The gardener's friend

This is Cobweb's 18th spring and I suspect she may not see another one - she already lost the colour (although not, I think, the use) of one eye and recently some of her body mass too. But she's enjoying every minute if it, soaking up the sun on the warm stones as she always loves to do. Her appetite is good and she's still nimble enough to climb up to a shelf in the larder where she can put out her paw to catch your shoulder as you pass. She's a good companion to me as I till the soil.

(Horticultural tip: the plastic bags are my method of composting perennial weeds that shouldn't go on a normal compost heap. Stuff the pernicious ones such as bindweed, couch grass and nettles into a stout bag, puncture it a few times with a garden fork, close firmly with a stone or brick on top and stack them all in a unused corner, covered with black plastic if the bags are not opaque. Forget about them for 2 years by which time the contents will have turned into an innocuous tilth.)