WE WENT TO THE NEW HALECAT NURSERY AND SUCH

I was sitting in the seat, as one does, by the bay window, and looking up the garden as I wrestled with a sudoku - I have this thing now - trying to do them without writing in lots of alternative numbers - and I had to go and get the camera. This is the result.

Wonderful!

The tulips are/have been magnificent this year.

The daffs are over, more or less, except the new ones we put in by the gate - see below.

We have left the seed heads on them this year as Monty Don instructs. We used to dead head but did refrain from tying the leaves in neat knots.

Been to the Pewl (Liverpool) to visit relative and went to national Wildflower Centre for lunch. Okay for the school children but looks underfunded - a bit tired.

On the way home we stopped at the refurbished Halecat Nursery at Witherslack - fantastic and bought 4 plants - Campanula trachelium 'Alba', Potentilla megalantha, Phlox paniculata 'Tiara' and Verbascum ch. f. alb. 'Wedding Candles'.

Bit concerned re mullein as last one was chomped to death by mullein moth caterpillar. Put them in and sowed some field poppies and Cornflower seed on scruffy piece of ground.

Now to the final picture - the daffs by the gate. There are even lambs in the field beyond. Sometimes they gang together and charge about like a load of hooligans - the lambs, not the daffs.

We came home up the steep and winding Cartmel Fell road to High Newton. R reminded me that on the first occasion I brought her to The Lake District (1968) I roared up this difficult road - showing off she said.

Unfortunately she did not notice I was showing off so we could have gone via Lindale - though, in those days, there was no bypass and the hill through the village was a nightmare of crawling lorries.

Ah! Those days of lost youth!

ps. Just gone upstairs to find R putting away her winter clothes and getting out her summer ones.

"Sumer is icumen in,
Lhude sing cuccu!"