Sitting at the back of the garden, half hidden in the meadow for my first cup of coffee of the day and along comes Mr Fox. Settling himself down into the long grass, making his nest for the morning. All is well with the world.
And then along comes a cat, spooking both of us and the day resumes.
In many ways this is the best of times for my garden. The wisteria must be around fifty years old, planted long before we moved here, and every year puts on an incredible display not just of flowers but the scent. In its third year, the thug clematis Montana is also in full flower, climbing the old depleted rose and just crossing the supports and heading into the wisteria. At some stage soon I’ll have to decide whether or not to try and keep it cut hard back or let it ramble forever.
The clematis has been such a joy, that another has been added to climb the other very elderly, very depleted rose on the next upright post. Those clematis planted in the shady wooded section a year or so ago are still alive, but as you’d expect are a lot more challenged by conditions. Still in a dark dry spot, ‘not dead yet’ can be seen as something of a success. Given my time again, I would not have planted the euphorbia, but put in some Japanese anemones earlier. They run rampant but at least won’t give me latex burns as I pull them up.
The late tulips are looking beautiful with their pink/white/purple shades really standing out against the green. After all of the rain, there’s an awful lot of green. Clearly I should be weeding more or at least some. If nothing else maybe I should make the effort to move the campion and cornflowers from the rose beds to the meadow. Next month the rock roses planted last year should start to flower.
It’s not a bad time to consider what might be good for next year in terms of bulbs ie what has worked and what has not so far.
Add more to naturalise in the meadow – bluebells, dutch crocus, late narcissus (barenwyn) camassia quamash, tulip bakeri
Add to the shade garden and under the garden hedges – small narcissus (tete a tete), bluebells or crocus. Hopefully some foxgloves will start to appear as well.
For plants still to flower, maybe some more alliums would be a good thing tall and interesting in amongst the later taller grass. I do wonder whether eremus, or knipofia would work in a Summer meadow. It’s all rather green at the moment and to be honest though I can see something is growing by its foliage, I’m not really sure what to expect. If I’m lucky, a swathe of ox-eye daisies is about to arrive but they could be anything. I live in hope.
Certainly the early pink roses are just about to flower and light up the garden. The white roses arrive almost an entire month later but do have the benefit of being more disease resistant. If I was a good gardener, no doubt I’d spray for blackspot regularly, but of course I forget. Every time I look at them I’m reminded of my late neighbour who loved her roses so much and was so hugely encouraging when we moved into the house.
The garden has a succession of show-stopping plants, supported ideally by other less showy but more useful ones. Having planted in a number of rejected foxgloves, self-seeded into a friend’s vegetable plot, I’m hoping they’ll settle in and supplement my roses next month. Sadly the snails seem to be eating them faster than they can grow. I know that the RHS has taken snails off the pest list, but really…
Someone must have spent quite a reasonable time and effort getting rid of well-known thugs such as Mexican fleabane, woodruff, hardy geraniums, forget-knots etc since I had to ask friends for cuttings. No doubt I’ll spend the last ten years of my life here trying to get rid of them so the next owner can start the cycle all over again.
The roses always will remind of my neighbour, the fleabane from the friend who taught my girls at Sunday school, the London Pride from my mother-in-law, the foxgloves from one of my best friends. Perhaps the sweetest part of gardening is the collection of plants from friends family and neighbours, the stories and memories they bring to mind.
Trying to create a wild meadow garden is not a quick project, certainly not as simple as letting your lawn run wild. The benefit to wildlife, especially butterflies is clear from the very first year, but there is still a sad lack of flowers in amongst the grass. I’m not aiming at flowers everywhere, but the nature of wildflowers seems to run to smaller less showy plants.
This is most likely always going to be a Spring/Early Summer garden with a once a year cut in Autumn so it just starts to shine in April. The frustration mainly comes from having wildflowers settle into the garden everywhere but the meadow. Campion loves living under my roses. Violets love the gravel path. Heck, everything loves the damn gravel!
Having said that, a few years in and we’re starting to see some progress, partly thanks to deliberate planting of bulbs and partly due to nature doing its thing.
Last Autumn we deliberately planted three dense splurges of bulbs under cloches as well as spreading out across the wider lawn. As a result, we have three mats of crocus, small tulips, bulb hyacinth and narcissus that were protected (somewhat) from the squirrels that can now start to clump up and colonise. It feels as though planting dense clumps will be more successful in terms of naturalising the grass since I’m loathe to clear the grass with weedkiller for planting and the root mass is so dense. Whilst most of the daffodils in flower beds have gone over, the barenwyn variety planted last year and supposedly closer to the wild version, is only now appearing in the meadow, a slightly darker and drier part of the garden.
