Going back to Blighty.

I  don't really want to go back to England but I have things there that need to be sorted and I am at least looking forward to doing a bit of shopping. Some things here in France are very expensive, yet horse feed isn't one of them. I'm still only paying the same amount to feed seven horses as three!!!

I love this little tree in the orchard garden, it's the only eating apple tree we have, the rest are all cider apples, I may have to buy a couple more apple trees, especially a cooking apple.

 This is how the orchard paddock looks at the moment, a bit bare! We took the laurel shrubs out to the far right of this picture, but it's not clear where they were from this angle. I'm glad they're gone, I don't like their toxicity and they don't have much to offer to make up for it, in my opinion!  Yesterday we planted some dogwoods and a couple of plumb trees. I have hedging whips to plant when I get back. We also uncovered some huge rocks and discovered that they extend a very long way under the top soil. I'm wondering if this is the reason that many of the trees are failing, because there is so little good topsoil. If that's the case, then a year or two of mulching and manure will make a huge difference.

 While we we labouring in the garden, my dear bf T was building a chicken house.

The cats thought it was their new climbing frame :D

Can you guess what I'll be doing on the ferry? This is an example of a perfect gusset decrease, as I described in an earlier post.

And this is a prime example of SSK (slip, slip, knit) gone wrong, again. Maybe for the next sock I'll remember how to do it properly!!!

So, for now it's off we go to pack, back soon.x