OF MOWDYWARPS AND NAKED MAIDENS

First primroses put in an eggcup in the kitchen. Crocuses are out in the wood.
Watched the rabbits scoot over the wall from next door and go back.
Squirrel on the shed thwarted by the new feeders - hope?
More path scraping, veg bed raking, R weeding and I found the anthemis had not been tidied so that was done.
The old bird feeder post has been taken away from outside the kitchen.
So as R nips off to church I am going to nip down the garden and try and light the recalcitrant bonfire - after a lot of noise and shifting and stuff to make sure all the potential inhabitants have left.

Put in some early potatoes and started to rebuild path over the dug out drain from the pond shown here before. The drain pipe and alkathene pipes are inserted between the liner and the underlay.

It is Tuesday - just when I had some vague sense of things drying out it has poured all night and the fields are awash, the stream is thundering out of the back meadow into the garden.

Moles are making mountains in the lawn which, I suppose, may be aiding drainage?
The soil is good to use - scraped up and put onto flower beds.

 It is time to prune back hard the golden willow at the bottom of the garden and one or two others have had unwanted and crossing branches, dead and diseased wood trimmed. 


The banking looks better after a whizz with the hover mower on the right hand side. Now I need to do the rest when it dries.

This is the view up the garden from the pond - R's little eucalyptus has grown a bit!

We went for a walk behind next door and there the snowdrops have had over a hundred years to establish. This is what we are aiming for in or wood - aiming for as we will not last another hundred years (I hope).
In Dutch they are called naakte wiifjes, in German Nackte Jungfrau - naked maidens but the best is from Gloucestershire where they are called Eve's Tears.

When Wednesday dawns it is snowing - for the second time this winter - but we are on the snow line and it is slushy.

Then R sees that the mallard are back, a pair on the pond for breakfast. I was going to hit a little white ball around a golf course but it is closed. R is off to Lancaster to see an old friend - not OLD just of long standing. Whilst she is away I cook (yes, really!) some stewy things for the freezer and make some plum jam.

Some pics of the usual birds in the garden - robin left, bluetit right.

Even the rabbits here have bad habits - not that I could bite my toenails any more - not that ever could!

The paper has just arrived through the letter box, it is sunny now and I am going to have my breakfast.