The President briefed the press during the week about his path out of lockdown restrictions, with the first relaxation tomorrow - I show below the actual different phases, but realistically there will be very little change tomorrow as the curfew is still there from 7pm, only essential shops are open, you are still meant to keep away from people if you can and work from home. The only difference is that you can travel anywhere during the day (6am to 7pm) without having to have a attestation. It really is no change for me.
May 19th will be much more interesting, while the 9th June means that we know by what date everyone will want their lawns mowed!!
Anyway, we continue with getting the vegetable plot at The Shack developed - I think there needs to be a manual on how to garden with cats as they can be absolute vandals, while thinking that actually they are really helpful and gorgeous. Well the latter might be true, but the former isn't!!
Anyway, after a struggle and a lot of sweating and pulling out of roots of perennial nasties, the sweetcorn has finally been sown. I have recovered the bed with weed suppressant mat, partly to keep the cats off, and partly to protect the seeds from the cold temperatures we are due over the next few days. While the maize is coming up in the fields around, I suspect that sweetcorn for human consumption is a bit less robust.
While I was doing that, John did a bit of mowing in the wildflower meadow, not least to check that the new drive belt on Ginger the ride-on lawnmower is working as expected. Now I know people are going all goofy about No Mow May, but here things grow about a foot to 18 inches in May (assuming it ever rains again), and hay is not an easy thing to mow. We were pretty careful to identify the area on the meadow that needed to be addressed as it was mainly shoots of bramble and old man's beard with attendant horsetail and thistle, while leaving the massed ranks of oxeye daisies, pink clover, linseed and orchids to do what they do and look lovely (but impossible to photograph to best effect). I found two bee orchids that had been caught, but close inspection showed that as the cutters were nice and high, they should still flower. We can also walk round the meadow without too much difficulty.
Once all that was done, we went for a walk around the One Acre Wood. There we have a different sort of lawn - an oak lawn! Very pretty, but they will not all survive, because that's not nature's way.
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