I’ve fixed the wire netting and hope that will keep the geese around the pond

In the garden several trees are in blossom including the apricot tree

We pruned the tree hard in the autumn. I hope we get a few apricots this summer

Well done Yardie, especially as we thought Yardie was a boy until she got sheared last year!

The lambs race around the field together. It’s lamb playtime.

Mum passed away three years ago and I miss her each and every day. Some years ago I asked her to write down all she knew of her maternal and paternal family. Then I asked her to write about her childhood, her experiences during the War including her evacuation to Oxford. She wrote of her adolescence, young married life and later life. She also took on the task of putting hundreds of old photographs into albums in chronological order. As with everything mum did she never complained but did it willingly for her children and grandchildren and great grandchildren.

When mum was 89 I bought her a memory book which she filled in, day by day, for 9 months. My brother and I have read all the entries which I have just finished typing into one document. Mum did not have a bad word for anyone. She expressed gratitude for her many loving friends and for her family. She was compassionate and funny and, she wrote that she was horrified at the election of Donald Trump back in 2017! She loved football and followed Chelsea and at nearly 90 she went to watch her adult grandson’s football team play in their amateur cup final. There is so much more to say and over the next few months I will be compiling a family memoir using mum’s writings and 250 pages of emails that dad sent to his grandson over a five year period. Mum and dad appreciated every day and lived life to the full whilst also caring for their parents, children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. I miss the laughs I had with mum, the secrets we told each other, her soft hands and her down to earth wisdom. We were so lucky to have had her in our lives for so long.