Apart from the Millennium, I have not stayed up to see in the New Year, it seems to manage to get there without my participating - amazingly. So I had no intention of seeing out 2017 and in 2018. However circumstances changed and I saw in 2018, in fact I did not go to bed at all that night because Briza decided to have puppies early.

They were due on January 2nd, but no, she went for a more memorable date. So she and I spent the whole night in my office taking her outside, at her insistence, about every twenty minutes. Luckily the first half of the night was not too cold and it was a clear and reasonably light night, rain came towards the end making the chasing her round the garden less fun.

To make sure I did not lose her I had taped one of the bird's radio transmitters to her collar earlier that day, the little green flashing light made it much easier to keep an eye on a black dog in the dark. No pups arrived through the somewhat disturbed and exhausting night. As I was feeding round over the Christmas period I fed the dogs and took them round the field as usual and then started to get food ready for the birds, constantly going back and checking on Briza. I managed to feed about half the collection, again checking her as I did. Then five ponies that are owned by some extremely irresponsible people came trotting up the road, I heard them go into the car park and the last time they did that they cut up the bank making it really difficult to mow, so I spent some time chasing them out. By the time I got back into the house, Briza had had her first puppy and it was sadly dead.

So I phoned Holly and she took over the birds while I sorted out Briza, she had become much calmer and so was quiet in her bed in my office. About an hour later the next pup arrived, I helped, but she was incredibly weak and so I was rubbing her madly trying to get her going. We managed to get a wonderful and experienced friend to come over and after about an hour the pup was still with us although definitely not strong. Pup number three arrived about an hour after the second one, a boy, double the size and very strong. By this time Briza was very tired (so was I!) We then waited, still warming and rubbing pup two, but by another three hours there was no further progress. So New Years Day, a trip to the vets, with Briza, two pups Holly and I.

She was given an injection, but there was no movement after half an hour and a scan had showed that there was at least one more live pup, so a C section was done and the last pup arrived - a large yellow girl who according to the vet, was not going to come out on her own.

disposing of the cafe timbers

Briza is well, the two large pups are doing well, the very small one survived two days and I was devastated to lose her as we thought we had got her going.  So it was a tough start to the year I have buried them in the wood where Nettle two pups are buried.

Instead of having to worry about Briza producing on the 2nd, I was able to help Adam and  Holly start work on the cafe. We had to get the old units out as we are putting in stainless steel ones. Well one thing led to another and eventually the whole of the kitchen and serving area disappeared!! So we have rather more work to get it all done by the 19th of this month for the first Owl Evening. It had to be done though and will be much nicer and easier to work in for the staff and far better for the visitors
 as well.

I am delighted to say that we have just hired a new cafe manager and ironically he worked at Beechinghurst, which is where Angela was before coming to us. I am sure he will be as good, it will be a joy not to have to worry about it all again, James will run it well and we are looking forward to him joining us.

Now all we have to do is get the cafe up and running again, so if there is a good carpenter out there who would like to be in the warm and dry next week and has nothing to do - Let me know.

I love the winter, but I am looking forward now to spring and my daffodils are already coming up.