BIRDS AND FRUIT

It is Saturday and the sun is beating down - but it is not warm and the grass is wet from a heavy dew. The first leaves are beginning to fall from the ash trees.Yesterday I was up the ladder and picked another seven pounds of damsons and a load of cooking apples. The latter have been wrapped in newspaper and stored in trays in the shed.

We have had two birds inside the house, the last this morning - a great tit in our bedroom. At least it was not the guided missile that is the sparrow hawk.

The repointing of the paving is done and we are quiet again.

I have cleared out two of the small streams in the upper garden and both disappear into a hole in the stream bed - presumably the new springs lower down the garden are the exits.

R and I have cut severely back the huge brachyglottis (senecio) and carted at to the bonfire heap. Removing it revealed two birds' nests - tree sparrows I think - and an attempted rabbit hole - within six feet of the house!

The ammi and the calendulas carry on flowering and I must remember to save seed from the latter for next year.

The garden is productive - apples and damsons but I have to admit the wonderful; tomatoes are my daughters - just like the red.

There are so many blue tits I wonder how many nests there have been this year though they can have large broods. There are also plenty of coal and great tits but not seen any long tailed ones for a while.

This is a picture of the gaura my son-in-law gave to us - a beautiful plant.

Then there are the two nests I mentioned earlier - one has plastic tape woven into the fabric of the structure.

I gathered the last of the damsons from high on the tree by covering the ground below with dust sheets and shaking the tree. I remember as a small boy, on our farm, we used tarpaulins on the ground, tied a hessian sack around the trunk and Dad hit it with a sledge hammer so fruit that were ripe fell off.

Last night we had spectacular lightning and thunder with rain cascading down the roofs and over the gutters to the ground. (Wednesday) but today all is fresh and calm, the sun shining and a gentle breeze blowing from the south west.

If we had no weather in the UYK what would we discuss?

So I nipped out to the garage to have my car checked - they took nearly 4 hours to reprogram it with a software update - what ever happened to spanners and an oil can?