A long e mail and back to the land

Been discussing memories and perceptions with a friend over the past 24 hours or so, and he recalled a conversation from his youth which I thought was quite moving

"When I was 16 and spent my summer in France I asked Madame Farcy what it was like to have been living in Paris during the Occupation and I remember her answer so clearly: "I was a school girl. I got up every day and went to school - but there were German soldiers standing on the street corner. Sometimes they smiled."
Life's like that. Whenever I have hard times - and I have had a few over the years - I wake up the following
morning and there's a new day to live through

Thought I would take a "before " picture of the field, you can't see the pegs marking out the first of my allotment beds and I hope to have three "agricultural" areas 40 feet by 20 each! The soil is heavy clay so this is the upper most area of the field so hopefully will drain a little better. Just before I took this picture I disturbed a buzzard eating a wood pigeon in the long grass!

The view on the left is the rest of the field in the opposite direction and this is were the new hen house and run will be situated as well as the compost pallets. The run will be around 40 feet by 30 and the fencing will be around five foot high. The birds will have to have their wings clipped to keep the buggers in but thats not a difficult operation
Finlay had been pretty ill today, noting too specific, but he has been lethargic and just plain "odd", standing for long periods with head bowed in the kitchen, refusing to walk etc. Perhaps the trip to the vets yesterday persuaded him that he was ill?