I didn't live in a flat I'd have placed her first!'........ 'WHAT!!!' I think to myself!!! I don't think Monsieur Packham had quite got the idea of the whole premise... you don't actually HAVE to take her home... there is plenty of room for an IMAGINARY Newf in even the smallest flat!

Anyway... we all had a good ol' chuckle after, but I can't help feeling just a tad cheated!!!

So enough of my crazy rantings... and onto another pic... this is one of my rows of Oriental Salad merrily growing in my raised veg-bed... I am loving having totally fresh salad on hand - it makes a real difference to the taste.

And in a similar vein, I have a page to share today also - it features my sprout plants, which by the way are MUCH bigger now!

I've got some more pages to share this week so with a bit of luck I won't leave it so long the next time!