Garden, Recent Reading, Easter etc.

Life seems very surreal at the moment. Now D and E are not leaving home to go to work and I no longer do a food shop on certain days of the week I find it hard to keep track of what day of the week it is! The days just seem to merge into each other as I do some housework, washing, cooking, wandering round the garden, reading, watching i-player (I am re-watching all the "Line of Duty" episodes) and studying the lessons of a heraldry course I have found on Twitter. I should really start going through all the paperwork connected to my deputyship of mum's affairs for 7 years now her estate is finally settled. I plan to just keep just the most important pieces of information. But somehow it is hard to get motivated at the moment.


In the garden:

More violets (Common Dog Violet I think as they have a white spur) appear each day.

Ladybird (Harlequin I believe)

Acer leaves

Near the top of the garden by the wild flower "meadow" B cleared a border by the fence as he had to replace a fencing panel. It looks as though a lot of Red Campion plants have seeded there so there should be a lovely display in a few weeks.

Berberis

Grape Hyacinths

Amelanchier (last week - the blossom has faded now)

Garden robin

We have a solar pump in the pond which ferries water between the pond and a pool at the top of the rockery

where it then flows as a small waterfall

back to the pond.

Buds are appearing on Rhodendron

I've never been sure what this flower is.

Camellia with

leaf mines on some of the leaves.

Common/Smooth Newts are active in the pond - it is fascinating to watch their courtship rituals. A few record shots D took.

*D

*D




Apologies again for poor quality of photo taken from the tv screen. A Blue Tit is making a nest in the nestbox with camera and is now taking in moss and feathers.

We have seen Dark-edged Bee flies in the garden and also more male and female Hairy-Footed Flower Bees. (Sorry no photos). Also no photos but towards the end of last week we had the first Brimstone, Holly Blue and Orange Tips of the year.




I finally found the missing colouring in books but the heraldry course I am doing at the moment involves some colouring in so I may not be using these at the moment.

As we rarely go out at bank holidays anyway Easter seemed reassuringly normal. I am thankful we had the ingredients for Easter baking and Easter Sunday lunch.


B made Hot Cross Buns on Good Friday

Ready to go in the oven

and ready to eat.

I finished knitting Daisy Duck and duckling. Not the best little toys I have made but they were so tiny and fiddly and I am not particularly good at the sewing up and making faces part.

Mediterranean Tart for Vegetarian Easter Lunch

Simnel Cake

Bluebells picked from the garden

Recent Reading

Robert MacFarlane has been kind enough to organise a Twitter Reading Group and The Living Mountain was the book chosen. I've had this in my bookcase for ages so it was a good reason to start reading it. I enjoyed it immensely although having only visited the Cairngorm area once many of the places were not familiar to me. So I pictured in my mind some of the Lake District fells as I read it.

I always enjoy Patrick Barker's writing although I did not enjoy this as much as Coastlines for a number of reasons - partly I think the anxiety we must all be feeling makes it harder to concentrate on non-fiction and, in addition, I had never visited any of the islands he writes about. I always think you enjoy a book like this more if you have been to at least some of the places mentioned.

I did start to read the next in the Wesley Peterson series - The Plague Maiden a few weeks ago but gave up after a few chapters as the subject matter reminded me too much of what is going at the moment. So I moved onto the next in the series which I loved.

I found this OS Puzzle Book lurking in the bookcase and as I love os maps I am really having fun with all the puzzles in this book. A good way to fill the hours and it is very absorbing.

I hope you are all staying safe and well. Take care everyone.



*D Photos taken by my son with the Canon SX50 HS bridge camera

Rest of photos taken by me with the Panasonic Lumix FZ330 bridge camera.

"A Frog He Would A-Wooing Go"

Common Frog (Rana temporaria)


I finally managed to get a photo of one of the frogs in the pond this morning. The others (there are at least four) dived as I approached but this individual seemed oblivious to my presence - perhaps he/she has other things on its mind!



WATERS GREEN

"His mansion in the Pool
The Frog forsakes -
He rises on a Log
And statements makes -
His Auditors two Worlds
Deducting me -
The Orator of April
Is hoarse Today -
His Mittens at his Feet
No Hand hath he -
His eloquence a Bubble
As Fame should be -
Applaud him to discover
To your chagrin
Demosthenes has vanished
In Waters Green -"

His Mansion in the Pool
by Emily Dickinson

The Common Newts (also known as Smooth Newts) - Lissotriton vulgaris - have also started to return to the pond. Brian spotted one on Sunday. None around today so in true Blue Peter fashion here's a photo I made (took) earlier (well, a year ago!).



This male Blackbird was turning over leaves in the wooded area at the top of the garden looking for insects



and this Blue Tit was just about to investigate one of the nestboxes.



And finally, I am reading a really excellent book at the moment which I can thoroughly recommend (and no I am not on commission from the publishers!)




Its an anthology of nature extracts from the last 300 years and includes some of Britain's greatest natural history writers. Some of the goodies included are: "On the Anger of Hornets" by Richard Mabey, "Hoverfly" by Simon Barnes, "The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Actions of Worms" by Charles Darwin, "The Call of the Wild" by Mark Cocker, "Cuckoo" by Miriam Rothschild, "The Peregrine" by J A Baker, "Bass Rock" by Eric Ennion, "The Pine Wood" by Richard Jefferies, From "Wild Hares and Hummingbirds" by Stephen Moss, From "The Natural History of Selborne" by Gilbert White and many many more extracts.

Some of the books mentioned I already have but the only disadvantage of this lovely book is that its encouraging me to buy yet more books!!

Garden Wildflower "Meadow"

The miniature wildflower meadow at the top of the garden, which measures about 4 by 3 metres, is now full of flowering St John's Wort and Knapweed sp.



Although the ribwort plaintain and salad burnet have gone to seed, trefoils, vetches, poppies, buttercups, red campion and oxeye daisies are still displaying a few flowers.

Oxeye Daisy



St John's Wort



St John's Wort and Knapweed



Knapweed



There are a few scabious flowers scattered about the miniature meadow



Self Heal



Yarrow



Although the wild flowers don't attract as many butterflies as I had hoped the air is full of the sounds of several species of bumble bee, hoverflies and the occasional honey bee.



Elsewhere in the garden there have been several butterfly species around in the last week - small white, speckled wood and red admiral and last Sunday a ringlet (the first I have seen in the garden since 2005). The garden butterfly list for 2011 now stands at 10 species. Meadow Browns and Gatekeepers should be appearing soon.

We had a rare sighting of a fox in the garden on 18th June early in the morning and have spotted a common/smooth newt tadpole in the pond. The racing pigeon which I thought had moved on has made several more appearances and there are still several juvenile birds on the feeders - mainly goldfinches, greenfinches, house sparrows, blue and great tits. The amount of young birds (especially blue and great tits) does seem lower than in past years so perhaps it has been a poor breeding year locally as demonstrated by the sad failure of our garden blue tits to raise the young.

The herbaceous border is full of colour at the moment and here a few photos:








The buddleias are coming into flower and will hopefully attract some butterflies








Rowan berries are starting to ripen (always a reminder to me that autumn isn't that far away)



And here's a new arbour to replace the dilapidated old one