I am not sure what I think of this fillum.

I made it this afternoon and was interrupted by the sound of a chicken squawking, plus ever-changing light and a sudden inability to focus the camera.

Things I learned today:

1. Sticky dots are henceforth known as “bloody sticky dots”.
2. Bad lighting means bad focussing because there is not enough light.
3. Chickens, who are outside and making sounds like they are being murdered, are very distracting.  They weren’t being murdered – just shouting.
4. Radio 3 is boring as hell on a Sunday.
5. My crows are very unhelpful. If they fell off the fence once, they fell off it a hundred times.  Bah!
6. I need more characters and less plot
7. I need more space and better lights
8. I am just going round and round here until I get my studio space (please, hopefully, Christmas)

But my fillum is slightly longer. So huzzah to that!

This is not my best work.  I need help in this and I don’t know who to ask or who would help me.  I guess I will just keep going as best I can.  I enjoy my Sunday afternoon film-making but, in the same breath, I realise I need guidance.

Newt and Albie are such dudes.  Always.

Even if you are far away, and Newt spies you, he will make the effort to come over for a wee chat.

It just takes a while.

But he gets there….. eventually.

Albie was, for a change, with Waffle at the far corner of the field, with some wild mallard ducks for extra company.  The ducks flew away when they saw me coming but Albie wandered up.

Albie has changed so much this past year and grown into an almost normal (whatever that is) Shetland pony.  He is definitely one of the Minions.  Remember all that horrible aggro and angst when they joined the herd last year (thank you, Vitamin for that appalling behaviour)? Happily that has vanished now and the ponies are one big happy family, which is something I wished from the beginning.  It just took a while, that was all.

Albie is fairly large for a minature Shetland pony.

I need to measure Newt again.  Last done he came in at 26″ and that’s yer lot.  He is not growing upwards anymore.  Been there, done that. It was overrated.

Sometimes, said Pooh, the smallest things take up the most room in your heart

  Winnie the Pooh

I ❤️ my littlest boys.

BeAnne loves water.  Any time of year and she’s diving in needing no excuse.

Water turns Her Maj into a puppy again.

And it also cleans parts where small dogs refuse to reach!

BeAnne lovingly brought me a present.  One of the many polecat skulls that are lying around from the corpses we leave in the hill.  To date we have trapped seven trying to murder our chickens.

After the Gift of Skull, BeAnne had her mad half hour.

We all just stood and watched as she ran around with her watery whiskers enjoying the brief warm Autumn sunshine.

It made my heart smile.  To think, this time just over two years ago (September 2016), BeAnne was just learning to walk again after her God-awful paralysis that came out of nowhere.  We were so scared for her.

Seeing my little girl like this make me realise we were very, very lucky.  The Gods smiled and I thank them daily.

These past few days I have been designing a “MyShetland Advent Calendar” but there is one huge hitch, (well two actually).  It is proving impossible to be ordered directly, let alone purchased outside the UK.

The calendar is 42 x 29 cm so nice and big and it comes with its own envelope for a cost of nearly £16.00 but only in the UK.  Can I get it printed and delivered outside the UK?  Nope. I don’t know how to do this.  I can’t even give you a link for you to buy it directly.  This appears impossible.

So, if anyone wants this Advent Calendar, and believe me there are some divine surprises of the photo variety inside, then please let me know how we can do this.  I would love to be able to send my calendar around the world but I cannot find anywhere that will do this.  I don’t believe this is not possible.  So far, I have tried Pixum and CEWE who offered the photo Advent Calendar printing/design service.  I had been looking for ages for this service as I think it is such a brilliant idea.

I guess the worst case scenario is that I order a few, have them sent to me and I send one, two or three on to you.  Hopeless in my opinion.  Not what I envisaged but I am happy to do that for you.

Why is this so difficult?  You would think it would be the easiest thing.  Help and ideas, please.

If you want to know what is inside before you buy, let me know and I will email you the inside but it will ruin the surprise.

Every so often the Boyzenberries decide they want to mingle with the hill sheep and I duly let them out (or they escape when the gate is open for a car to be driven out) for some freedom.  On fine days I encourage their sojourns to the scattald.

Today the Boyz left home to see their friends.  I then went out to do stuff and left them to their play date. Upon my return home in the afternoon, I found my sheep sitting on a hill bored of watching and waiting for me to come home.

“Muzzah, you are late and vee vant to come home.”

Between the hill and our gate is a large (ish) ditch that has to be crossed one way or another.

“Sheep rampant” – a heraldry attitude, I think.

I love the way Lambie jumps so neatly with his little ears forward.

Then it was ‘Ster’s turn.  Now that is a look of determination.

It was a good landing – a nice clean jump over the ditch.

And lastly ‘Bert who refused to jump and grimly walked through the ditch. There is not telling some sheep.

Well done ‘Bert.  At least you are coming home which is good.

With the sun setting an hour earlier now, I always feel relieved to have my Boyzenberries home for the night.