AFTER SHE'S GONE (DORIS)

So having been blown away by Doris we have returned to rain and more rain but not the extreme gales. I have been out picking up, not just sticks but small branches from the ash trees.

The snowdrops bent before the gale as did many other plants. R has been in the garden cutting back the dead grasses whilst I was in the cutting bed, putting in gladioli and 5 different alstroemerias. I moved the white phlox and two clumps of rudbeckia to the main part of the garden  and forked over between the strawberry rows before feeding them and the rhubarb. 

And the next day is wet and dark. R wonders what it would be like after one of us has gone, sitting in the kitchen on a day like this - would be time for a dog? (Or another husband?)(Perhaps one will have been enough.) Then of course it might be the other way around. Time to think of sunshine and summer. (Of course one could just get drunk?) (If I/she/we/they drank.)

Move on - we have many hazel catkins in the hedge but as yet no frogspawn in the pond - blame the heron and the ducks?  

 The birds continue to thrive - and it is a pleasure to see goldfinches and the bright cock bullfinch outside the kitchen window. The next few days will involve nipping out between showers and longer spells of rain - the buddleias and the elder need cutting back.

We have early crocuses, primroses and daffodils as well as a few anemones and of course snowdrops in abundance.

The witch hazel, hamamelis, is in full flower casting its scent by the path down to the pond and Wendy House where the mallard are displaying.

They will not nest here though as the pond is too small and not safe enough for that.

And then at the pond the Moorhen has returned, and now a little later we do have frogspawn, and the daffodils are beginning to lower their buds, ready for flowering.