PEEP, peep peep. One of my guinea fowl keets has once more lost the rest of the gang and is wandering around the yard forlornly trying to find them. It happens every day.

This particular keet just cannot keep up with its siblings, and the foster mum bantam who hatched them does not seem at all bothered that there is one less in the gang to follow her around.

John and I are observing the goings in the yard from on high. Well the top of the shed we are re-roofing. It is a small building that in the past was the coal hole for the farmhouse and another adjacent building that can only be described as a glory hole for the farmhouse too.

Emptying that shed I came across a horde of old ginger beer bottles. If only I would take the time to clean them up, I think they would make delightful small vases.

I have also found a coffee grinder I thought I had lost years ago, skittles (why?), netball stand, a rusty burditizer (used for emasculating bull calves, ouch) and a set of demi johns containing some evil looking fluid which I presume I brewed years ago and then forgot about.

I did sniff at the contents to see if perhaps the liquid had matured into ambrosial spirits, but have poured it all out instead onto an area of the house paddock that needs clearing of weeds.

The plan is for the old coal house to be outside kennels for the dogs. Warm, dry, sheltered. They have been using the building for a while when we go out for the day and, as we have attached an outside run to the door of the shed, are quite happy to go in there.

I am most taken though by our geese. Despite having access to a pond in the corner of their paddock, they love to wade into an old green turtle shaped paddling pool that originally I bought when Bryony, now a hard working GP, was a toddler.

With great dignity each goose immerses themselves in the pool for a few minutes, then erupts out of the water and races round the paddock, wings outspread, honking joyously. Who would have thought that such an old toy would give so much pleasure all these years on.

The number of times it has been threatened with the tip as it was ousted in grandchildren’s favour by flashier paddling pools with slides and water fountains. Pools which once punctured, a regular occurrence, were consigned to the dump but Mr Turtle lives on. A fresh purpose and a new role. Cowabunga if I remember correctly. Our own teenage mutant ninja goose.