There’s one aspect of country life in the summer that is not to my liking – flies, especially tiny fruit flies. I’ve tried electric zapper units but they only catch larger flies, some wasps and (sadly) the occasional bee. Dr Google to the rescue

Into which holes have been punctured. The flies can get in to drink the enticing tipple but they can’t get out again.

I remember my late and much missed village friend, Heather, telling me that what I thought were primroses were in fact cowslips.

One year, on the Bolnhurst primrose walk, I learnt that children in this neighbouring village used to be given the day off school to collect baskets of cowslips. They were made into wine and the sale of the wine supplemented the meagre farm labourers wages of their fathers. There are recipes on the internet for cowslip wine but I imagine that it is illegal to pick the wild flowers.

Dotty is quite different to all the other lambs. She wanders around at her own, slow pace nibbling at grass and never making a sound. We often find her lying down when everyone else is up and about.

She is much smaller than her twin, Spotty, yet they seem to be good friends

The problem is that Dotty really hates “the bottle” and we have to almost force her to drink any milk. We make sure it is warm, we offer goat milk, we offer her formula. She just doesn’t want it. One day last week she drank a whole bottle and we got excited but then she was back to her old ways.

Farmer Rob said that some lambs just don’t like the bottle but if she doesn’t drink her milk how will she catch up with the others? She is a darling and we may decide to keep her when we sell the rest of the lambs. Click below

Daughter was on France 24 TV news this afternoon talking about Bojo’s visit to Zelensky in Kyiv. I forgot to watch as we were dagging a lamb and trimming goats’ hooves – a reasonable excuse – but I had recorded the programme and just watched it.