The countryside around us is always surprisingly verdant for most of the winter as the types of oak, olives, pines and eucalyptus etc around us are evergreens. It was delightful coming across a row of these acers in a village we walked through as we took good advantage of the dry, sunny weather.

The garden is in flower. Well, sort of. Two of our three types of buddleia are putting on a show as are many of the roses, amongst others. I saw a red admiral the other day. And yes, we even have a few strawberries!

Meanwhile Richard has been getting his craft beer kit out again. I think this is a black IPA. He has made no fewer than 35 brews so far and very nice they are too.

Richard has also found time to finish, at long last, the wooden fruit bowl he carved from the fallen cherry tree. It certainly has an artisanal look about it but we like it a lot.

Meanwhile the Christmas cake has been made and is being ‘fed’ on a regular basis. (Am I the only one who forgoes the teaspoon and just sloshes the brandy over the cake each time?) The pud has also been made, only the slightest of hiccups when I realised I must have used self-raising rather than plain flour…

I spent a few hours in the sun cracking open some of last year’s walnuts. Some of them had divided themselves into three rather than two, rather strange.

I have taken the plunge and opened an Instagram account to promote my knitting patterns. I do not enjoy all this new malarkey, something always goes amiss. Not having a smart phone slightly hampered things but now that it can be linked to Facebook I have managed to do that through the desktop. However, the three posts I first put up were taken down immediately as they were against the community guidelines. They give great detail about what that entails (terrorism / nudity / fake posts etc etc but nothing was mentioned about hand knitted tops). I can post successfully through my Facebook page so am sticking to that for the mo (@kiddiwinksknits if you’re interested).

There are a couple of ponds on our dog walks. This one, if we remember to keep quiet on arrival, is a favourite spot for a heron and we can catch it keeping a beady eye out for the frogs.

There are loads of jobs in the garden to do, the asparagus bed needs to be cut down and mulched but it is gloriously golden in the sunshine and I am reluctant to remove it.

On the animal front, Jussi survived an operation in January to remove a tumour, but alas has a few more now and has been on a diet of eye-wateringly expensive pills. They do seem to have helped but she won’t be able to be operated on again so we just hope she continues to be in high spirits, she is well over 13 now, and nothing has affected her appetite as yet.

Betty is slowing down and has become rather soppy wanting cuddles on the sofa, but again she is still in high spirits. It’s a dogs life for her (not).