"I'm very active - I need to be with the garden we've got - it's over an acre in size! When my husband and I arrived four years ago, there was a lot to do.

What's new?
At the moment, we're in the process of continuing the path round the house and garden. We took up the old slate path which was poorly done and we're putting down bigger slabs.

I've saved the little bits of slate as I don't like to waste anything! I've been making a little wall down at the bottom of the garden. The garden slopes steeply down away from the house so we've got lots of little retaining walls and banks. I've got a sore knee this morning, as I've been lifting concrete slabs into a skip!

The pond is still going well, although we had a strange situation during the big storms at the end of 2004. We thought the pond was leaking as the levels had dropped so dramatically, but it's fine. Perhaps the severe wind washed lots of the water out...

What's out there?
We have a lot of birds coming to our feeders which are right outside the kitchen window. Great flocks of chaffinches which come all year round and hawfinches which roost nearby. We also have a couple of pigeons which come regularly, and a few blue tits and sparrow hawks - though they set everything flying off in a panic!

We've been hearing the great spotted woodpecker hammering away a lot recently too. When I was digging out the bank to build the new wall I found some little slow worms, just about three inches long, curled up underneath the turf. I moved them to somewhere safer and put some soil on top of them. They were very sluggish as they're hibernating at this time of year.

What's growing?
We've got the usual things flowering at the moment, though we've had primroses flowering since before Christmas, and they're still going strong. We've got a winter flowering honeysuckle, which is very scented and lovely.

I've also got some broad beans and onions which were planted in the autumn coming up nicely now. The garlic, chillies and strawberries are really perking up in the greenhouse.

We've got a mountain stream which runs round the garden and I've put some watercress seeds into two pots, placed them in the river and it's grown beautifully."