Hello, Locksley here.

I love my food, but suddenly I’m the lightest member of the party.

Mummy says I’m probably the only one who’s the right size, the others are either overweight or just growing. She means Pippin is just growing – he passed my weight last week and is now 40 grams heavier than me. Mummy says he feels more solid.

Sometimes when we’re cuddling, Mummy gets her fingers down through my thick coat to check I haven’t got sharp bones under my skin. I haven’t. She says there’s a nice covering of flesh, and I’m absolutely perfect. Well, I knew that of course.

She worried about bones being sharp because once upon a time there was someone called Humphrey, who was the right sort of weight, and ate well, but he just got thinner over his bones, and she couldn’t understand it until the vet spotted that he had a lump growing in his tummy, and all the food was going towards helping that grow. It was growing so fast it was too late to help him. Isn’t that sad? But it helps me understand that Mummy is just making sure I’m not feeding a lump, only me.

Yesterday and today we’ve had leaves from the garden. Yesterday we also had a bit of red pepper and the end of a lettuce. There wasn’t anything salady or leafy in our vegetable box on Friday, so Mummy was caught out. Tonight we get all our salady stuff delivered.

But Mummy went out in the garden and found things for us:

• strawberry leaves
• dandelion leaves
• hawkbit leaves
• rocket leaves (just one each from very small plants)
• yarrow leaves
• chard leaves (we often have fresh chard)
• celeriac leaves (they are supposed to last us through winter)
• spring green leaves (they are huge and we get two between us)
• bamboo leaves

I think that covers it all. I think there are still some herbs we can have next time we run short. The hawkbit leaves are nearly finished. The large dandelion leaves are running low but there are some small fresh ones around the house. Mummy works hard at growing plenty of dandelion for us. Oh and there’s ground elder in the front; that tastes a bit like lettuce.

So we won’t starve until it snows. And we’ve got readigrass and herbs in packets, and plenty of hay if it does.

And Ludo has to forage in his hay for all his food now, to help him lose weight. Not working so far, though he does quite enjoy hunting for it.

See you next time.

Locksley xxxx