Mum loves her roses.  She has been growing every kind of rose here ever since I can remember and they are always beautiful.  Part of my childhood.  She always used to send back to my flat in London with roses.  Sometimes she would send me back with cats.

🏵 😺 🏵 😺 🏵 😺 🏵 😺 🏵 😺 🏵 😺 🏵

Rosa ragosa (white) – Rosa rugosa ‘Alba’

Wild foxgloves grow around the garden too.  Mum “rescues” them!

“The Magician” – a climbing rose that never climbed!

Félicité et Perpétue (a rambling rose that used climb the chains like Queen Mary’s garden in Regent’s Park, London).  This rose has been here since the 1960’s.

“Gypsy Boy” (a climber)

Eden Rose

Swan Lake – a modern climber, utterly perfect but absolutely no scent which, for me, is the biggest disappointment.  I love the shape but I so it want to smell right.

Parade – a climbing rose

Seagull – a rambler that has actually rambled!

Josephine Bruce – this rose smells divine, a very pure rose scent.

It has been raining and the garden smells lovely.  A deep rose scent surrounds us.

And this is a nose by any other name (!) –  Pip is on top form and our early morning walks are a delight.

Meanwhile, Daisy sent me this photo.  She is riding my old Icelandic horse, Haakon.  Apparently they went up to the canter track and back for a good old plod.

Me?  Jealous.

Meanwhile, BeAnne has been doing her yoga.  Apparently this is her interpretation of “downward dog”.

Today, I am dog-sitting Pip, my mother’s gorgeous rescue Patterdale while Mum goes to a hospital appointment.

Having worked hard most of the day doing various stuff (cooking, cleaning and running around in circles because I don’t know where everything is kept here), I decided that as the sun was out, Pip and I should go for a walk.

We had been earlier in the morning but it had poured and poured with rain and was horrid.  Now the sun was out and it had warmed up too.

We don’t have many trees in Shetland so I am blown away by the surrounding ones.  Since I lived here, many years ago, they have all grown hugely.

(I remember these being planted!)

It was a nice walk and while Pip got his p-emails, I took photos.  We worked well as a team, he would drag me off to sniff something and in return, I would make him wait while I took another photo.  A give and take relationship.

Pip really is a darling little chap.  It is always nice having a dog around.  I do miss BeAnne hugely but apparently she is not missing me at all and has taken to sleeping in the sitting room.  I have been replaced by a long lost squeaky ball that she has recently found.  So I am now just a distant memory to her.  The squeaky ball is her current love.

Daisy sent me these a few days ago.  My life in Shetland seems worlds away.

So very different.

Well, here I am in the south of England at the family château.

This is my family home, where I have lived since I was five years old.

Built in 1700, the house was originally the stable block complete with cobbled courtyard, a chapel, a ballroom attached to one of the original royal manor houses/hunting lodges.

There has been a hunting lodge here since the Middle Ages as it was considered an easy ride for from Windsor.

It was here that Henry VII arranged the marriage of his eldest son, Arthur (older brother of Henry VIII) to Catherine of Aragon.

Henry VIII subsequently married his brother’s widow, Catherine.

Many years later, having not produced a male heir and refusing to divorce him, Henry wanted Catherine dead because the Pope would not annul the marriage.

Henry arranged for Catherine to come here to stay; in a damp place because she had a bad chest.

So the poor lady spent a miserable few years at the hunting lodge (one of the many that, over the centuries, burned to the ground), waiting to hear news of her divorce and Henry’s subsequent marriage to Anne Boleyn.

And, yes there is the ghost of a lady riding a horse at night outside as well as a man in a leather suit, looking very sad who sits on a staircase, which is no longer there!

Every morning we take Mum’s dog for a walk – a beautiful Patterdale called Pip.

And we walk across the original parkland to feed her pet duck and a pair of Egyptian geese and their three goslings.

I will be here a while but it is a beautiful place to be.

(Oh, and by the way, I never knew any of this!)

From Daisy, this afternoon via email (thank you very much x)

“More photos coming your way……..

(the story behind them)”

“Everyone was out out grazing…… except for Lambie.”

Today, Daisy “decided to experiment with Sheep Portraiture.”

(I had left my big camera behind, all set up for her to play with)

I think she caught Lambie’s best side.  He is, indeed, a noble beast.

“It’s harder than it looks.” wrote Daisy.

“It needed biscuits, too” (well, we’ve all had to resort to bribery!)

Everyone likes biscuits – Rich Tea, to be precise.  We have a supply in a tin by the front door for those that like them!

“Also, Dreki has discovered that he likes chasing geese.”

(good boy, Dreki – we hate the greylag geese – they poop every 12 minutes and are everywhere.)

Aha! The Thordale egg shop is now open.  If you want fresh free-range eggs from happy hens that can roam anywhere they want, please come to the end of our track, by the road – Thordale, Mid Walls, Shetland ZE2 9PE.

Honesty is the best policy!

(I miss home!)

I have had to go south to England for a while – a bereavement in my family.

Yesterday I was travelling, hence Nick kindly pitching in on my behalf.

Anywho, I have left Daisy and my OH in full control of everyone and holding the fort.

Before I left, I set up my posh camera for Daisy and I can see she has been out and about on my behalf.

Thank you Daisy.

She has 21 horses/ponies, 3 sheep, 2 dogs and 1 cat to look after.

So not much to do really.

She can sit in the field with the foals all day!

I am not sure whether the little ones have met properly yet.

When I asked Daisy she wrote back “The little ones don’t actually like each other“.

“They are ears back and kick each other, over trying to talk to me”

“Then Lilja tells on her mother who then clears the area for her so she can have me to herself”

“Dreki won today though, he was there first”

(Probably trying to decide who is the most beautiful or who gets to keep Daisy!)