New Year - and a promise to keep up the Blog!

It's not that I've had nothing to say, but that I've somehow lost the knack of putting pen to paper (or finger to keyboard). Often in the middle of the night when I'm lying awake with my mind whirring and refusing to shut down, I compose pithy and witty posts, but come the morning there's always something else to do (at least I think there is).

So what have we been up to lately?

The stock is all inside, so while there is no going round the fields to check on them, there is more to do round the buildings. 225 (at the last count I think) take a lot of feeding, bedding and mucking out.
Twice a day, every day. Including all over Christmas and New Year when when people knock off for a couple of weeks. We do try to have some time off, but that usually means working more in advance. On Christmas Day we got up an hour sooner to have more time off. And in between "doing up" there's plenty to do - muck spreading, hedging etc.

But we've made time to wind down and get away - at least for three separate nights.

Here's a clue as to where Henry and I have been -

Over the past few years we've become quite familiar with budget hotels and can rate them not only on facilities but car parking, distance from venues, deals with taxi firms etc. And views. Few can beat this from our hotel window at Glasgow - just across the river from the Clyde Auditorium.

I don't usually take photographs during gigs, partly because I'm not very good at it, but mainly because I want to enjoy the moment live, not through a viewfinder or screen, but I do like this one quick shot I took of Glenn Tilbrook at The Lowry.

These photos were taken with the camera on my phone, but as I got a new "real" camera for my recent Birthday, I've been practising round the house and yard. So far I've discovered I can snoop on houses over three miles away

and see craters on the moon.

And it's also obvious I'm very shaky. I'm also a fair weather photographer, so expect to see more examples as the weather improves.

And watch out for photos of the new project at Strickley.

More later.