Myself and servant at church in the morning (my wife staying at home, not being very well)… We had a brief read for the rebuilding the parish church of Stoke Talmash in the county of Oxford, the expense of which will amount to the sum of £1096, exclusive of the old materials. I gave one penny to the said brief. We dined on the remains of yesterday’s dinner with the addition of a sheep’s bell and potatoes and turnips. My wife, self and servant at church in the afternoon…
After churchtime my wife and self, with Thomas Davy, walked down into the land belonging to Halland to see some Turkey, or Oatland [?] Sheep, which are there a-keeping. They are very like our country’s sheep for size and make, but they have no horns, and their coats are hair instead of wool, and their color seems tending to a brown, or like anything which has been singed with the fire. There were some young lambs which were of a perfect liver-color. They are extremely poor [thin}, though they are fed with hay twice a day and oats once and are in grounds where there is good grazing. Their poorness I imagine proceeds from the different degrees of heat between our climate and that from which they are brought.
I believe it is as mild a time, considering the season of the year, as has been known in the memory of man, everything having the appearance and carrying with it the face of April rather than of February (the bloom of trees only excepted). The meadows now are as verdant as sometimes in May; the birds chirping their melodious harmony, and the footwalks dry and pleasant. In the evening Thomas Davy at our house, to whom I read part of Young’s Night Thoughts.