SUMMER HAS A COMIN' IN

It is glorious, warm, sunny, at last - at last!

But will it last - not much hope of that in this country. Yet, while it lasts it is wonderful, short sleeves, old hat, sun cream, drink outside, family here - C and P - what more can one ask for.

A wood pigeon has just passed the window with a beak full of dry grass for its nest in the ash tree behind the house and the tree sparrows in the house martin nest chatter and scold me as I pass.
I have cut back the grass around the shrubs on the lower banking disturbing a frog which landed on my shoe. Tortoiseshell butterflies and wood whites have appeared in numbers. I have heard a few bees - all bumble bees - no honey bees.

What were empty swathes of soil are suddenly full of growth.
I have planted out the butternut squashes and covered them with netting supported by piping. I have sown rocket in the gaps and courgettes in pots.
Where there is a space in the flower beds nasturtium and calendula seed has been put and wild flower surface sown on the rough ground near the asparagus. (6 spears up so far).

I have realised that the camassias planted on the top banking in the grass are a dark blue when I wanted the larger pale blue. Must make a mental note for the autumn but I shall probably forget.

And what can one say about oriental poppies - splendid, gaudy, vulgar? Red and green go together so well.

Last autumn I collected a lot of aquilegia seed and have just found it in a brown envelope. So, up to the wood and scattered it  about. As they are biennial plants next year will tell if it worked.


Time for a cuppa - just been up onto the hill behind the house and enjoyed the view south to the Fylde Coast and the whole of Morecambe Bay like a carpet, east to the Pennines and Ingleborough, north to the Lake District mountains and west to Kirkby Moor.

The garden is in one of its magical phases, flickering light through the trees, gentle rustling in the new leaved branches, every green a different green.

Two blogs in two days - too much? It is just that the garden is so full of everything at this time of year.

And, to cap it all, R got mentioned on Radio Cumbria this morning.
To find out why visit http://cawthwaite.com.

SQUATTERS TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE LATE SPRING

R checked her diaries and calculated that the spring/summer is running three and a half weeks late. Let us hope autumn is not early.

Unfortunately there have been consequences to this - the house martins finally arrived only to find that a pair of tree sparrows (the ones with the brown head (male)) had taken up residence and were well on with their brood. They can be heard chirping away from below.
The swallows still have a choice of nests - three to be exact - but do not seem interested much in any.
We have fledgeling great and coal tits emptying the feeders at high speed.

In the garden it is weeding and mowing and trying to find time for ideas. The alchemilla is great ground cover but getting out of hand. The redcurrants have set and are now well protected with netting.

Alliums, oriental poppies, granny's bonnets are all out in profusion but the seeds I sowed in the cutting garden bed are slow to germinate. The first asparagus has made an appearance and fingers are crossed, butter ready. Broad beans are through and sweet peas beginning to recover from planting.

The garden is still full of birdsong and I hope the late season will mean we have that for longer.
The promise of something white is growing - the white rosebay has spread on the upper banking and the crambe is in bud.
I planted three Azaleas - the yellow smelly ones - by a woodland edge path and the aroma when one passes is glorious. Just above, on an ash branch, we have hung a big set of wind chimes, albeit not quite high enough as I was never a boy scout so the the knots got confused - running slips and so on. You can only hear the gentle sounds when near but the chimes are hidden from view by a beech hedge (had their first trimming) so they come as a surprise.

It  is confession time. Despite all affirmations to the contrary we have not got around to dividing the primroses so less clumps but bigger next spring. The butterfly in the picture is a wood white, one of few insects in the garden.
Today it is sunny and warm with just a shallow breeze. One can almost feel the leaves soaking up the sunshine.

My butternut squash are ready to go out but I need more netting for the alkathene hoops. I have put in sweet peas where the dead raspberry canes stand forlorn and sad so if all goes well we will have a house full for the summer.

So many jobs to do now and so much lethargy!
R is already helping with the weeding and some of the buttercups are enormous - obviously liked the manure I covered the beds with in the winter. They look so succulent they could be eaten - not really of course.

So, off to put the mower away and get the shears out to clear grass from the trees and shrubs on the banking.

Phew!

DON'T GO AWAY?! TALIESIN

So, a quick pop off for a whizz around Dumfries and Galloway and the Spring Fling. Bought a big set of chimes for the garden from Melkinthorpe, did not buy any more metal birds from Adam Booth in Kirkpatrick Durham but was glad to see they have appreciated in value.

And, up at The Nook, the green grass grows all around around around etc . . . .
The garden is bursting with growth driven on by the muck I liberally applied during the autumn and winter.

Some shrubs are getting too big - R will have to wield her pruning shears with vigour later in the year.
One very dry, almost soilless bank is smothered in euphorbia but it does save weeding - except where it has decided to grow up through the paths.

I have concern about whether our fruit has set - there seems to have been a dearth of bees this year. Usually the blackcurrants are humming but - silence.
The house martins have not returned and the swallows seem unable to make up their mind as to whether they want to nest with us or elsewhere.

