The sun has got his hat on!

Hip, hip, hip, hooray!

I had my sunhat on today too!

I had a GP appointment this morning to discuss Aggie. She has too much fluid on board. My lovely GP is going to pop a steroid injection in on Monday morning. The bad new is that I can't do any long walks until the festival starts. I have to rest Aggie all next week.

As I pondered on this fact, I realised that I would not be able to check my Birtley and Gunnerton route again. I decided to go for it after an early lunch. It was glorious. The route is definitely much nicer when you are not wading in mud in every field. (Sorry Maureen - who had volunteered to do this with me - it was a last minute decision.)

I also managed to track down one farmer whose land we will cross. He has a big sign up telling people not to go into the field because of lambing. There is a public footpath, but I wanted to ask if we could go into the field if we used another path and kept away from the sheep and lambs.

At first, he wasn't keen and told me about a large group who had arrived in two buses last week and the leader wanted to insist that they walked across a field  where there were very young lambs. The weather was atrocious at the time. It sounds as though the farmer lost his temper. Thankfully one of the walkers suggested that the group walked on the road.

I listened and sympathised. I said we would not go in the field without permission. By the end of the conversation, I had permission, advice on tricky gates and a big thank you from him. We need to be very sensitive to the farmers' issues just now. 

I saw loads of ewes and lovely lambs enjoying the sunshine today. I also saw my first bumblebees this year, including a black one, my first swallow, swooping joyously through the air, and my first butterflies.

Here is a Peacock butterfly on a butterbur flower head. I like the way you can see the pretty stem of the butterbur.

Young Musician of the Year tonight.