Starting up again

It's official - kitten rule OK. We had them in the house at lunch time with all the dogs. All was quiet and when we looked round the dogs were lying down quietly on the floor and and there was a kitten on each of the two dog beds which we keep in the house. They were casually preening themselves and generally lording it.

This afternoon we went into our local Woolworth to pick up some shelving that we bought. It was almost totally empty apart from a few late bargain hunters and other people who, like ourselves, had bought shop fittings.

It was very sad and we felt sorry for the staff, although they seemed to be keeping themselves cheerful. The manager took a group photo of all the staff before they went home.

We loaded our shelves in the horse box and look forward to working our how to reassemble everything.

This morning I took over delivering hay and alf alfa to the alpacas. This is mainly to get used to the new quad bike and was a dry run for when Mike is recovering from his operation. All went well apart from my idea of taking the dogs with me to get their exercise rather than taking them separately. All was fine until I opened the gate to the male's paddock. I told Millie to drive them back and Romie thought she would help but she did not understand what Iwanted so she drove them all up the race to the weanlings' mothers. Luckily Mike noticed what was happening and my shaking the bucket of feed with Mike bringing up the rear soon restored order.

Although freezing cold it was a lovely day and more than ever we appreciated living here with the wonderful view and our lovely animals, even if they include pushy hens and bolshy kittens.