This last week, we have been blessed with spring weather in all its glory - sunshine and soft breezes have been the order of the day, although that is changing this weekend. It has been a wonderful boost to the spirit and to the body to spend time outdoors, to feel the sun on our skin, to shed layers of sweatshirts, thick socks, rubber boots and to sit out and impersonate lizards. Nature is playing along too, with spring bulbs sprouting and pulling away. I am most proud of my improvised planters for a couple of packs of Aldi special tulips (other cheap supermarkets are available), and am looking forward to a couple of flowers each at least!
It's official, the last 12 months have been in deficit for sunshine and by quite a lot too - something like 20% less hours of sunshine than average. While March has tried to make up for it, things are a bit behind. The glories of Facebook tell me that my grape hyacinths are late, as are my blue anemones!
We decided to spend most of Tuesday working at the Garden in the Country, which meant we were able to do useful things like shift water between storage tanks, do a proper mow on the meadow before anything got too tall, start to rotavate the potato bed, and plant up summer bulbs. We also sat out for a picnic lunch on the terrace overlooking the Orchard. Good quality tinned sardines with artisan bread, "raw" butter, tea made with water boiled in the Kelly kettle, using twigs that were getting in our way as fuel - life doesn't really get much better than that!
Friday evening was not spent as it should be, at the pub putting the world to rights, but rather opening up a house for an estate agent to show it to potential purchasers. They were late and annoying, but given the current weather, it wasn't so bad standing around in the garden, listening to the birds chatting their way to bed. As the sun set rather dramatically through the trees in the distance, I saw my first bat of the season swooping around. I hope it found lots of insects to make the evening's display worthwhile!
A couple of weeks ago (when I was feeling more positive about the world), I showed a photo of plum blossom forming. It has taken its time to mature, and a very few blooms were out today, but most are still just thinking about it. Very soon now there will be rich pickings for foraging insects as the plum trees start the procession of blossom. Next it will be peaches, then cherry and pear, with apple and quince bringing up the rear - or that is the theory anyway. The quince trees are showing very fecund buds, but the leaves come before the flowers so that is probably alright. Of the various varieties of apple we have, the Granny Smith has the most obvious flower buds, while the Victoria plum is well behind the mirabelle style plums at the Meadow.
The forecast for next week is not so good, so there is a chance I will bring home a trail camera for servicing and clearing the memory card. On the other hand, if the forecasters are being overly pessimistic, I could be planting onions and even a few spuds, so who knows? The bloke at lunchtime wouldn't do a forecast further than Monday afternoon - isn't it wonderful how with all the satellites and computing power that goes into weather forecasting, they still can't see further ahead than 48 hours?
And on that note - have a good week!
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