So, there we had it, a perfect Christmas in the making. Our friends did a sort of 60 Minute Makeover on the relevant rooms in the house for the celebrations, using the brightest red paint that was donated to us, we also had a donated candelabra (oh, er, Mrs, that‘s posh!) which stood in the shape of a tree at almost a metre tall. It held loads of candles and we took one look at it and said ‘Christmas tree’. So we decorated it with twinkling lights and golden baubles and decked it out with candles aplenty. The bright red paint calmed to a lovely, bright terracotta and the normally dark dinning room looked like a fairy grotto with the roaring open fire and twinkling crimbo lights, spangling in the candlelight. Our test run was looking good.

The nosh was in, the firewood was stacked, we’d nabbed a massive plastic garden table and loads of plastic chairs from outside and decorated them. We were doing traditional, bohemian, over-the-top and not alfresco and it was looking good. We were counting down people, and I was already having fun. Whooopeeeee!

Then, on the Friday before Christmas somebody brought us a little piglet that had been taken to them. He was about 4 weeks old and was in a bad way. He had been attacked by something and a large chunk of his little face had been torn off. The area beneath his eyes and just above his snout had been ripped away, revealing his nasal passage, down to the bone and his little snout was threatening to come off completely. The whole area was infected and the torn skin hung like a bizarre, blackened comb-over down the side of his face.

We named the newest member of our family, Joseph and he moved into the house and lapped up the love and care that was on offer with relish. When our Christmas guests saw him they, too, were struck by the uniqueness of the situation. They had come to us to unite in the peace and love of the occasion and suddenly they found that they were communing with a representative of all that they were fighting for.

Our little Joseph could not have asked for more hugs, snuggles, cuddles, love and healing over Christmas. Our guests rejoiced in their contact with Joseph, immersing themselves in willing him well and our little boy began to thrive, despite the odds that were stacked so savagely against him.

Our Christmas cost nothing. Almost everything was donated to us and still we laughed till our sides ached. We wore our paper hats and laughed riotously over the boxes of 50p for 6 crackers that we pulled. We didn’t exchanged gifts but each of us brought the spirit of Christmas to the table and everyone said that they had the best Christmas that they’d experienced in years.

Our guests have already booked their Christmas early for next year. Joseph is getting big and fat and his face is healing wonderfully.

We hope that the flame of the spirit of peace that we experience over Christmas 2007 will come and abide with you.

JANUARY 2008.

I can’t quite believe that we’re into the 8th year of the 2000nd’s. Doesn’t seem right! I am pleased to be able to report on Joseph’s progress. It really wasn’t looking good for him just a few weeks ago and that skinny, infected, little mite has really turned around. For a starter he has almost doubled in size and his pale, rather rough skin is now a beautiful glowing pink. His little backbone, that was sticking up, is now hidden and rounded and he looks just fine. If you couldn’t see the residual hole in the top of his nose then you really wouldn’t know that there was anything up with him. Letting Joseph out at the moment is a non-starter. Because of the anatomy and nature of pigs it would be a mistake to get dirt, germs and foreign bodies into the wound. Pigs dig with their noses and the hole would act as a scoop and we really can’t let that happen. So, Joseph must say in the clean and dry until the wound it better.

Unfortunately, Joseph, like most of us, has no concept of what is best and is feeling better. He now wants to play, play, play!! Bless his little heart, Joseph now has discovered the stairs and goes up them at about 200 miles per hour. On getting to the top and rather bored then he screams. Getting down isn’t quite as easy and he’s getting too heavy, noisy and wriggly to be carried down stairs in safety. He couldn’t come down on his own before but, finally, he’s getting there. He made it down, the other day, the whole staircase all on his own! He races around the house like it’s Brands Hatch and spins on the spot like the blade of a helicopter for us to play with him. He makes us all laugh out loud, joyful at the chance to know him. Joseph snuggles in our arms for cuddles with a trust and love that makes tears come to my eyes. To think that he would afford that emotion to someone that would betray, kill and eat him? Our little boy is a shining example of what love can do. He’s lying here, next to me, on the settee, snoring. He is relaxed, happy and content and so am I.

We are a two-way street. We heal each other. I like to think that we have done a good job on a perfect little chap. My next mountain is that he must be castrated and I am soooooo worried about it. I know that he’ll come out of it just fine and that it’ll only hurt for a little while …… but, that’s our little baby…….

MID JAN.