Here are some of the wild flowers that can be spotted at the moment …
1. Primrose (Primula Vulgaris)
These are almost impossible to avoid walking along my gravel path, and yet are very shy in our meadow lawn. They can be found, but the dense roots of the grass make it a difficult environment for flowers to break through and the primroses are still struggling. In a real meadow, the animals grazing would have broken up the grass, creating bare spots and breaking through the roots of the sod to make life easier for wildflowers. Still, their pale yellow flowers really stand out against the green so the few we have are lovely. Primroses can appear as early as December all the way through until May, so April is the peak time to see them looking their flashy best.
2. Sweet Violet (Viola Odorata)
A culinary favourite due to its sweet taste, this small edible purple flower is often used as decoration on cakes or in salads. Sadly, it’s wonderful taste have caused it’s decline in the UK after being over-picked by foragers. In addition, this wild flower’s delicate scent has led it to being a common ingredient of perfumes, dating back to the Greek and Roman times. In the wild they are mainly found on banks or in meadows, but a keen eye is needed as they grow very low to the ground.
In my garden, yet again they grow very easily in the gravel path (tricky to get rid of to be honest) but spotting them in the meadow lawn is trickier.
3. Cow Parsley (Anthriscus Sylvestris)
These tall, exuberant wild flowers are everywhere in the UK, and a plant that I don’t really want to see too much of – I’m taking these out of the meadow before they take over. The wide brimmed white clusters of blooms sit atop a long vibrant green stem and are super common at roadsides or garden edges. A distant relative of the carrot, this plant provides food for all kinds of British wildlife. Note: they taste nothing like carrots.
4. Bluebells (Hyacinthoids Non-Scripta)
If you haven’t ever seen a bluebell wood in all it’s glory, now is the time to get out there and discover one. With around 50% of the worlds bluebells being found in the UK, we are privileged to be able to see this natural spectacle every year between mid-April and the end of May. The sweet smelling bell-shaped blooms carpet the ground of ancient woodland, making it easy to see why there are so many folklore tales surrounding these wild flowers. Easy to spot due to the bright blue colour, bluebells are often inundated with hungry bees, hoverflies and butterflies which enjoy feasting on the nectar.
I planted bulbs of these wild flowers into the meadow quite deliberately a year or two ago and am waiting for them to clump up and naturalise. If you plan to plant bluebells, make sure you get the UK version rather than Spanish which will overtake the indigenous version. At the moment they’re green shoots scattered through the grass about to flower.
A delicate and easily overlooked wild flower, this small white bloom provides nectar for not only bees and butterflies, but also moths which rely on this essential food source. They open in April and the flowers turn to seed pods by June, which pop loudly and are a signal of summer – earning it the nickname ‘poppers’. Most commonly found in woodlands and although widespread, this small flower will require a little hunting down.
In the meadow, it’s one of the plants growing underneath the yew hedge.
Greater Stitchwort – also known as the ‘Star-of-Bethlehem’
6. Wild garlic, Ramsons (Allium Ursinum)
This is currently taking over the woodland part of my garden, a surprise since it’s very shady and very dry. This year, I plan to transfer some of the plants to the meadow to see whether they like the environment.
Wild ramsons produce a tall, straight stalk with a cluster of fluffy white flowers on the top. An almost exotic looking plant with wide green leaves, it is more well known as ‘wild garlic’ and is one of the most popular foods for foragers to pick. When I was growing up, they grew alongside blue bells in the local woods so I’m hopeful that they’ll enjoy the meadow as much as the bluebells seem to enjoy it.
The whole plant from flower to root can be eaten, but if you are simply looking to observe this plant, chances are you’ll smell the garlic wafting through the woods before you see it. Much like bluebells, ramsons can overtake an entire woodland floor.
Wild Garlic, also known as Bear Leek
7. Ground Ivy (Glechoma Hederacea)
Growing barely a few centimetres above the ground, and producing only a few tiny lilac blooms that somehow blend into the green of grass, this is a tough wild flower to find. It’s actually a part of the dead nettle family (more on those shortly) but it’s habit of spreading widely has led it to being called ‘ivy’. Interestingly, despite its small stature, this plant kicks out a strong scent, and before hops were discovered it was frequently used in the beer brewing process.
8. Summer Snowflake (Leucojum Aestivum)
Not be confused with the snowdrops which bloom between January and March, these slightly larger, taller white wild flowers have very rounded bell-shaped blooms with small green dots on the tip of each petal. Does it compare in beauty to the more well know snowdrop? Well, that’s personal opinion.. Spot them on banks and in woodlands, often close to water sources.
