Pink and White

The week has once more flown by nearly as fast as the House Martins that are speeding up and down the green fields and making our fearless Terrier jump every time they pass. I keep on thinking the rain must be on its way, since they are flying so low, but somehow it avoided us nearly the whole week.

                                  Outside my workshop

The local farmer is desperate for the rain and I don't blame him. The ground has seemed to turn into a rock and where there used to be patches of everlasting mud in the winter there is now one big, baked mud cake with hundreds of huge cracks. It always amazes me how quickly one extreme moves into another.

Having said all this the rain eventually arrived and even though the garden had a good drink it also had a good beating up and looks like a bomb has exploded in several areas. Oh well, it will recover. At least I managed to take all these photos before the rain.

At the beginning of the week I made a strict working plan for myself, since it is only two weeks to go and then I should have enough stock to have a half decent stand at the Contemporary Craft Fair. Now comparing the results to the list, I'm feeling a bit panicky: the week didn't go exactly as I planned, but never mind, it never does and I should just get used to it!

I did though create a new animal to join the owl and mouse paperweights: a fat, floppy eared pig! (I will show photos of it later in the week.) Somehow, no matter what I am doing I always seem to go back to pigs! There is just something about them.... In fact there are three 'free range pigs' here in our farm. I call them 'free range' since no matter how well they are fenced off they always find their way out.

In the beginning the poor farmer was chasing them across the farm and making bigger and better fences, but I think now he has given up and in fact they seem to know where their cozy beds of straw are when they are ready for the night! And these pigs (shame I can't remember the names!) are so funny! So clever and so sociable. When ever they see a human being they have a need to come to say hello. Obviously they are after some food and failing to get it they are rather keen on trying to chew up your wellies! Oh, and even our Terrier has a healthy respect for them! Although it could be something to do with the fact that they are ten times (at least!) bigger that her.

Talking about our Terrier. I thought it would be a good idea to train her to follow the horses and maybe that would burn off some of her energy and she wouldn't be quite as determined to 'hunt' the postman everyday. I have only been riding for about a year myself, but I thought I would be ready to take her with us....

Riding here in the farm is fabulous, miles upon miles beautiful fields and bridleways, perfect for horse lovers. But for this particular day with the Terrier following us, we thought we'd stick to the road around the village – nice, slow and simple.

But if you are a terrier it is dreadfully boring as we soon learned after our Terrier had legged it back home several times. Every time she was waiting for us looking ever so pleased with herself. How annoying for us and therefore to prove the point that she has to stick with us we decided to carry her. Yes, I carried her on my lap whilst riding and yes, it was ridiculous!

But what was the most annoying thing about all this was that she clearly enjoyed herself and suddenly thought that the riding wasn't boring at all!! How typical. Not too sure though if this kind of riding really has the benefits for the dog that I imagined and now we must think of some other more sensible ways of exercise!