Last summer was so wet after a lovely dry spring that we certainly want a splash this year.
We have had such variable weather over Easter but that didn't deter our regular visitors who went off up the hills whenever the rain cleared. 
Diamond and Sapphy and their new very pretty Border collie had a thoroughly relaxing holiday after the excitements of Crufts.
These two were great favourite of ours -Gem and Jess Hamson who are sadly now no longer with us but the latest addition to the family is a little star and had a wonderful holiday here over Easter with her older "sisters" Sapphy and Diamond.
Our doggie visitors love the exciting rabbit and sheep smells on their walks and always return exhausted and needing a good drink at the spout in the farmyard.
There wasn't much snow - just enough to look pretty - this is the view across the farmyard.
Nic always used to say that the farmyard looked best under 6 inches of snow but personally I prefer it so that I can walk without fear of falling over. This year we have only had a day of a light powdering and it went within hours - not even enough for a snowman to be built.
Eccles Pike is always dramatic whatever the weather - if only we got blue skies with the snow! There was a bit of sun but I missed taking the photo in time, hence the rather gloomy view. 
The sheep were as always resilient and just scratched through the thin layer of snow to reach the grass and of course, as lambing is imminent, Nic is feeding them molasses with minerals and extra hay so they certainly don't go hungry.
The next day I was on my way across the hill to Chapel-en-le -Frith when I saw this beautifully dramatic sky over South head and Mount Famine .
You can just see the bypass in the bottom of this picture and some cars had stopped in the layby to admire the stunning view. 
You can just see the edge of the village with Cracken Edge jutting out above it - the farm is out of sight to the left of the picture. 
I always feel that spring is on the way when, in spite of gales and lashing rain my brave little daffodils start flowering in the narrow lane just before Windy Bend.
Inevitably a ggiant gap has fallen in the narrow just after Nic had repaired another one close by - truly a hill farmer's work is never done as far as drystone walling is concerned.
The gales didn't affect us much - we had a night of high wind but no trees or even branches came down. other parts of the country weren't as lucky
But it is not all work and last Friday we went over to St Helens to watch Nic's rugby league team snatch victory from Hull in the last 5 minutes of play.
And we also enjoyed a belated birthday meal at our favourite Italian restaurant- the Vecchia Italia - in Chapel-en-le-Frith with our good friends Tony and Effie.
The place was packed and buzzing and the food and welcome was as good as ever. It makes us feel really old as Giovanni's son Salvi is now front of house and we remember when he was a toddler! Dad was on duty in the kitchen
Earlier in the day we had braved a freezingly cold wind to go over to Buxton as the local Mercian Regiment - an amalgamation of the Cheshires and the Sherwood Foresters- was being given the freedom of the Borough and were marching through the town to a ceremony in the Pavilion Gardens. 
The lady Mayoress inspected the troops and Nic and I flew the flag. The lads have been in Afghanistan and it was good to see them back but they must have been chilled to the bone as the wind was icy. it was a moving and impressive ceremony and a good turnout to show our appreciation of their bravery.
The big excitement for our grandchildren has been the arrival of Poppy, a sweet looking but difficult to catch pony!
Karen has spent any spare moments in her busy day enticing the little beast into a smaller field so that she can get her used to being held and eventually ridden.
Nicole is very thrilled with her pony and William is thinking about it but is still much happier if he can sit in the digger when daddy is making the farmyard look tidy!
His face says it all!
And to round off a happy week, Karen had a birthday and little William decorated her cake with me while Daddy and Nicole went to the Trafford Centre to choose a special present
All is ready to go and Gus Dermody -of "One Man and His Dog" TV fame - comes with his portable scanning equipment in a trailer behind his Landrover. He wheels it all into position while we pen our sheep in the shed with a tried and trusted system of gates to push them towards the race and ramp. 
The first sheep trot dociley up the ramp to be scanned - the older sheep have done this before so are quite happy to oblige but the young ones sometimes resist fiercely and one or two old hands are just by nature stroppy and make a fuss!
More often than not Nic has to push them and sometimes he even has to climb in behind a particularly stubborn sheep and push her up to Gus!
This is how it should proceed - all nice and orderly and peaceful. Gus marks each sheep with a special mark to show whether they are having twins or a single lamb or- worst case scenario- are barren. He puts the scanning paddle underneath their belllies as they stand above him on the platform and he is so skilled that it is done in a second, he pulls a handle, the gate in front of the sheep opens and out she bounds to join her friends.
Amazing how quickly a sheep can move when liberation is at hand and her friends are waiting in sight. 
This is Gus Dermody in action with a sheep standing on the platform just above and next to him in his rather cramped control box with the scanner screen in front of him. 
We scan in a building but often he will be in a field with improvised gates and the rain coming down, so his little shelter is vital.Scanning the sheep is now an important part of our management as Nic separates the singles and feeds them some minerals with molasses but the twins get extra hay and molasses mix as they need the extra cossetting for healthy lambs. In the past we fed them all the same rations with the result that we got enormous single lambs who often had to be helped at birthing which is not good for the sheep. 
I'm in charge of keeping the vital front pen full of sheep so that they trot happily into the race and up the ramp onto Gus's platform next to the scanner -that's the theory anyway.
The end is in sight with the last few to be scanned and the cup of tea soon to be enjoyed. 
Poor Jess looks decidedly uncomfortable and a little embarrassed to be so overwhelmed by the sheep she is normally in control of!
We have to tie Jess up while we are scanning as she would stop the sheep coming out of the scanning machine and make them nervous so, for all our nerves, she is tied in the adjacent bit of the sheep building where she can see the action but not interfere.
The wallpaper in Cherry Tree's twin bedded room was looking tired so we took the bull by the horns last week when the cottage was empty and pulled off the old wallpaper.It turned out to be much more of a job than we'd expected and we only just got it re-painted and with the new pictures up in time for the Saturday arrivals.
We're pleased with it as it looks clean and pretty. We decided against more wallpaper even though the Tourist Board inspectors love it, as children have a nasty habit of picking at it or worse still , writing on it!
We also repainted the bunk bed room - a dreadful job as we couldn't move the bunk beds out of the room, which is only small, and I ended up crawling through the bottom bunk to get out of the room - as well as squeezing past the footend of the bunks only remembering too late that I'd painted that wall. My painting outfit looks even more scruffy now.
It was lovely in Cherry Tree as I painted with the sun streaming in through the big picture window of the dining room and that beautiful view of the valley through the trees to lift the spirits.
The weather has been glorious this last week - 9th February and this picture was taken with the early morning mist lying over the valley and the sun just beginning to warm us all.
The Old House looks so lovely with the early morning sun on it and the birdsong is wonderful out in the front garden.
Little Nicole came running to find me yesterday saying that there was " something wonderful" in the front garden. When I went with her she led me to the patch of grass in front of the Old House which was a sea of purple crocuses. It's the first year that she has been old enough at 5 to really see and appreciate them. This time last year I was recovering from my hip operation so no-one was out in the garden and they flowered unseen and unappreciated.
The sunsets during this last spell of good weather have been breathtaking and these pictures don't even do them justice.
And so to bed - a little of this blogging goes along way and I need to answer some guests enquiries and sort out our new online booking facility - another huge learning curve for me!