For the last few nights I’ve been taking the torch out to check on the pregnant ewes. Tonight Gertie has given birth to twins

On the courgettes for a day or two you get marrows

Down in the vineyard it looks as though it will be a good year for grapes

Goats are very much on trend right now and always have been at The Gables and also when we lived in at The Old Forge in Devon 45 years ago. After all my book has a goat on the cover and stories about them too!

A glut of courgettes yesterday so why not make a sort of piccalilli with courgettes and shallots?

Al Jazeera called daughter to appear on their news hour programme and talk about the terrible riots on our streets. She spoke, the guests ate and I suppose disorder continued – how sad and grim.

https://mediaview.aljazeera.com/video/pbXIWFM2we

Jeremy just brought me in a dahlia

The second is a gift from my son-in-law

For over 15 years (I think) Twiglets were not on the “kosher” list of foods allowed to be eaten by observant Jews. It may have been because the factory where they were made or the conveyer belt where they were produced was using animal fats. Recent factory inspections have satisfied the kosher food board that this is no longer the case and one of my favourite UPF (ultra processed foods) is available for me to snack on to my heart’s content. It might be bad for my body but Twiglets are a vice that I do not want to give up ever again!

I put him/her in a box whilst I changed the straw and washed out the food snd water bowls

Then it was back into a clean, dry cage with fresh straw. Ducky will need the heat plate for another few weeks so I will have a kitchen companion until September

And I’m very happy with it!

And I actually have “real” royal goats too