Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve. The first day of the school holidays. Perhaps some of my colleagues would enjoy a lie-in this morning, but Orlando made sure I got up not long past my normal time. His insistent barking told me that I had quail and chickens to see to, who didn't understand the luxuries of holidays, and I (somewhat begrudgingly) got up and brushed my teeth ready to go downstairs. I switched on the many Christmas lights, a job I love doing, and made up some more antibiotic solution for my male quail who has an abcess. Orlando, and Jess, waited as patiently as they could before I grabbed my head torch and went out into the darkness. My routine is simple. On a day I'm not driving, I go to the garage to get more chicken food and quail food before going through to the kitchen garden to see to the quail first, telling Orlando to drop the log he's inevitably collected from the log store before I open the gate. Otherwise, he collects all our fuel in a pile in the orchard. The quail we...