It’s a very run-of-the-mill day (after yesterday’s sheer, shearing excitement) for the last day of Farm Girl’s last ever school holidays and, in honour of that, I left her to sleep for as long as her body wanted. I can hear her stirring now as I peck this missive out on my phone; it’s nearly 2 pm.

I’ve ticked a few chores off the list, have a couple more calling for my attention – I may or may not respond – and I’m very much looking forward to macaroni cheese with green beans for dinner. The juxtaposition of rich, creamy sauce and crunchy, bright beans; Friday night throw-together meals don’t get much better in my humble opinion unless, of course, a bottle of wine happened to fall into your shopping trolley which * Jubilation* it did!

In short, I may not have much to tell you but I do have plenty to smile about.

Like the cheeky, mischievous lambs that are now running in a pack and the way Eleanor’s Bigger Boy’s (Ebb) markings make it look like a cowboy, with stetson at a rakish angle, has jumped onto his neck and hitched a ride

and that there’s plenty of promise of meals to come in both the glasshouse (I need to weed my homemade potting mix) and vegetable garden.

Shirley, resting her chin on the hastily patched together and now redundant fence (designed to keep her puppy self away from last year’s gambolling lambs) while she watches the lambs playing and the coop resident’s joy when some more compost is added to the bin never fail to make me grin

while my driveway fence art (the heart is part of the running track from Queen Elizabeth II Stadium, built for the 1974 Commonwealth Games and trashed in the 2011 earthquake; we bought it at a fundraiser and that it is lopsided because puppy Colin got hold of it makes it even more precious) always gives me great joy and that the wind is blowing only enough to make the trees whisper is something, at this time of the year when the gales howl, to celebrate.

So, not much to tell you today but I’m smiling. Hope you are, too.