The rhubarb has exploded with the rain and two days of warmth - well not literally - that is what happens if one eats too much?


It was interesting, in Scotland, that we saw a hare, slow worm, reed bunting and a lot of white butterflies - especially small whites, and wood whites. We found a fabulous wild retreat, Taliesin, near Auchencairn - see at    http://www.swcwt.org/index.html
for details.

So I have returned with scraps of paper littered with ideas - different ways of mowing, bench positions and many others. There might even be a concession from my chaotic semi-wild jumble to R's organised, controlled environment, (might be).

Almost a whole row of raspberry canes are dead. Rather than cutting out I am going to grow sweet peas up them and then reorganise in the autumn. I cannot envisage a summer without fresh raspberries, nor later, making raspberry jam so summat wil 'ave to be done, a new bed and new canes, I think.
And therefore I am, off to have supper - porridge - after three days of rich food a la Masterchef.
Tomorrow a walk around the garden and a list to be made.

FLYING FOR JOY?

I have just looked out of the window and seen our first house martins pass, then four swallows - already investigating the old nest outside the kitchen door - and finally a swift scimitarred above the trees.
Winter is definitely over, rhubarb is in the bottom oven. The sound of chattering martins and swallows is wonderful. They fly like they are just enjoying the experience - a bit like otters playing.

This is May and the garden, though two weeks late, is beginning to burst at the seams. As the daffs go over and the primroses get swamped by new grass the forgetmenots and tulips come into flower.

Celandines, a bone of contention, are everywhere - R thinks they should be eradicated from all flowerbeds but I rather like these harbingers of spring and the leaves die down soon enough.
Many years ago I was reporting on a square
for the Botanical Society of the British Isles' Atlas of the British Flora and sending my reports off to Franklin Perring, I think, at Cambridge. One of my cards came back with a request to check whether the celandines had bulbils - they did not. There are two sub species of celandine in the UK, one with bulbils, one not. Those with tend to be more common in the east of the country.
These are small offshoots and each produces a new plant - lilies also have them.

As I speak the damson blossom is fading and legs, fingers, toes all crossed the fruit has set.
The plum, pear and greengage are still in flower as are the cherries. The wild blackthorn has been rather disappointing this year.

This morning I have been digging up and potting up black and red currants for my daughter who has a new house in Herefordshire. Every year I give out cuttings to friends and also shove a few in the far corner of the garden - spares you might say. These are for the birds who especially love the red ones.

The oaks have young leaves but the ash none - they do have some flowers. So we are in for a splash rather than a soak though last year we had both and more.

At R's suggestion, last year I scattered some Hedge Parsley seed in shaggy places - grassy bankings and such - and this year we do have some plants. The 'Queen Anne's Lace' is splendid to behold in roadsides but will need some watching in the garden, albeit the wilder areas.

Nothing goes to waste if I can help it. This morning I burned the bank statements etc as I had completed the accounts (and anyway I can access them on line) along with other receipts and so on. A bit of potash for the fruit garden. I wish I could burn the tax bill but then I am not a multinational corporation - well, have a bit of a corporation but that is all up front and . . . .

GETTING INTO GIGHA

We left our garden in full daff and primrose glory, grass mown, hoeing done, a cowslip mysteriously appearing on the upper banking, spotted flycatchers hawking, swallows wheeling - off we went.

North to Scotland and hope for a fine day, that was the plan.
Come day two we went south down the Mull of Kintyre, a quick ferry crossing and voila!

The only good weather day this year and we were on the Isle of Gigha - not in the garden working hard as we should have been. Good weather, good friends and a great garden.
We had stayed at Achamore House some years ago and the whole time there it rained, and rained. This time the sun was out and the day was glorious.
The work done to the gardens there was amazing. So much achieved since our last visit.
The viewpoint at the top of the garden revealed the western coast, a seal on a rock, head up, tail up and buzzards wheeling.
The rhododendrons were two weeks ahead of home and bursting with colour, especially the deep reds.
Camera was out taking visual notes - the pond, camellia walk, walled garden, bamboo tunnel - ears bathing in birdsong.
Summer was on its way.

But it did not arrive!

Next day was back to rain and cold and so on. We fled to Arran on a wallowing ferry, two of us looked a little green.
We fled home a day early - well, we could tidy up the garden.

It was raining, is raining and the grass has grown six inches, most of the daffs are dead (R deadheaded them yesterday), it is too wet to cut the lawn so I have to just watch the jungle rising from the turf.

It is amazing how much change can come to a garden with a day of warmth. The cherries, pear, plum and greengage are in blossom as are two of our damsons. Flowerbeds, empty a few weeks ago, are tumbling with growth. Forgetmenots seem to have seeded themselves everywhere (or did I scatter the seed?) They are in the rose bed, up the bankings, in the wood, down the bankings, everywhere and wonderful. Other surprises reveal themselves on closer inspection - two teasels in the main beds - they can stay, the japanese anemones I removed from the rose bed have come forth - must have left a smidgeon of root behind.

