Sue Woodcock: Scarecrow judging proves a hard task

The front bedroom now not only has a safe floor but a floor covering and will be less draughty and easier to keep clean. The furniture is placed sensibly around the room and there are beds that I can actually get to.

Having sorted the accumulated rubbish, I found the necessary bed linen and made the beds up ready for yet more visitors. These were other long-standing friends from my caving club and Tom, the son of one of them.

Tom is one of my godsons, a quiet but charming lad of 13. They brought with them in the back of the van his off-road motorbike and for most of the next day Tom rode it round the fields. He did a great job of rounding up the sheep whether they needed it or not. His father and my other friend mixed cement and industriously got on with some pointing on the walls.

I wasn't exactly idle. I had been asked to judge the scarecrows at the festival at Kettlewell. They needed someone who didn't live in the village which swarms with imaginative and amusing scarecrows catering to every taste. It was a highly enjoyable morning and I found parts of Kettlewell I didn't know existed. Coachloads of visitors were arriving disgorging excited sightseers who followed the scarecrow trail.

Then came the job of picking first, second and third for the competition. I had to be scrupulously fair and it was so difficult. In the end the criterion had to be whether a contestant had the ability to scare crows.

After much agonising, we chose Shrek and the Crows as the winner, followed by Eddie the Eagle outside the church and then Hansel and Gretel.

Once home, I hurriedly wrote the weekly quiz and headed into Skipton to do Street Angels. I got home, totally tired, about 2.30am but was up for church the next morning. Tom had run out of petrol for his bike so on the way back I stopped at the garage. Two friends joined him in riding round the fields and another trip to the garage was necessary. Then Tom came into say he had "mis-parked" his bike and we extracted it from the midden.

At the quiz, Kettlewell village had calmed down a bit and we had a great meal. By the next morning I was so tired that my mind had turned to jelly but did help put up the old, and I think original, wooden guttering on the barn. I have kept it safe since I first got here and it works rather well. No longer do I get a shower when entering the barn in wet weather.

Misty, the three legged dog who has a wonderful home with a friend in the village, has had a phantom pregnancy. She is a beautiful dog and still tells me she adores me, so I took her to the vet at Skipton with her owner. She insisted on sitting on her owner's lap en route but behaved perfectly when we got there.

My cockerel, a moran bantam, has no concept of size and for ages had been trying to challenge Henry the stag turkey who is a very large Norfolk Black and rather a nice bird. He has put up with this annoying little upstart with patience and restraint for months. Quite what instigated the latest squabble I did not see but suddenly the whole turkey tribe – four turkey hens, one stag and two turklets – decided to teach the little cockerel a lesson. They chased him round the field making a considerable commotion and it was so funny we sat watching convulsed with laughter. It seemed to put him in his place because he now leaves the turkeys alone.

The old ewe that thought she lived in the house became very weak. Despite nursing her and snuggling her in fresh straw in the barn she faded fast and passed away very peacefully. I had had her many years and was very fond of her. She was very old and well beyond her time.

My friends helped hold some goats and a sheep while I gave them pedicures and they seemed much the better for it. Now I must just re-make the beds for yet more visitors.