You will have to excuse my sporadic appearance on the blog, we are sort of off and I don't always get round to updating myself. Back to normal by the 4th June I think.

Yesterday for instance we never really finished till about 9.30 when I washed the dishes so I didn't switch on...I am afraid I am not one of those people who burn the midnight oil, I am in bed with my book just after 10 every night unless we are out or entertaining (both very rare events).

Good day though yesterday, lots to think about really. First off I finally managed to learn how to do bigger resolutions on photographs on my 'pooter. I am a bit of a techno phobe/nerd. If I don't have to do something specific I don't sit on the box for hours learning all the subtle nuances that make up a computer, simply not interested. But there are times when you have to buckle down and do something you haven't done before and sorting out the resolution was yesterday's challenge. It was easy in the end, don't know why I was so wary of it. So the photographs have now gone off to be edited into our slot on Good Morning.

Didn't I tell you all that Adrian and I are going to be on the telly? Very exciting. It is for a downsizing thing, an advertisement I answered way back in November last year. We were chosen because we have changed our lifestyle and cut all the strings of the old life, no second home tucked away somewhere just in case, this is it. If it all goes down the tubes, we have nowhere to go. A very sobering thought that really motivates you to make a "go" of things.

Which brings me to part 2 of yesterday, a brainstorming half hour between Adrian and myself, Tabby and one of our volunteers who has come back despite the flu as she has no contact with horses. We came up with some good ideas that involve local people that will raise awarness of the Trust and hopefully some much needed cash as well. We aim to have something going on at least once a month. Not always easy and of course coming up for Christmas we get very busy with donkey things as you can imagine. Millie had 5 engagements last year. Nearly couldn't get her head through the door in the end. Anyway the July event is a 6 day sponsored ride that I will tell you more about as I have the details and we have come up with a couple of things into the autumn up to November. We like to keep busy.

Yesterday afternoon was taken up with a course that Adrian and I went to that was all about using animals as land management and the benefits to the environment. Quite interesting, all about grasses and forage and flowers and what animals are best used in certain circumstances.

It was nice to hear that our fields, although over stocked at present due to the flu, contain a lot of healthy options for horses as opposed to just grass. In the leaflet I was able to tick off 85% of the plants listed. Things like stitchworts, vetches, scabious; wild flowers that you don't see in fields that are fertilised and resown ever few years in order to maximise the nutrients of the grass in order to fatten up the animals on it quicker. We aren't in that game anyway and our equines don't need "good" grass. They prefer some of the more delicate herbs to forage. In one area of the woods in a sunny but very damp glade, we have a plant that I had never seen before and has been identified as lousewort. Not a particularly inspiring name or indeed an inspiring plant being only about an inch in height and width but the glade has a fair covering of it. We are told by them wot knows that the glade is a very good habitat and I suppose the lousewort proves it.

We are very keen to hang on to things like that, coming from East Anglia made us very aware of just how barren the arable landscape can be. Huge fields of oil seed rape, peas or wheat and very few wildflowers or wildlife to break it up. Wales has an abundance of both and I love walking and seeing something different every time. Not all that keen on the pole cat that took one of my remaing chickens the other evening but you have to take the rough with the smooth I guess. After all how many polecats are there around at all?