All in all it is so difficult to leave one's garden - the control freak in me - to its own machinations.
On a final note - the cling film on the back windows seems to have deterred the blackbird from attacking its reflection, the human hair down the mole holes has not worked too well. Mowdy is tunnelling away with renewed vigour.

At least one good thing - the previous owner had planted Spanish bluebells near the gate - I assassinated them last year and they seem to have disappeared. I can almost hear our native bluebells in the wood breath a sigh of relief.

BRAMBLIN' ROSE

Bramblin' Rose, bramblin' Rose
How you do it, heaven knows,
Though the thorns scratch, they are no match,
They can't defeat a bramblin' Rose?

I should explain - my wife, formerly known as R is actually Rosey to her close family, Rose to her sister and cousins and Rosemary to others.
She attacks the tip rooting monsters in the upper garden with vigour and they have to give sway.
She divides snowdrops and primroses and spreads joy and makes me a cuppa when I am fatigued.
When she spins I wonder if she will change into a superheroine (can I say that?) superhero.

The swallows are back, a pair orbiting the house getting back their energy for eggs and stuff. Mrs Pheasant has gone awol so she must be sitting. He is still strutting his stuff. We had a moorhen on the pond this morning. 

The daffs have been fantastic this year though late and the persistent autumn planting of a sack a year has payed off. Soon the deadheading will begin, then a feed just to get the bulbs nice and fat for next year.
My sweet peas are trying to get out of the shed but it is too early at the moment so they will have to bide their time.
Seeds have been sown in the cutting bed - Ammi, Love-in-a-mist, Sweet Williams, Wallflowers, Honesty, Calendulas, Green zinnias, Rhidolphia and larkspur, hesperis and sunflowers. I know - capital letters all over the place but you cannot have everything.

The willow tunnel, more like a willow avenue now, is lined with daffs as shown (and mole hills) (hidden). The honeysuckles and clematis planted to clamber over the willows are doing ok and should look good later in the year.

I have a confession to make - I have fallen for an advert on the telly. In amongst some plants, especially the raspberries are some tenacious weeds - nettles, buttercups, ground elder and so on. I do not want to dig the lot up at this moment and replant so have succumbed to a small pot of Roundup gel. You spread it on the individual leaves and hope the victim does not suffer too much. I intend to try it on the bindweed amongst the herbaceous borders later on - will report back. 
I know - it is not all compost and organic stuff and that but I tried to live with the weeds and do best I could but it did not work.

Back to Brambles and stuff - time for a love poem from our distant youth -


BRAMBLES

We were in love
and blackberrying in the rain.
One wisp of hair
lay soaked upon her forehead
and water sequins
crystalised her eyebrows:
though we were drenched 
we did not care about the damp -
kisses laced with drizzle
are strangely sweet
like mulled bramble wine;
our lips and chins
were stained with juice
and all the furrows of our hands
were dyed deep red -
we did not care,
we were in love
and blackberrying in the rain.

Bramblin' Rose, bramblin' Rose . . . . . . . . . 

OH! DEERE, JOHN

Here I am - just a stuck in the mud - lawn tractors are very heavy - I can vouch for that. Got stuck in boggy part of garden and in the end the only way out was to lift one end of the tractor sideways and then the other! All that is left now is a big muddy churned piece of lawn full of water. So out with the power spray and wash the machine then into the shower and wash the gardener.
I await the revenge of the injured back.

Bees a humming, summers a coming! First swallows over the house and everything cannot wait any longer. Buds breaking everywhere. Even the ash trees have got flower buds coming.
R is brambling amongst the bluebells - which are budding, the cold wind dropped today and finally some warmth. Mug of tea, seat in sun - aah!
There could be a frost tonight. We will now begin a month of fervent prayer for the blossom on the fruit trees. Last year a frost wiped out the lot.
Netting has been bought and installed around the flowering red currants. Last year it only took two days for the blackbirds and thrushes to eat the lot.

We have a gradually expanding primrose banking (there are a few wood anemones and bluebells,
celandines and such there too) by dividing every
year and replanting after flowering.
They are so pretty, especially in a small vase, and smell wonderful.
In Ireland the Primrose is the samhaircin, the May flower (the actual name by which it is known in Donegal, as in Shetland), the spring harbinger. (from The Englishman's Flora by Geoffrey Grigson).
He also list local names such as Buckie-faalie from Caithness, Butter Rose from Devon, and Simerin in Yorkshire (cf. Norse kusmyre, 'cow anemone'.)

The garden is peppered with tulip remnants - one here, a few there - unlifted in the autumn as buried deeply. They gradually wane in vigour, one of the worst for this being the pretty tulip Annabelle.

My son is trying to improve the appearance of this blog with great advice - actually his dad could do with a little (a lot I hear) attention - so if you see any change it is his fault. If it continues in its current state than all his advice has fallen on stony (no muddy) ground.

