Bee hasn’t realised yet that a whole week of celebrations have been planned for her third birthday and she is touchingly appreciative of every small gesture to mark the occasion. Tom and I are in Cardiff to get the party started; on Saturday we play football and make pizzas together, on Sunday morning Bee bursts in to our bedroom, delighted to see that we haven’t disappeared in the night, and then with ten-week Iris fed, watered and bundled up (sweet little Iris has already resigned herself to going with the flow) we head off to Cefn Mably Farm Park . Bee’s had more than her fair share of ear problems in her short life, and although her hearing is regularly monitored (and, my goodness, haven’t Lily and Russ had to fight to get this far) she has suffered a degree of hearing loss and experiences some distortion which makes the world a scary place at times. It breaks my heart when, at the farm, a cockerel lets rip in a covered, echoey space just as Bee is given a guinea pig to hold. ...
Christine Stovell, author and freelance writer, on living and writing in West Wales