Almost ready for Spring

Well the blossom is blooming, the bumbles are buzzing and the green fly are proliferating 😡 ..... already.

Oh well, I do run a natural garden so I do hope the ladybirds and the bluetits get going because there are quite a few building.

 

What has been nice to see is just how many bulbs have naturally multiplied. If the aliums all flower it will be a spectacular show.

So,  the last long  border is weeded, all I have is the left hand side border to go and then plant the few potted plants which as yet haven't found their way into the ground.

The birds are very busy in and around my garden. So far I've seen red kites and common buzzards flying over head along with a female sparrow hawk who often sits on the fence, magpies, wood pigeons, blue tits, great tits, robin, dunnocks, sparrows, blackbirds and a couple of wag tails.

Not bad for a garden that doesn't feed them with bird feeders.

Rain, walking and a mad five minutes

Yesterday was such a Spring like day, blue skies, white fluffy clouds and warmth in the sun when it shone.

The magnolia trees are in full bloom even though the winds we've had have certainly scorched them. Still, it was lovely to see, a true portent to Spring. 

Today couldn't be more different. Wet, chilly and those low light levels commensurate with a winter's day.

I walked into Tonbridge centre because I needed a few things from the continental supermarket and I wanted to pick up an application form for a railcard; hopefully they'll stop striking in the not to distant future and I'll be able to start taking the train again.

I want to get back down to Hastings and Folkstone, two places I really enjoy and with a change at Ashford I should be able to get to places like Whitstable, Herne Bay and Birchington on Sea (it's the name, just want to see what's there).

So returning to today. 

Having walked down (2.9km) and bought what I needed I came to the conclusion I may just as well drip my way back again. It may have been 9°C but I was sweltering; wet on the inside as well as the out 😏

As I rounded the corner into my road, next doors cat was sitting waiting for someone to come home. She's an odd one. She has a cat flap with easy access to her own house yet she waits for me.

Beating me through the door she proceeded to have a mad five minutes chasing a piece of succulent which had fallen on the floor.

Watching a cat chasing something on hard wood flooring is well worth the watch I can tell you.

So, its raining in earnest again and I've a full set of clothing drying in the kitchen. It's gone 1pm and I'm hungry.

Clocks, pigeons and Spring flowers

I stretched with that luxury of a cat; warm, rested and possibly full of vigour. The clocks have "sprung" forward and we are, at last, in British summer time 🥳

It's raining!

Can't have everything I suppose but lighter mornings and longer evenings are approaching and I must admit, it can't come soon enough. That warmth in the sun is just about breaking through when it gets a chance and the possibilities of sitting outside with a coffee, eyes closed, drinking in the sun are all but a rain cloud covering away.

The birds have been building nests round here. 

I have a pair of magpies collecting moss for linings whilst a pair of wood pigeons waddle around the garden looking for that just right twig for their scrape.

As an aside, as I was walking back to the car yesterday I saw a fledgling magpie sitting in a front garden being attended by one of its parents. Demanding is the word I would use here.

Anyway, back to the wood pigeons.

I have a naturalised garden and having created habitats of soil, the plants have come in on the wind or beak and found homes for themselves.

Take in point an ever expanding clump of celandines. I love this plant for many reasons but two of them are; firstly I lived in a beautiful house on Celandine Drive for many years and secondly, they remind me of happy rides in the woodlands with my horse at this time of year. 

A single celandine conjours up hundreds of memories, so when I discovered I had attracted a plant into the garden I was thrilled.

It was covered in blossom this year and shone out of the created glade like a canary beacon of summer hope.

Then the wood pigeons arrived.

I never realised just how excited they got over eating flower heads. 

They ate all 😳 of them, buds included.

So instead of the canary yellow beacon of hope I have green stalks pointing up to the grey, rain laden sky 🤷‍♀️ no hope. 

May 28th 1987

Whilst clearing out the loft area of all that stuff, you know the type, the stuff we accumulate like a thumping great drag net we haul from one place to another, I found something I had been hunting for, a rosette.

I have a few from those halcyon days of riding, but this one pre-dates them all because this acknowledges the day I cracked my spine in a rather horrific riding accident.

I was 34 years old, in the prime of my life and recently married. I had bought my first property and was having a great time; everything was happy, bubbly and so much fun.......until that day.

Sadly, I've paid for not speaking up about the horse I was riding and how I didn't get on with her for the remainder of my life.

Amazing and sobering how one seemingly trivial action can have a lasting effect. All I had to do was ask the instructor for a swap of horses and the person riding the one I preferred would have willingly swapped.

Ironically she disliked the mount she'd been allocated and ended up in hospital with ruptured groin muscles.

Not a good day.