Currently Ulverston has its walking festival in full flow so I went to and event in the garden of Swarthmoor Hall (George Fox, Margaret Fell, quakers and stuff) where we sat on our backsides and sketched. I ate lunch and defaced a few sheets of drawing paper before consigning them to the bin when I got home. But it was peaceful and quakery in there.
My Great Great Grandfather and his wife visited Swarthmoor when they were on their honeymoon in June 1847. It was strange to imagine him sitting in the garden looking up at the old building just as I was 166 years later.

HOPING FOR A LITTLE HELP FROM HELEN YEMM

Heron back, frogs in hiding, transplanting cosmos seedlings, cock greenfinches fighting outside my window, blackbird attacking the window again, difference of opinion in house.
R has decided after all she is not a wild garden enthusiast, wants garden rooms a la Hidcote, big yew hedges etc. I mentioned that I am getting more decrepit and cannot wait for yew to grow, cannot afford a ready grown hedge.
IMPASSE! (Except I will give way somewhat as I love her.)

The garden is a bit here, a bit there, I suppose, a bit short of good planning. I take a corner and think - got some old blackcurrant cuttings - shove them in there, big empty patch of lawn needs six white birch. R thinks veg and fruit beds in wrong place - spent hours double digging and preparing them - cannot face starting that again.
Alas, alack, what shall I do.
Then an invite came - I could try and get some help - Helen Yemm it!
I cannot see the trees for the brambles, the garden needs a fresh pair of eyes, without floaters and soily glasses.
So I have sent off my blurb and a few photos, not to mention the address of this blog. (If that doesn't put her off nothing will.)
The first image is the view from the Wendy House (where R writes) up the garden over the boardwalk (rotting a bit) over the ponds (silting up). The thug plants in the foreground are pendulous sedge.

Molehills are all over the place but I have not the heart to borrow Barry's trap, end it all, make a waistcoat.
I take the soil and put it onto flowerbeds where there is a deficiency of depth. No doubt, one day, the big mower will disappear into a chasm.

The weather has turned much colder again today and I am glad I resisted the spring urge to put out tender plants too early. We are already three weeks late.


Talking of flowering currant bushes, big, pink and smelling a bit like cat wee, I just leave them. They were something left by the previous owner of the plot, Tom. Unfortunately the pink of their flowers does clash with the gaudy yellow of the daffs. The biggest clump hides an old well, an ugly black box covered in bitumen, and now wire netting to keep investigative grandchildren out.

There is also a Rambling Rector rose entangled in it.

It is Rs turn to do the flowers on Sunday at church so a big pick of the daffs is coming on - we have plenty - and they do not need fancy arranging - a big vase stuffed with daffs is splendid enough as it is.

The photo is of wild daffs - these are on the banking at the fringe of the wood - where the wood anemones, golden saxifrage and bluebells grow.

I dug out part of the small stream where it crosses the septic tank soak away - and into which the stream has been disappearing - lined it with pond liner and replaced the turf at the side and stones in the bottom.

It worked! The stream flows on, well twenty feet to the bend where it crosses the soak away again - there it disappears as before. 

More digging needed.

In fact R wants the stream to run in a completely different place - sigh!

Actually, with all the dry weather we have had recently it is hardly running anyway. The ponds and Duck cafe (pair of mallard) are kept going by the overflow from the septic tank and thus the house.

All I have to do to top it up is flush the loo or have a bath.

The taddies do not seem to mind.

After all that let me finish on a high note. Since we came I have been spreading and sowing candelabra primulas below the pond, as at Harlow Carr (but a bit more modest), and this year we are going to have a fantastic show which gives more seed etc etc.

Something for nowt! And I was born in Lancashire not the other place over the Pennines.

HEY-LA-DAY-LA THE BLACKBIRD'S BACK

Moles - the hair's not working, the rabbits munching and hey-la-day-la the blackbird's back, hacking at himself in the windows at the back of the house, making a terrible mess as he has accidents in his excitement. I shall have to get some new expandable trellis and fit it into the window space on the outside - worked last time, took it down, thought he had gone away.


Oh! Yes, and the pheasants are mating right outside my study window, she reluctant(ish), he hop on, wham bam done and off. He follows her everywhere like a guard and yesterday was attacking wood pigeons under the feeder - I mean, it is not as if they would give her a second look, is it. However, if you look closely, her brown plumage is magnificent, not so gaudy as the boss, but fabulous.
He, obviously, is totally at the mercy of his hormones and his jealous mind. She is his Coo Ca Choo.

I have mown the lawn again using both mowers, big one for mass grass removal, small one for the boggy bits, difficult of access bits and awkward corners.

We survived the gale last week with only a few twigs off the ash trees and my Dwarf on his side, now put up again.

First beetroot and carrots sown as are first broad beans. I have covered the beetroot with alkathene hoops and netting to try and keep off the piddocks,  (pigeons). A new sage plant has been put in and paths have been weeded. Ah! Yes, weeding - it's only just begun.
Out from behind the shed have come my carefully saved bean sticks (bean sticks are a bit like pea sticks but larger) and these have been shoved in to support the broad beans when and if they come up.

