Sunday morning in the woods.

 We've had a good amount of rain, much needed after the dry month of April, and the landscape is transformed by fresh, green growth. 

The Saturday newspaper listed the twenty best bluebell woods to visit throughout the country. Happily the woods at either side of our village had not been included! Lockdown has seen a change in the pattern of people passing through our small community; cyclists bombing down the road as though it were a one-way street, walkers who sit on the village seat to eat their snacks and then leave their rubbish behind and cars randomly parked while dog walkers from who knows where exercise their pets.

                                                                                              

Sunday morning and the sun is shining, time to take a walk in the woods. It is damp by the lakeside and there is no sign of ducklings.

We have the woods to ourselves.

Strong winds have brought down quite a lot of dead wood.

It is wonderful to be in a bluebell wood on a day like this.

Back at home I take a wander round the garden.

The frost hasn't killed my tree peonies but it has certainly put payed to a good display of flowers for this year.

I'm grateful for the buds that have survived.

The allium leaves are dying back as their flower heads fatten.

Everything promises at this time of year!

And the tulips are still flowering.

At last!

It rained steadily through the night and has continued gently throughout the whole day. What a relief after many weeks of dry weather and cold winds. My seven water butts and four half barrels were all emptied of rainwater, quite unusual for Blighty!  Dusty roof panels are now cleaned and everything looks refreshed. It is a good year for blossom, I think that much of it has set, so today's rain is timely.

The pond level has sunk and the birds walk about in the marshy ground and pull at the moss.

Some of the veg planting is pushing through the ground but most of the plants are still inside waiting for more reliable weather. I'm playing safe and keeping my peas under the cloches. Only the toughies, like these broad beans,  are unprotected.

I can never grow enough rhubarb. (But look at all the evil ground elder - no problem growing that!)

The tulips that didn't get battered  by the wind have been really good this year.

Oranges are slowly ripening in the greenhouse

and the roof beams are dripping with the China tea rose, Maricel Niel.

Soon we shall be able to socialise once more. I've had my hair cut in anticipation, three inches or so chopped off, not cut since last summer. 

Life feels good!

Blackthorn weather..

 At this time of year the greenhouses are crammed with plants as I wait for the weather to warm up enough for me to put them outside. Some of them are getting rather leggy. Like the seedlings, I'm happy to be tucked up under glass to enjoy the sun without any accompanying chilling wind. We haven't had rain for quite a while and the fruit trees are all in blossom. We had yet another delivery of wood this week and the woodman described it as 'blackthorn weather'. I'd not heard this expression before. He told me that when the blackthorn is absolutely full of white blossom, as it is just now, it is the result of a wet winter followed by a cold spring.

There is an electric pump in the greenhouse water trough that makes a pleasant tinkling sound as I sit and soak up the warmth.

The auricles are coming into flower, while outside the glass the pots of tulips are taking a bit of a bashing!

Happy Easter

                                          Wishing you a 

                VERY HAPPY EASTER

British Summer Time

 It has been a long, hard winter without contact with family and friends. I've always got plenty to fill my days and have a husband who still, after well over half a century, continues to make me laugh, but even so so it has felt rather bleak at times. But this coming weekend is the start of British Summer Time, how cheering! The garden has suddenly burst into action, it is the time of year when everything promises.

I've been clearing the vegetable patch ready for planting, moving the forget-me-not flowers that always seed themselves freely all over the place. They are easy to lift and plant as edging to give a mist of blue in the coming months.

Stakes in place for the climbing French beans.

The artichoke plants have taken a hit from all the cold and rain and it is too soon to know if they will survive. While it is easy enough to clear the ground in the open beds it is another matter to remove the weeds that grow around the fruit bushes. Primroses have seeded themselves very freely here as well and look so pretty that I'm loathe to disturb them.

They get everywhere, tucked in here in a row of chives!

It is a pleasure to wander into the garden and pick some of my favourite flowers.

Even a little bit of sunshine at the end of the day!

Water, water everywhere.

 It is saying something about my present quality of life when a man coming to dig a hole in our drive is the most exciting thing to happen in my week/month. I think I mentioned in an earlier post that a pool of water had sprung up in front of the garage and we were having to dodge around it if we needed to get the car out. Since we have been going nowhere for months on end this hasn't been a problem. We have had so much rain that water is everywhere and I wasn't unduly concerned, the water table must be at it's highest. Did we have an underground spring? "It's annoying," I told Himself, "but it will disappear once the weather dries." But he is cut from a different cloth. He had a poke about and announced that the water was running. A phonecall to the waterboard brought a man out immediately. Leaks are taken seriously - the country is awash with them. The man tested the pool and announced that it was drinking water. Quelle horreur! Some years ago a small leak had appeared on the road outside our bolthole in the Yorkshire Dales. No great surprise given the enormous brutes of farm tractors that trundle past. That escape of water had cost us hundreds of pounds, were we in for another large bill?

The very next day a couple of men appeared with shovels. I'd already scraped some of the surface stones to one side
 

A broken old clay pot.

Himself inspects the replacement.

Excitement over, it's mended.