HERE WE GO

 The team are here remaking the paths and a seating area.

Blossom is everywhere, wonderful spring.

Chiffchaffs and willow warblers singing like mad and down on the pond a great white egret!!

R has had two swallow/martin boxed put up and hop the tree sparrows leave them alone.

So loads of pics blossom first -

So the petals are falling like snow (and me) making the paths slippery.

Camellias are flowering - we have three, a pink, a red and one which is pink but sports white flowers.

So we are having new paths laid where the veg beds were and a round seating area.

And not all pants that give pleasure are "cultivated."

Golden saxifrage

Ash

Dandelion

Primrose

Cowslip

Ans by no means least Bellis perennis - the good old daisy.

And more soon when I can limp out into the garden with my camera.

PS our new grandson is growing -

IT IS REALLY ME

So it is over a year since the operation on my neck.

So much has happened.

My talented brother Steve died at the age of 85 and we had a wonderful send off for him.

In the garden we are waiting for the paths to be redone, we keep and lose gardeners, R has radically swept away veg beds but has recently been spreading the snowdrops yet more.

We are beyond the start of spring, the thrush and wren are belting it out and the woodpecker is drumming in the trees. We have had ducks on the pond and the heron most days for breakfast.

So to some pics - Fatsia in fine fettle

Camellia by the shed with both pink and white flowers

Clematis armandii loaded with flowers 

the wild daffs by the path in the wood

and one of the hellebores.

The weather has been WET!!! we have yet an other spring coming up in the lawn and everywhere is boggy. As I am limited to movement with a rollator there are areas inaccessible to me.

We are still waiting for hedgehogs to take up residence but have spied some  mice. My grandson Robin says there are newts in the pond.

So what to do, well Damson Press are publishing a pamphlet of my poems - I wonder when the poet laureate is retiring? But he is much younger than I.

Title poem -

THAT WAS THEN

Legs less limber, he walks the fells

In his head, sees things as they were,

Remembers trees now fallen, walls gone.

Where there was a path is bracken,

Chest high and laced with bramble,

Pasture is bog, fields scrub.

He thinks his way down to the beck

And climbs the fence, can almost smell

The sausages baked in the fire

His mother made, taste the cold water.

The brown stones in the river bed 

Are still slippery and hurt his feet.

And he can hear the raven call

As it sheds air from its wings

And falls whirling from a crag.

His collie nuzzles at his hand

And he strokes it’s head,

Takes a deep breath and smiles.

But that was then, and now

He puts the kettle on, makes tea,

Retrieves a biscuit from its tin,

Puts his feet up by the fire,

Gets out his iPad, opens Kindle,

And escapes from reality.

Time for a coffee . . . . 

STILL ALIVE

But not gardening. Watching R weeding and pruning and trimming and planning with help from Sam - yes we have our previous gardener back.

What can I say after a long time? Well I had five discs in my neck trimmed, and the bone - it is a bit like a minor stroke affecting the right side of the body. My grip is dodgy, my balance is poor and I fall over. I still drive but walk using a rollator. Enough of some of my ailments. The garden has been abundant especially fruit - apples, pears, plums, gages and damsons. We lost a branch off the greengage with the weight of fruit. And there are butterflies everywhere.

This is the front and some observations - the box ball on the left is blighted and has been removed. The small maple belongs to my daughter-in-law who is about to present us with a grandson. The buddleia beyond the box has been removed and the dead wisteria in that bed has leaves.

Autumn is already showing its colours in our maple and Euonymus.

This has been a hydrangea summer with the usual Annabelle splendid and here Hydrangea paniculata thriving under the cherry.

What else - more pics - 

And we still have the odd squirrel for R to shout at but rabbits seem to have gone so I wonder if this is a myxomatosis year. The snails and slugs of course slither on.

And so to a photo of the head gardener labouring next to the elephant grass she dislikes.

So not a long blog but at least one done - at the prompting of my daughter.

Now out to lap the house to achieve my number of steps.

BLOSSOMING

Well at least something is blossoming if not I.  So here are loads of cherry, damson etc

Note the missing veg beds - the lady now in charge of the garden has wielded her mighty trowel.

And the rose bed is turning into lawn. The next steps are path improvements.

More blossom 

 Here are Roly and India by the big damson. 

So that is it, having to do this on the iPad as iMac too out of date for Google.