Yesterday was a glorious day - how spring should be - but this morning is cooler and darker. I can smell the rain in the air. I am not sure my wife believes me when I say things like, 'It is going to snow, I can smell it.' But I can (or I am fantasising). It is surprising sometimes what can get up one's nose.

I you look at the image of the willow tunnel taken just over a week ago and then at the view from the house you can see how the garden has greened in such a short time with the warmth and rain.

The willow image also shows one of the new plantings we did of daffodils in the autumn. They are not doing quite as well as I had hoped but there happens to be a line of mole hills down each side. The mind of Mowdywarp mystifies me - why just in the line of the trees? Such a strange solitary creature living in its dark world. What fantastic hands though (R says - not hands - paws or something but not hands) for digging. With mitts like that who needs a spade.
Actually, if you look at paws, whatever, especially rodent 'paws', they are just like little hands - Oh! Hands, that is what they are.

Bama lama bama loo, that blackbird's at it again. Its latin name is Turdus merula. I am not sure about the merula bit but the other part is all over the window, the wall and the ground.
Must go, bucket in hand.
Anyone know an avian psychiatrist?

PETER HAS EATEN MY FRITTERS

We had a gale last night - twigs down, bench on its back, pots all over the place but the rain has now gone and things have calmed down. The daffs are fantastic - I just by a cheap sack every autumn and shove them in. Next year the plan is to fill the field hedge at the garden bottom.

Having planted one of my favourite flowers out in the autumn, snakes-head fritillaries, I went out today to admire them only to find that some devilish individual had snipped off all the buds.
So, a little research on the web was needed to reveal that fritillaries are a favourite food of RABBITS!
So, I have no chance - they live here, visit here, sunbathe here and dine here.
I could cover the flowers with netting but that defeats the aim of enjoying their bells blowing in the breeze.
In fact it seems to be fauna week!
Just seen first House Martin - they have beaten the swallows this near.

Mr and Mrs Pheas. trundle around under the bird feeders. She is eating for several - eggs on the way. He just struts about in front of our single gnome (though it is a dwarf - Doc) given to me on my retirement.The mad blackbird has returned to attack its reflection in the windows at the rear of the house.
We have wood mice and voles, shrews and moles.
Frogs croak, taddies swim, caddis fly larvae crawl around in their little houses.
Pigeons get fatter and fatter, they nest in the conifers by the shed.
The collared doves have abandoned the beam outside the kitchen and gone nesting elsewhere.

And on and on - first grey squirrel seen so trap out - after last year when one climbed the house wall to empty a house martin nest.
Then, to cap it all, R returning from a trip to the theatre spotted, in her headlights, a rat crossing her path. I suppose, with horses and stables next door, they are inevitable neighbours.
I wonder if Megatron, the local black cat, might actually meet with my approval if he presented us with a dead rat?

R is off to a school reunion this weekend so I will be on my own. The weather is set fair so in goes all sorts - jut bought a new sage for the herb bed and some shallot sets. Sweet pea seedings thrive but the cosmos have a touch of the damping off.

The grass is greening, the weeds are growing, I get I'll just mow the lawn - what do I care? I've got my Aga to keep me warm. (And R)(Though I tend to keep her feet warm rather than the other way around.)

. . . WOULD A WOOING GO . . .

Hey-ho said A. Riley.

A-croaking and mating and all that stuff, taddies and spawn and you will notice that these two froggies are different colours.
So which is which we thought and watched. The paler brown frog came out on top so we assume that this is the male, or a male or a matriarch.
The grid you can see is my anti heron device - a bit of old concrete reinforcement mesh chucked over the pond corner where all the activity goes on.
They don't half croak, sounds more like they have a frog in the throat (except it is all bulgy cheek action.)

The Grandchildren have been here (4 and 7) which has been fantastic but we are a little phew! now.

With their mother's help, 2 more pieces of mesh, willow wands from the top garden and an old rhododendron bush we made a den. The photo shows the entrance between the stems of the bush.
Next plan is a swing on a branch nearby. You can see we even had a doorstep.

Yesterday it rained - Hooray! I never thought I would ever say that again by the end of last year but that and the rise in temperature has transformed the garden - tulips are budding (two out), anemones, wood and otherwise, pulmonary, first forgetmenots - everything is bursting out all over (and it is only April (not June)).

Soon the soil will be warm enough to put in plants, sow seed outdoors and such. The sweet peas and cosmos have germinated in the utility room - warmth, no greenhouse - fingers crossed.

We sat in the sun down by the Wendy House and listened to the dulcet tones of Froggy and Co. Winter is finally over!!

The last image is a long lens portrait of out garden mower, not the mechanical one but the one that has the name, Oryctolagus cuniculus, or Peter, sitting under the Davidia scratching itself in the sun. It sat there for over an hour before lolloping off in a blasé manner towards the veg beds. Now you know why we have fencing around our precious produce.

And look how fat it is. This makes me wonder if it is a female with  a litter of mini buns in the oven? Nightmares are made of this.

