We’ve all had a lovely day.

All of us, including Monster, Pepper and Ted.

Monster particularly loved his catnip fish tacos.

Pepper wanted to have everything.

And Ted took all the squeakers out of every toy he could as fast as possible.

And we’ve all eaten cake!

Merry Christmas to you, with love from all of us at Thordale xx

Maggie vanished this morning.  Everyone else arrived for their breakfast except for her.  She was busy far away in the field talking to the hill ram over the fence.  Well, I hope it was only talking they were doing!

So, with the help of Flossie, who walked miles and located her for me with the text “Got her. Ram sniffing. She won’t leave him” and a bowl of very rattly food, we brought her home.

I put the flock into the small paddock far, far away from the handsome hill ram, who is possibly Harrel’s father.

Everyone, that is, except for Lambie who was uncooperative.

But as Lambie is fine on his own, I left him to his own devices.

So he stayed by the fence sniffing in a weird way. Oh, Lambie. ** sigh **.

It was also good to get the other girls (Edna and Madge) away from the ram who was now lurking hopefully around the perimeter fences.

I could keep an eye on everyone from my little desk by the window.

But I was a bit annoyed at Lambie.  He never does what I want. He always does what he wants.

There were no extra biccies for being difficult.

Later on in the afternoon, I had a good idea to bring haynets. That, I thought, would get Lambie into the field.  Everyone likes a haynet.

So he ate it through the fence instead.  I gave up, at that stage.  If Lambie won’t, then he won’t.

And, if there are little lambs this Spring, well so be it. I tried and we do have the space and grazing now.

Both girls are home now having successfully avoided the Christmas strikes so we decorated the house ready for Christmas Day.

And, again, due to forces beyond our control….. *** cough *** the dogs ……

…  we are not having our full sized (5′), or what-my-mother-always-called, The Hong Kong spruce!

We have to settle for some smug hygge-style branches and a very much-smaller-than-I-actually-thought-when-I-bought-it wee tree.

Obviously, the branches had been saved from last year.

Other Christmas traditions, however, continue, such as Daisy doing an impossible jigsaw while sort of watching Muppet Treasure Island.

She knows all the words too.  Yes, she does. It’s her talent.

All our decorations are special to us.

With a huge sheep theme.  This is Lambie immortalised.  There is Bert, Ster and Puzzah too.

Our first year with Mum’s beautiful decorations.  They look lovely in front of her tapestry.

So that’s us. It is getting colder too though I am not sure if it will snow for Christmas.

From Wikipedia:
A supermodel is a highly paid fashion model who usually has a worldwide reputation and often a background in haute couture and commercial modeling.

Today, our supermodel, aka Monster, was asked to heave himself into a Christmas box, that I had found earlier when I was wrapping presents, wearing his Christmas tinsel for the annual Christmas card photo.

We have had several attempts.

Monster wanted to know what his motivation was for this important role.

He had some excellent direction from the Christmas card stylist.

And we tried to motivate him and shovelling him back into the box.

And there you are. Where he sits, he fits!

It is very hard work being a supermodel.  Tea and biccies all round.

Today is the Winter Solstice. The shortest day or the longest night, depending on your perspective.

So precisely 5.48 hours of daylight (I did the math(s)).  Everything is done as fast as possible in the available light while we can only think that the days will get longer now.  Summer is a-coming (it is just a long way away but, still, it is on its way!)