OK – I know, a whole day at home and nothing more to show for it than a pic of a flower. Well, that’s because I’ve spent the day up-to-my-elbows in stinging nettles and wild roses working on a secure pen for the hens. We need it for a couple of reasons – firstly there’s an odd time when we need to go out when it’s light and get home when it’s dark – this is not good for free-rangers because it’s at night when the biggest danger of foxes occurs so we can’t risk leaving them open as dusk falls. With a secure pen, it means they can be outside but safe. The same is true of bird flu – if we get an outbreak, we’ll need to keep them safe by preventing them from mixing with wild birds – again we can achieve this with a secure pen.

So, we’re both cut, scratched and grazed from fighting with the wire mesh as well as the natural hazards. However, it’s a job that’s been on the pending list since we moved in so that’s another one ticked off the list. I wanted an outdoor one for today because I spent most of yesterday up a ladder inside and most of the day before working when I should also have been outside.

DM is not a happy bunny and he has a bloody forehead from where a bit of mesh pinged round and stabbed him. I am not a happy bunny because I’ve spent all day on the job when I’d been hoping to do half a dozen other jobs too today. The hens are not happy bunnies because they’re hens, but also because they are now standing on the wrong side of the mesh looking out as if to say ‘what do you think you’re playing at?’ ‘Let us out!’

They won’t, of course, spend more than a few days confined behind the mesh each year but now we can rest easy knowing they are safe when we do want to go out for a long day.

So, after a day’s slog, I grabbed the camera and used it on one of my bog-standard back lit shots, this time of an aquilegia or granny’s bonnet. It won’t win any prizes for originality but I still reckon it’s not a bad shot.

A suckling lamb was last year's shot.