So, poor old Monty Don has been blamed for the weather being cold and, sensibly, saying not to sow seed and shove bedding plants into such chilly soil.

You tell 'em Monty - at least someone is thinking, 'Common Sense" "Nous" (pronounced to rhyme with mouse) spring to mind. 

Anyway you can buy your veg at Lock's Garage. It is a four hour journey for me to get there.

LUVVY AND DUVVY, AND A BAD BACK

The daffs are on their way. It was a bit warmer yesterday, at last, and they have responded - probably just got fed up waiting.

The collared doves have been billing and cooing just outside the kitchen door. He flies down and back with a stick, blade of dried grass or something similar.

He presents it to her and she tries to arrange it after a cuddle. He flies off again in search of more nest material. As soon as he is gone she considers his last offering and discards it onto the floor beneath.
This goes on for two whole days before they decide this is not the right place. They do not seem to be bothered by humans peering at them from six feet away, albeit on the other side of the glass door.
The covered paved area beneath the chosen beam is now littered with debris.
At least they might have tidied up behind them.
They have been a fixture near the house for several years. Often, when in the kitchen, you can hear them coo-cooing - the sound coming down the chimney - they are perched on the pot.

And plants keep arriving - did I order those? Really! The cold frames are getting full, waiting for rain and warmth before planting.

And this is a potty time - potting on I mean, plants moving up the pot scale so they can grow - black nails from the compost, frozen fingers from the weather. Potting up is not something I can do with gloves on.

Yesterday was Grand National day and as usual I picked the fifth, Rare Bob, because my nephew's name . . .  a friend said Teaforthree so my sister and wife backed that - and it came third!! Still, we maintained the once a year family tradition of the race, nibbles and champagne (well, cheap pink Australian fizz.)

Every time I go up the garden the trees have shed again. The stick pile grows and grows.
Some are saved as kindling but the rest just go on the heap.
The stream has all but dried up now the last of the snow behind the walls up on the hill has melted. All is getting very dusty. I am watering pots and special plants.
The two dead amelanchiers have been cut right back - one is definitely moribund but the other shows faint signs of hope. I will keep and eye on it with everything crossed (fingers and things.)

The grass is still brown - I do not have super lawns - more mown field full of moss and creeping buttercup and so on. I do try to eradicate the marsh thistles for the grandchildren's sake - nasty with bare feet.

Poles and peasticks are ready. Soon there will be much work to do but I strained my back the other day.
Own up.
Okay.
I went to have a golf lesson and a practice and was crippled the next day. R had to put my socks and shoes on. I can shift barrows of manure but . . .
The moral of the story -
I will just have to not practice anymore!
Not that it makes any difference to my game.

So here I am waiting for spring proper, waiting for rain, for the plants to grow - and weeds - I had forgotten about them. Though, if I cannot stoop because of my back someone else will have to do the weeding.
Perhaps I will just nip off and swing a few clubs, a little practice?
R .......... can you help me?

ALL MUCK IS DUST

and, I suppose all flesh is grass - cows eat grass, we eat cows, or if one does not eat meat drink milk, eat butter or if a vegan - er? - eat grass?
Anyway so it is true in a way that all flesh is grass.
Having said that we are near drought in the garden and it is so dry the soil is becoming dusty despite the oodles of muck I dumped on it. Blackbirds throw the stuff around searching for food and make a mess. It is no good sweeping it up, the wind just blows it back.
Yesterday I had a stick collecting session and then contemplated having a bonfire but all is tinder dry and we might have had to have a fire engine as well - so no fire.

THE MOWER HAS BEEN OUT! - first cut, just a top trim and what a difference it makes. We have a garden again.
Last year, in March, I blogged about the bluebells being out early! Now the daffodils are struggling to flower in April. I hope there is someone in North Africa warning the swallows to put on their wooly comb's.

R has been dividing and transplanting the snowdrops. 'I will leave it to you to decide where would be best,' I said, and so she put them in at the bottom of the top banking, just where I mow. Keep thy mouth shut, lad, I said to missel', now you will have to put off mowing that bit till July so the bulbs can fatten up.

There are some primroses out but only a few.

Black stuff is laid on the veg beds to warm them up, exclude light, alkathene hoops adorn the rows, plants in pots fill the cold frame waiting for warmer soil.


I am having some difficulties with the septic tank soak away - I know septic tanks are not the most appealing of subjects but . . .


Where the soak away lies under the stream, the water has decided that the slotted pipe underneath would be a better route than down the stream bed. So the bottom half of the stream is dry and water emerges in the ditch by the lower hedge.
I will need to sort out the bed and line it with pond liner or some such I think. I could just let the water go into the pipe and fill in the dry part of the stream but if it rains a lot there would be an overflow and trouble on t' lawn.




The drain away is thirty yards below the tree with the nest box in the photograph. That is a reconditioned box as the top came off. A bit of sawn off fencing plank end was just the job. Notice the metal plate around the entrance to keep the woodpeckers at bay.

