Well, this is the last night with my son at home because tomorrow is the wedding. The cake is iced and sitting at the reception venue. The best man is here and stopping overnight. The suits/outfits are pressed and waiting to be worn - except mine because I'm so tired tonight that I'd rather do it in the morning when I know there will be a short slot of time when I'm in the house on my own. Hopefully everything else is organised and will happen. I wonder what we've forgotten. There must be something because there always is. Ah well, it will be too late to do anything about it so we might as well just enjoy it all. The weather forecast is dry so what more can you ask for in March? It'll be a great day!

And it is bedtime.

I've come home from work today to find that the fox has been to visit. I suppose I should be really glad that it only took one hen. We have the hens in three little houses - the Warrens in one, the bantams in another with Mrs Speckledy and then poor old Ratbag in the third one. She has been so much happier and calmer living on her own and was starting to let me stroke her. When she lived with the other bantams, she was a vicious old thing but she seemed really happy on her own. She reliably laid me an egg every other day, too, which is rather more than can be said for the other bantams. Her little house was one that was cobbled together out of bits of wood that we had but was pretty strong. The fox must have knocked the door catch just right (or rather, just wrong) for it to have opened. What a horrible way to go!

I've lost a rabbit to a fox once, but this is my first hen. We do get a lot of foxes through the garden and I keep "very large hole" netting under the runs which has outwitted the foxes on more than one occasion. The holes in the wire netting are big enough for the hens to scratch away to their hearts' content but a fox digging under the run can't get through.

Ah, well.

Six days to the wedding and I am getting rather panicky about this cake. It is the lack of time that is worrying me. We have to be out 3 evenings this week. Tomorrow night we have to go shopping for all the things my son forgot to buy for the first part of the reception (like paper napkins and plates and lots of other bits). So that will really only leave Tuesday..... Help!!!

So much for the snow. I was really hoping that we might manage a day off to catch up with some stuff before the wedding. The dining table is now taken over by the wedding cake. It has some royal icing on it but we've now run out of sandpaper. I find making wedding cakes quite scary......

My nice Mrs Speckledy has laid me two eggs this week so far. Last week two of the bantams were broody but one has now seen sense. I think that Mrs Speckledy has not been able to lay eggs because she likes to go in the nest box and she couldn't fit in with two bantams aleady permanently there.

I do enjoy my eggs. There is nothing quite like a boiled egg and toast for breakfast when the wholemeal bread has been freshly made and the egg was laid about an hour before. I must admit that if the bread is still warm from the breadmaker then I don't toast it. Yum!

I hadn't realised how time has flown since I last blogged. We had a wonderful time away in February. We were glad that we had not travelled on the Saturday because of the snow on the smaller roads at the end of the journey. It was not too bad on the Sunday but even on the day we came home, there was still snow in places.

We went to look at quite a few places that sounded wonderful on the estate agents' particulars. I continually find it amazing how different reality is when compared to those particulars..... One place that we really liked meant that we had to drive across a field to reach it - and we got stuck in the middle. We really got covered in mud when trying to dislodge the car and after all the effort, there was no one at the property to meet us at the appointed time. There were wonderful views at that one and a red kite was circling very low above our heads. Not meant to be!

This has been a busy weekend: Saturday school, shopping for an outfit for a wedding, St Patrick's day, Mothering Sunday, church. And because I was out all yesterday, that means all of the ironing, washing etc for the week ahead needs to get done today. And it is snowing - any chance of a day off tomorrow to catch up on the ironing? Oh, and I need to get the first layer of royal icing on the wedding cake and when I went to the cupboard, I find that my liquid glucose for the royal icing has set because it is so old. So I will have to get to the shops on the way home from work to buy some and then do the icing tomorrow night.....