Mum says she is very busy sorting out the new house (boring), working (even more boring) and planning the new garden (crazy!) - this one has a lovely, large, clover and daisy filled lawn for us to play on. We’ve waited five years for a lawn.

Admittedly the garden doesn’t have as many scented plants or a pond for us to fish in and there is a sea of horrid, sharp, Dorset stone gravel between the terrace and lawn (and out the front). We find it very difficult and painful to walk on so we might let her change it a bit. As long as she keeps some lawn for us and sensible paths we shall remain neutral and open-minded about her new design – but watch this space.

Anyway, because she thinks she is very busy, she has asked us to write a quick blog before she fills you in fully (though she has at least made a very short accompanying video – slacker!).

So, what can we tell you? It took lots of lovely people to bark our welcome to in London and lick the be-shorted legs of while they packed everything up in June, and then a fairly long drive to get us here, but now we have a fabulous new home and garden full of exciting new smells on the Wiltshire/Dorset border.

Sadly there are no urban foxes or multi-scented lamp posts and street trees. And we think it is very, very dark at night for our bedtime walk, despite the huge skies, stars and moonlight (which Mum seems to love), so we are finding this quite an adjustment.

However, by day we can scent and see hare and rat, horse (there are even people doing something called dressage out the front window on the church green), and lots and lots of very big, noisy, black and white, munching things called cows at the end of our back garden.

For the first three weeks these cows kept making little ones too – they woke up us at night and we even saw this by day. Luckily, as soon as we arrived, we managed to get through the old trellis fence into the field to bark at the big and little ones more effectively. Silly cows they took no notice, wouldn’t bark back and anyway Mum didn’t seem to think this was a good idea. She got very cross and put chicken wire across the bottom of the fence to stop us – spoilsport! Unhappily she happened to have it with her. What was she doing with chicken wire in Clapham? We need to know.

However, in the house next door there is a Westie who loves to chat with us across the fence – and can you believe she has the same name as Mum? It’s very funny hearing her parents screaming “shut up Rosie” to stop her barking. On the other side there is also a cat and big and little people. We like children and love chasing cats so this is great fun and makes up for the disinterest of the huge black and white cow thingies.

So, we are getting into a new routine. Every morning we walk Mum off the lead most of the way along the footpath, past Alan the blacksmith (who is making things for us), and across Church Green to the wonderful local shop to get milk and the paper (she often seems to buy much more than that too) but of course we put her on the lead to cross the road and go through the churchyard.

We’ve also got a very nice man called Reg who mows our lawn for us. He knows this garden well and Mum obviously didn’t have a lawnmower, so he is very useful. He specially wears shorts with braces so we can lick his legs when he comes.

Not nearly enough people in London wore shorts or had exposed toes, but everyone here seems to. For example, the very famous furniture restorer man (Ivo) who lives in the village and came to quote for mending Mum’s furniture broken in the move, wore flip flops especially for us, as did many builders, roofers, kitchen makers, painter/decorators, oil people and even delivery men who have visited – heaven!

So, overall we are pretty happy. We have tasted lots of new legs and feet but are not getting enough long walks – something we need to discuss seriously with Mum. Our woolly coats get full of seeds which she has to remove all the time – but that means lots of delicious grooming in the evening, so is a good thing overall.

We are still a bit uncertain about the deep, dark night on our last walk of the day - even though she is carrying larger and larger torches to light our way, but the house is now full of comfy chairs and beds and the lawn and carpets are great for rolling and scratching our backs on.

We’ll make her update you properly soon but, in the meantime, please watch her video of a new little cow thing being born, its first walking and feeding, all at the end of our new garden. It’s just a shame she stopped us being in the field with it. We could have added so much more with our conversation, being kicked by a cow or been shot by the farmer. It would have made a much more exciting video but we suppose it’s worth watching and, thankfully,  it’s very short.

Love, Pickle (5) and Lottie (4)

PS She still needs to update the website and welcome video which is all old hat now. Yet another thing on the list she promises she is dealing with while we don’t go on long walks in this fabulous countryside!