The hills in the distance are the Forest of Bowland across Morecambe Bay. I am rambling, (big surprise! What a change!)


Last year was real struggle with the sweet peas and someone suggested plugs - but they are expensive so, maybe.
I will finish with a withering comment about brown fingers - probably just bad gardening and laziness - but a friend has a big veg plot in a field (you know who you are D J) and he said, 'Slugs, what slugs?'
WHAT SLUGS!! I can probably lend you some, buckets full, unless this cold snap has set them back. (Image of gardener on his knees in the veg plot praying.)

CAUGHT RED-HANDED

Forgot to get R a plain chocolate egg for Easter. So, I hard-boiled three eggs, one with pansies, one with onion skins and one with cochineal - and now I am red handed. A little deftness with  a marker pen embellished them (One with a sad face as the shell had cracked.)
Also made Easter biscuits as per the Marry Berry show on tv - they are v nice, a bit like brittle Welsh cakes.

I have been fencing - not with epees, foils and rapiers but planks, hammers and nails. The idea is to hide the veg beds etc from the house.

I have ordered a climbing rose - chose Golden Showers - and have stuck a sheep skull on top of the right hand post. This fence will become adorned as time goes on.
The blue alkathene piping you can just see through the fence is the framework for some improvised protection for the beds. Fleece early on then netting later.
This year I am determined to try and keep pests out.

Then I show you a picture of our rhubarb forcing pot with some stunted stems and leaves in the foreground. The plants inside the pot are not much bigger.

I wish to update you on the efficacy of human hair in getting rid of Moles. Gilly, it works, BUT having left its hairy run it has set up twenty feet away with a new one, more bigger mounds, more soil and so on. So more hair and hope.

Yesterday we went to the outstanding Garden Nursery run by Abi and Tom Attwood at Halecat, Witherslack - http://www.halecatplants.co.uk. We bought some plants for the new cutting bed - prices very reasonable, place spotless, a pleasure to walk around.

Back to the garden - I raked out part of the banking by the wood yesterday to clear dead grass and stuff. This revealed all the primrose plants we had divided and replanted last year.

Soon they will be out and glorious.

The third photo is of tiny taddies in the lower pond. The frogspawn is becoming a seething black mass. On the left you can see a water snail trail shaped like a hook.

Mr Pheas. in all his splendour is rooting about under the shrubs at the top of the garden. They nest there every year so he is casing the joint.

The big mower is still not out - the grass is hardly growing - but it cannot be much longer, can it?
Everything is waiting - seeds, plants, cuttings - the soil is too cold, the gardener is too cold!

April 1st tomorrow, ten weeks to the longest day and we still freeze in a Siberian wind. I wonder of Putin knows something I don't. Is this a ploy to up sales of natural gas?
Well, let me tell you Vlad. it won't work with us.
(We don't have gas.)

EARTH IS HARD AS IRON

And water like a stone.
And air like a vacuum cleaner sucking warmth from me.
Yesterday I potted up 32 Senecio (Brachyglottis greyii) and by the end my hands were like ice. You cannot do this properly in gloves. R like the shrubs and we have a patch of doing nothing so there some will go, others to Christmas Fairs, coffee mornings and so on.

R clips them early every autumn so that they are comfortably round. You can see one in right foreground  in the photograph, the writing shed, for R not me, above it and the stables over the hedge beyond that - source of the wonderful manure.

R like to clip things, not my ear 'ole, well, not often, so more and more plants are becoming shaped. Is this a topiary fetish, I wonder?

I have completed the manuring, mulching, top dressing at last having repaired the barrow wheel.
So now I have to think of new projects - a fence between the garden and the veg and fruit is on the agenda, perhaps.

So to the current topic of SNOW!
Cumbria is inundated, cut off, submerged we hear - well, not all of it. Here around Morecambe Bay it came and went quickly - there is still a bit behind the hedgerows and the occasional flurry in the air but that is all. The rabbits are out in the garden trimming the grass and birdlife everywhere. There has just been an almighty row outside my windows - fighting wood pigeons - MEN! (It could be WOMEN! but I do not think so.)

Plants are emerging despite the prolonged winter - chives by the path in the kitchen garden, day lilies in big clumps, some things? - I am not sure what they are - bulbs of some sort, I think - oriental poppy leaves and so on.

Yesterday I also wandered across the lawns and through the woodland picking up sticks - the ash trees shed all the time - and snapped them into 9" lengths for kindling for the wood burner.

The garden is like unexploded dynamite waiting for the plunger to be rammed home. We will get milder weather one day, warmth and soft rain (like you get in Ireland) - then the ground will erupt with growth.
Trouble is I am getting fed up waiting.

The pots that have had yellow pansies flowering all winter now have tulips pushing through. I think they are red - I think. I know - label things, label things, label things. But there is something special and delightful about wondering what things are and then getting a nice surprise (or not).

It is almost time to divide and plant the snowdrops - a ritual every year - divide and multiply. Half of each small clump gets moved and the snowdrop carpet spreads.