Lordy, Lordy, if mud were money and the elixir of life and good looks then I’d be rich, young and beautiful! It doesn’t seem to have stopped raining for weeks and the poor old earth is sodden. We’ve kinda got to the point where the puddles have gone into pools and the pools have evolved into lakes. I could have sworn that I saw the Lockness Monster in one rather large puddle just the other day but it turned out to be a St. Bernard monster having a lark!

Someone chucked a couple of game birds (fighting chickens) over the fence the other night. Bless those birds, I’ve never had a bad’n. I do appreciate that people don’t part with birds that are successful fighters and going to earn them money but you’d think that even the rubbish fighters would be a bit edgy, wouldn’t you? In my experience they’re lovely. I’ve had quite a few over the years and, just like the rest of us, they only seem to want a quiet life. It’s really not the picture that people would paint of these birds. Mark (my husband) moved the tarp that’s over the hay and disturbed the dumped female of the pair who’d holed up there out of fear. He didn’t know that she was there and she didn’t know that he was there. The resultant encounter frightened the life out of the pair of them. It was touch and go but both of them survived!!!!!!

The ‘bad boy’, male, was only flushed out when one of our cockerels spotted the stranger hiding in the undergrowth. The ‘fighting cock’ ran for his life and has settled for keeping his head down and avoiding trouble. The pair have found their place within the flock and have encountered no real problems. You really can’t help but wonder what the people that fight these bird do to them to make them so aggressive toward each other. I’ve kept cockerels in huge groups for years and found a very real reluctance in them to fight given the ability to walk away.

It’s common for us to get a call saying something like, ‘Can you take a cockerel, only I’ve got 2 and they’re fighting.?’ At one point I had about 80 of them, all sleeping together at night in their shed. The difference was that come daylight our shed doors were opened and our birds allowed to wander, free range over the sanctuary. The strange thing was that they would stay together around the yard and put themselves to bed at night, all huddled up together without so much as a cross word. Not so strange, perhaps, when you see the tiny area that people think is acceptable to keep a group of chickens in.

It defies logic that you wouldn’t expect them to fight and display the sort of stress behaviour that is witnessed in intensive egg production. How very sad for the poor chickens to live that sort of existence. And, how sad that the person who put them in a pen at the end of the garden probably believes they have ‘free range’ chickens because the birds can see the sun through the wire of their prison - Not such a funny old world after all, innit?

On a lighter note - As I sit here attempting to write this, Joseph (piglet), who is now about the size of Babe in the film is stretched across my lap. Actually, he’s hanging off both sides, of my not so inconsiderable spanage, with a big cushion under his head and the other end is wedged up against the back of the settee. We started out with me trying to type with his head in the crook of my arm and the laptop perched on my knees but that just resulted in even more gobbledygook than normal. So I found a cushion and shoved that under his noddle and set the laptop on his fat belly. We’ve formed a sort of warm, information, technological mountain of love. It’s not quite the way that they teach IT at school but I should like to bet it’d catch on if they put it on the curriculum. Plus, see, it works! What a perfectly perfect arrangement!

SUNDAY 20TH JAN. 2008.

I was forced to eject someone from the house, last night, based on the fact that he is a veggie, yet said that if his circumstances changed then he’d be like ‘Mr.X’ (we shall call him - a bloke that lives locally) because he’s close to Mother Earth. It should be explained that Mr.X , who lives in the woods and , to some degree, off the land, was previously ejected from these premises quite some months earlier.

At the time Mr. X thought it would be a laugh to tell me that he shoots and fries squirrels. It’s incredible how people wouldn’t dream of coming into your world and saying that they don’t like your curtains, settee or colour scheme but would quite cheerfully insult the very essence of who you are. Still, I suppose it gives them something to think about on the long walk home! We had Chinese food, last night. Joseph likes Chinese food - but, then, who doesn’t?

We’re so lucky because the local Chinese take away is just fantastic. They really make a big effort and have put vegan food on the menu and adapt dishes for us and how good is that?!!! Every vegan mate that comes to stay for the second or more time always suggests a Chinese from our local and then goes on to tell us that we have the best one in the country. Not bad for a little shop in a little village in Kent. We all love it and it comes with a five star recommendation from Joseph! We wish that they were exclusively vegan but, maybe, it will get some folk on the right road and, for that, we can only live in hope.

I’ve a feeling that your local takeaway might well be helpful as have ours. Our fantastic Indian takeaways are the same. Do go and talk to them and you might well be pleasantly surprised. They are cooking anyway, they want your business and they want you to go away and tell other people how good they are. Talk to them. You’ve nothing to lose and a really rather delicious menu option to gain...