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antagonistic, over-protective, killer geese parents. They have all decided to stay out at night and constantly surround their young charges.

It looks, too, as though we have more geese a-layin'. Even one of the Chinese geese, so short a time ago arrived here, and yet she is sitting on eggs in the aviary part of the Feathers Pen. Another is near the new caravan, under a tagasaste tree, and yet another has camped out under a pile of junk near where the other so tragically lost all of her babies recently.

Alice and I have come down with a mystery virus the day before school holidays are due to finish. We have little lumps and sore glands and short tempers. Well, we're both short anyway, so now we have tempers to match! The family doctor, Daddy John (he's Alice's Godfather, too, aren't we clever?), says that we'll be over it shortly. Sorry about the pun.

My husband is of the opinion that we caught it at the local shared spa and swimming pool, and, as he did not join us in the water, that is entirely possible. Makes for an interesting start to the term, especially as Alice was really looking forward to going back to school, and of course, she now cannot go.

Alice went back to school for one day (Wednesday) and suffered a few headaches and swollen eyes. So Thursday she stayed home again, over her bitter protests.

I have been bathing hers and my lumps, bumps and nodules in Neem Soap, and after a good dry-off, moisturising with a creme that has emu oil and Vitamin E in it. It seems to have worked, alternatively, the infection could just have run its course!

Friday, we packed Alice off to school, after further treatment. She is still a bit fragile emotionally, and she did not get nearly as much sleep ("Sleep that knits the ravell'd sleeve of care.") as I would have liked, but then I am doing my Mother Hen impersonation at the moment.

I think I have finally convinced our local source of free bread to give me their sweet breads castoffs as well, that they will be going to the pigs, rather than to the dump bin. Blah! I hate that idea - day-old, very fresh food, going to landfill. What a waste, literally! And it pollutes the ground water because it turns toxic, apparently, especially when encased in garbage bags.

The bakery was worried that we would eat the stuff and get sick, what with the short life expectancy of things like cream. No worries, luv!

Bess, our sow, has been getting out of a late afternoon, we think because she believes herself to be hungry. I will have to source more food for the pigs, probably from the pub down the road. It seems that Noonan's take-away leavings, a plastic garbage bin of Materia Bros. dead veggies and a few loaves of bread a day are simply not enough.

Poor Brian! He was hoping to have a good day-time sleep to get over a few night shifts, and at 12:30PM on Wednesday, my day in town, there was a knock at the front door. Actually, God had blessed us: Bess was out and the gentleman who rounded her up had experience with pigs!

Brian fixed the fence.

There is still a huge argument going on about live sheep exporting to the Middle East. The animal activists are not happy because of the cruelty they perceive when so many die due to the heat of the Middle East. When they are boarded at Portland (about an hour west of us), it is usually quite cold. Naturally, the exporters and the people who supply them are of a different opinion. The Saudi Arabian government has said that this latest shipment has scabby mouth. Our vets disagree. One never knows the behind-the-scenes machinations, and who is lying about what. It seems that now, no country wants to take the sheep. We have been left with two alternatives: butcher them at sea and throw the carcasses overboard, something for which the ship is not equipped and the pollution would be a sight to behold, or bring them back here. Trouble is, what diseases have they picked up on their travels? So, they're supposedly only good for pet food back here.

Even the Iraqis won't take them because the British say that they can't process them on the docks fast enough. Meanwhile, all over Africa and the Middle East, people are starving...

I've just found Trilliant, our rooster, he of the trilling crow. He's not well, and I suspect he has been thoroughly beaten up by the Chinese geese. So I've moved him into the guinea pig cage, where he'll be out of the way, and still have access to food and water. He's lying in the sun at the moment, and I don't hold out much hope for him. Poor fellow.

I've also moved our two new Khaki Campbell ducks (at least one of whom is female) to another enclosure, away from Jack the Giant New Zealand rabbit. They were, in typical duck fashion, messing up his area too much, and I couldn't reach the egg one had laid right at the back of the kennel. Hopefully this one will be better. I'm thinking of cutting a hole in the back of this kennel to access any eggs more easily. I'll have to talk to Brian about it, as I'm not the most skilled of artisans, and it will look more like in inhabited termite area than something that could easily fit a door.

I'm cooking up some baby ocotopus for lunch. Having a Greek father, this is a dish I relish. I marinated it for a while in olive oil, lemon juice, parsley, onion and garlic (it's making my mouth water thinking of it!), and now I've put it into an enamelled casserole dish to slow cook over 3/4 of an hour.

I've just been eating the octopus. It's scrumptious! Light, tender, delicately-flavoured, with my adding a little more lemon juice after it had been cooked.

Poor Brian! His boss has just telephoned with a crisis, and Brian might have to work this afternoon, which is interesting, as he is supposed to be working tonight for his other boss, and that's nearly 75 minutes away in travelling time. I've just woken him out of a deep sleep to take the call. I'm sure many of you will sympathise from experience. Love shift work!

Thankfully, it's only for a couple of hours, and Brian has left with a healthy lunch to keep him going. Oh! The vicissitudes of life!

In "Country Living", an insert in The Weekly Times, Kim Fletcher, writing in the Gardening Column, says that shrubby herbs such as lavender, upright thymes, sage, santolina, curry plant and rosemary need to be clipped back each year, otherwise they can be woody and bare in the centre after a while.

She continues that hard pruning to remedy the woodiness and bareness, doesn't always work, can actually kill the plant or make it look ugly.

She recommends mound layering if it has not grown too tall, for new plant propagation.

"To do this, cover most of the plant with a mound of freely draining soil, leaving the growing tops of the stems uncovered.

"If the soil is left in position for a couple of months - and replaced if wind or rain remove any - most of the growing tops will establish new root systems in the mound.

"They can then be removed and planted out."

There are a lot of advantages in this: it is quick and easy, there is little stress on the growing plants, bigger plants are produced more quickly, and a larger number of plants result.

She goes on to write that plants mounded in early spring should be ready in late summer.

Yes, I know you are now in Autumn where most of you are reading this, but look at it as long-term planning!

Gently does it

A soft, warm Spring zephyr

A gosling clad in sunshine

Fragrant flowerheads nodding in time to the wind

The smile of delight on discovery by a child

Grass billowing as a giant hand invisbly caresses it

Clouds scudding like flour puffs late for an appointment

A warming star