Wow our winter break was barely a break this year - we had guests right through December and January. We expected this to be a quiet time - and I had a pile of books as high as the ceiling to read. I barely got through a quarter of them! Ken similarly only managed to scrape the surface of his Leicester Tiger’s rugby backlog. This did not go down well - though he is doing his best to make up for it with the 6 nations (says the woman who did *not* enjoy standing outside the pub on Saturday evening just so he could carry on avoiding the score so he could sit by the fire and watch the match while I made the tea!). Rugby schmugby!

Its actually lovely to be busy through the winter - it passes so much quicker! The harsh weather that we had in 2010/11 barely touched us this time. Though its sad not to see The Gorge dressed in its winter finery for longer, I must confess to not missing being snowed in.
Sadly not all of us made it through this winter, and we were heartbroken in January when our old dog Robert died. He was 16 years old and just about the most beautiful old boy you can imagine. But his time had come - and I hope he’s now happily playing in some doggy heaven with all our other much missed dogs - Wilfred, Toshak, Sally, Joley, Miles and Bertie. God Bless.

Poor Buster was very desolate to lose his old friend and wandered around the house very unhappily. Then we took a call from a family friend who asked if we could help with a Dalmatian who desperately needed a new home. It was sooner than we wanted to get another dog, but we couldn’t say no. So Rosa joined out family just a couple of weeks ago - and Buster learned that having a ‘girlfriend’ is not always fun (she’s very much top dog already - and Buster is in lurve ...).

There’s so much to do with spring around the corner. As I write now I can hear Ken in the garden wondering what we can do to fix a lawn that two young dogs are slowly turning into a rugby pitch! The reason of course I can hear him is he’s wondering out (very) loud! Debs is spring cleaning and singing at the top of her voice upstairs, and I’m getting the feeling that its time I stopped typing and got on with some scones for this afternoon’s guests.

Sara