Lard M'lud........

Because of the ongoing upheaval caused by the re-organisation of the office, PP has had sole use of the enormous desk, positioned right in front of the patio doors with a panoramic view of the garden.

Every since the snow 'event' earlier this month she's been feeding the birds every day, on a makeshift bird table on the patio, and while attempting to identify some avian visitors, came across the Big Garden Bird Watch, organised over this weekend by the RSPB.

Basically the idea is that people print out a 'counting sheet', and record the number of different birds they spot over the course of the weekend to give a snapshot of various types of birds in different areas of the country.

To encourage the maximum number of birds to visit the garden, PP made some bird cake yesterday, consisting of various nuts, seeds, old muesli etc which were added to melted lard then allowed to cool. The resulting 'cake' is extremely nutritious and birds generally find it delicious.

What we didn't bank on was Small Dog finding it equally irresistible.

One of the wood pigeons must have knocked a few of the larger pieces off the bird table onto the patio, where they were discovered by Small Dog, on one of her frequent squirrel hunting expeditions.

I was alerted to this by hearing PP shouting, "NO! PUT THAT DOWN! BAD DOG! YOU'LL BE SICK!!, followed by her dashing out into the garden to apprehend the culprit. I arrived in the kitchen just in time to see Small Dog racing back in through the door, closely followed by PP, who cornered her in the hall and attempted to extricate a large piece of bird cake from her clenched jaws.

No amount of persuasion would convince her to relinquish her prize, despite the fact that she couldn't even close her mouth properly so big was the chunk of seed-encrusted lard.

In the end we had to hold her upside down over the sink and shake her in an attempt to get her to unlock her jaws, which she eventually did, letting drop an enormous chunk of 'cake'.
She was absolutely disgusted with us and stalked off, licking the last of the lard off her whiskers.

She hasn't been sick.........yet, but we have no idea how much she managed to scoff before she was spotted. She'll probably wait till bedtime then yuck up all over the duvet.

Anyway, she is currently in the doghouse, and having been caught red-pawed, in the act, she has been sentenced to a good telling off with no remission for good behaviour.

As if.

Anyway, while we await further developments on the canine projectile vomiting front, here's how to make a delicious bird cake...