Hello. Ludo here.

This week has been more of the same: wet, dry, windy , cloudy, sunny, dark.

Yesterday was very nice, although very cold at first and there was frost on the ground. Mummy went out in the garden when she’d finished doing us, and now the butterfly bush outside our door has disappeared. Well, not completely. Apparently it has to be cut back so it grows nicely and has lots of flowers for the butterflies and bees.

And also so it fits underneath our nice new awning. The men came and fitted it last summer, and we had hardly any sunshine afterwards. You remember how it was very hot in the first part of summer, and very wet in the second part. Mummy says it will probably be much the same this year. I hope it gets a chance to dry up enough for us to go outside and eat grass. There’s lots of grass out there and it’s looking nice and tasty now.

Talking of tasty, Mummy took photos of us eating our cucumber this week. I didn’t want my picture taken so I snuggled against her arm so she couldn’t lift it. The amazing thing was that Pippin stayed still long enough for her to get a photo of him, although not eating his cucumber, which Mummy says he inhales. That’s an Auntie Dawn expression, apparently, for pigs that eat cucumber so fast it disappears before you’e seen it. I am much more polite. I enjoy my cucumber, then wait for Mummy to give me another piece.

Talking about polite, I’ve been wondering what Victor gets all excited about when he smells Mummy’s hand in the morning. After she puts us back, she offers him her hand, and he practically climbs up it to smell it all over. She thinks Pippin leaves messages on it for him. I’ve noticed that Locksley started to get interested in what this ritual was all about, and although he doesn’t climb up her hand, he does sniff round all her fingers to check. So yesterday, after Locksley had sniffed it, Mummy offered me her hand to sniff. I did, but I’m not sure that it’s worth the effort. There are no mystic messages there, not for me, anyway. It’s just one of Victor’s funny ways, I think. He has lots of them.

That’s all for today, hopefully we’ll be going out on the grass soon. Meanwhile I’ll snuggle up in my hay and eat my pellets and breakfast and every nice thing I can find.

Ludo x

PS We wish good luck to mini-auntie Bea, from our rescue place, who is competing at Crufts this week. Young Kennel Club classes. Junior handler and obedience and things. Have a nice time!