On a grey but dry morning of intermittent sunshine Jackie and I shopped at Ferndene Farm Shop, then brunched at Lakes View Café before taking a forest drive.
The verge fronting the shop’s chicken fields accommodating a ditch is decorated with daffodils bowed by raindrops.
A few ponies grazed the landscape alongside Holmsley Passage
on which an equestrienne group rode among the potholes pictured yesterday, where
Jackie photographed an elf’s lost hat draped on a post.
Later we saw them, all unscathed, gathering on the moorland.
Still shaggy ponies foraged alongside Wootton Road, where,
the post box still celebrates St Patrick’s Day.
This evening we all dined on meaty Ferndene Pork Sausages; creamy mashed potatoes of white and sweet variety; crunchy carrots; firm cauliflower; and tender broccoli stems with which Jackie, Ian , and Dillon drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of La P’tite Piérre.