Off to town to peruse the market stalls to look for bargains for the garden. Will I buy seed potatoes - probably not - I like to grow things that are difficult to get - or expensive - if the weather will let me.
Surely it cannot be as wet this summer as last - can it?
Probably can!

sNOw GARDENING TODAY

White flakes are driving across the garden from the east, pausing and scattering in disorganised fashion, then resuming the urge to go west. Tree trunks are white on the eastern side impaled by the soft snow.
Spring is here - well, came yesterday with the equinox.

The heron has been back and now the mallard are mopping up for breakfast. They know, obviously, that I am not a very early riser. The frogs have survived under the mesh protection I put across one corner of the pond and under that are large clumps of spawn.

Now the wind is whipping the flakes up into a maelstrom, swirling, driving, eddying all at once. (Read Robert Frost's poem). The gnome has an extra hat, shawl and is slowly disappearing from the feet up. In the wood the statue of the small boy looks cold and lonely.

I have been bereft this week - how one depends on a wheelbarrow - because of a puncture. So I did the logical thing - bought a new inner tube over the internet and then mended the old one with a bicycle repair kit. Having done that I am back to more barrowing of manure. The cutting bed is now completed and ready. (Cutting for cut flowers not cuttings though you never know, I might use it for both).
I am a very much lesser form of Gorbachev having impaled my forehead on a branch of the pear tree - just a scabby patch, not a birthmark.

Still only the odd daff.

I notice in the Gazette that this weekend Dora's Fields at Rydal (William Wordsworth stuff, daffs in hosts) are open. People will enjoy all the leaves I am sure.

The walkway through the boggy area is repaired but only for this year. I am cogitating, (NO, cogitating), about getting in a lad with a digger and excavating the garden bottom, putting in  a proper liner and having a gurt pond rather than a li''le un. (Pardon lapse into local dialect).
But then I would have to get into waders rather than Wellies (capital letter for the Duke) - concrete? That is not very Eco is it? So not concrete, then bog? And let it go?
You may have noticed that my hold on English grammar has departed (not that it ever arrived). Watching the snow go around and around, (old men of Aran and such? (prize for the source of that bit of lateralness)), has confuddled me.


Pots means plants.
Hence plastic tubs waiting for carrots, upturned bottomless flowerpots with copper tape around the middle protecting the broccoli and my rhubarb forcing pot (£1 at a house sale many years ago) in the rhubarb bed.

So I have lit the wood burner, have a coffee, feet up and a bit of thrillery words - no, Paul Temple, Lee Child, Reg Hill, Ian Rankin . . . I think I will return to the ultimate fireside read with John Macnab by Buchan - and as I am on a diet - again! - a sweetener and a banana.

Bananas are 0 points! Mmm!

WHERE HAVE ALL THE DAFFODILS GONE?

Long time passing -

indeed, Mother's Day is done and only the tete-a-tetes are out. Winter draws on and all that stuff.
One day there is hope and warmth in the sun, then up I get and lazily glance out of the bedroom window and - snow!
Off I go to try and spread a little (no, not goodwill) manure but the heap is frozen solid, a rock cliff.
Phew! One job I can get out of - but not for long.
It was so cold I had a great idea - all that dead grass on the lower banking could be burned off. (For new readers I have a strimmer phobia).
So, out with the matches, I will just light this small tuft - and whoosh!
The old man is running around like a squirrel in a cage (I know what that looks like) with an upturned lawn rake batting away at the grass desperately trying to save shrubs. (Which is more than can be said for the hair on the front of his head.) (Smell of singeing locks - equivalent to a Number 0. For (most) ladies there is a haircutting device which shaves at various lengths according the the attachment on the end - Number 1 is very short, 2 a bit longer etc.)

Mind you, it worked and half the banking had its old grass removed in a few minutes. I think the other half can just stay long for now. Anyway it is finally warmer - and raining.

The last few days the pond has been frozen over so we hope the frogs are ok - they must be, anything that can spend the winter buried in the mud at the bottom must have amazing powers of survival - I know, they are frogs but could we do it?
Having said that, there are times when hibernation under a blanket of duvet is appealing - in the dark dismal days.

The first surprises have started to appear. Cyclamen by the cherry - should they be, were they not, out in the autumn?

Buds are getting impatient, breaking, then stopping for the cold, then opening a little more with some sun and so on.

White butterbur is ignoring the weather and, as usual, getting on with flowering so that its big bristly stems and leaves can do some heavy photosynthesising as soon as possible.

And the garden is so full of birds, everywhere. The policy of habitat maintenance and feeding, come rain come rain, whatever, is working. There are so many birds I wonder how they can all find nesting space.

There is one very good piece of news - the blackbird that drove us mad last year attacking its reflection in our windows has moved. Last night a neighbour informed us that they were being pestered by it!

So, in all, I have a new saying for the English language - replace waiting for the paint to dry by waiting for the hair to grow! (Not a quote from Burns.) (Hair today, gone . . . enough.)