Can we really be there already?
Eastertide.
All is well here and I hope with you and yours too, and I hope you are all able to meet with friends and family over Easter and give them a hug. Please do.
The clocks have hopped forward, the sun has been kind, the dawn chorus is very busy, the woodpeckers are tapping away and, having decimated the contents of the loft, we have turned our undivided attentions to the garden.
The very, very long escallonia hedge that fronts the lane was looking very poorly (again) and after much deliberation the decision was made to be a bit ruthless. Then another executive decision to be even more ruthless and so there it sits, reduced by two thirds, dead wood thinned out, ivy by the barrow-load uprooted, and much talking nicely to it, but if it doesn’t revive its days are numbered. The lane is very narrow, and it does take a bit of a hammering from passing tractors, ploughs, harvesters, muck-spreaders et al so we are making allowances.
The ash poles are in and ready (Bookhound has created something of an installation with them this year) for my October sown sweet peas to be planted out. Bookhound’s dad was a sweet pea guru, and we have all his books, so we are hoping to emulate his success with a few of his tried and tested methods.
The roses are pruned and fed, the dahlias are still asleep under their bed of straw until our last frost date of mid-May, and I have a few new ones starting off in the greenhouse along with sunflowers, cosmos, verbena, verbascum and marigolds. There’s a little bit of joy heading in there each day to see who is winning the first green shoot race.
And so now we await the arrival of the swallows. They didn’t nest with us last year, for the first time since we have lived here, but they were around and did perform their usual farewell circling of the house as they left, so we hope they find their way back. And the barn owl box has had full occupancy all winter so we are watching closely.
I hope the world is turning safely where you are, that no one is watching the TV news too much and instead getting on with life and being as safe and happy and settled as you can be, and here’s wishing you all every blessing for Easter and beyond.
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