I’ve planted some bulbs in a clump in the meadow and also in the woodland to try and see which environment works best for them. Hopefully at least one colony will succeed
9. Forget-me-not (Myosotis)
The tiny bright blue flowers of forget-me-not have to be one of the most loved blooms of all. Although they were originally a wild flower, these minuscule blue beauties are now more commonly found sprawling in gardens, giving rise to arguments as to whether they are indeed still a wild flower or not. They are currently thriving in my flower beds and making a brave attempt to break into the meadow.
10. Common Chickweed (Stellaria Media)
Another minuscule flower that will require a little patience to find, but is nonetheless fairly widespread throughout the UK. It’s mostly thought of as a weed, but can actually be eaten in salads and is a valuable source of nectar for tiny insect species. It’s actually pretty useful in the meadow at that point where the grass starts to thin towards the yew hedge – tough as old boots.
Common Chickweed – does actually get fed to chickens.
11. Garlic Mustard (Alliaria Petiolata)
Occasionally mistaken for a stinging nettle, this tall and impressive plant is crowned with white cross shaped flowers and gives off a faint whiff of garlic. As with many wild flowers, it is popular for use in cooking, particularly salads. It often grows in hedgerows and along roadsides, making it easy to discover.
It’s one of the plants I intend to take out – too much green and not enough flower for something of a bully plant.
Garlic Mustard – not a stinging nettle!
12. Common Comfrey (Symphytum Officinale)
This is another flower which is often considered to be a weed, yet has some incredible properties and is one of the best early food sources for bees particularly. Its deep roots drag nutrients to the surface of the soil for other plants to utilise and it makes good nitrogen rich compost.
A friend gave me some roots of this and it’s now taking over the woodland plot. The droopy bell shaped flower heads range in colour from white and cream to pinks and purples, looking strangely almost wilted. It naturally repels slugs and once it’s flowers I can take it right back to the soil and know it will come back next year – a lovely thug.
Comfrey in pinkComfrey in white
13. Bulbous Buttercup (Ranunculus Bulbosus)
Do you like butter – hold one of these flowers under your chin. If the golden yellow shines off your skin, then you do.
It’s found in most gardens, on road sides and along almost all footpaths and in my garden scatters itself through the grass.
14. White or Purple Dead Nettle (Lamium Album?)
THEY DO NOT STING! In fact, the dead nettle can make a tasty addition to salads. It’s super common and easy to find – often found close to real stinging nettles so take care if you are foraging. It’s easy to overlook these blooms as being ‘boring’ as they are everywhere, but close up the petals are almost orchid-like. It’s currently growing in amongst the chickweed and feeding early butterflies and bees.
White Dead Nettle Purple Dead Nettle
15. Cowslip (Primula Veris)
A fabulous little wild flower which has many uses, from helping cure coughs, to providing citrus flavour in food and flavouring wine. Tall and bright yellow, favouring meadows and open woodland, I’m still trying to find this in my meadow after last year planting
Cowslip, also known as Fairy Cups.
16. Lesser Celandine (Ficaria Verna)
This bright yellow member of the buttercup family starts blooming as early as December, and finishes in Apri. It’s a cheerful flower, supposedly found in damp woodlands or sprawling on shady bank sides yet absolutely happy in the driest spots of my meadow maybe because of the lack of competition from grass. With a high vitamin C content, this plant has been used for medicinal purposes in the past, and for insects it is a precious food source.
Lesser Celandine – also known as Pilewort (note in the picture a bulbous buttercup on the bottom left showing the difference in petal shape)
17. Dandelion (Taraxacum Officinale)
Prized for its flavour and long list of health benefits, it is regularly used in making salads, tea and even wine. It’s classed as a weed, and gardeners countrywide hate them with a passion. However, for the pollinators of springtime, they are essential food banks and of course children love blowing the fluffy seed heads known as ‘clocks’ to tell the time.
Bizarrely I can hardly find any dandelions in my meadow lawn.
Dandelion – has hundreds of uses
18. Common Daisy (Bellis Perennis)
Unmistakable and a children’s favourite – who hasn’t made a daisy chain?! Although this tiny, hardy flower is seen throughout the year – they’re just beginning to pop up through the grass
The Common Daisy – a childhood fave
19. Wood Anemone (Anemone Nemorosa)
A sure sign that the woodland you are walking through is ancient, this flower has signalled the arrival of spring for centuries. This delicate bloom is names after Anemos, the Greek god of wind, hence their other name; Wind Flowers. The leaves smell slightly musky.
Having planted some of these around both the meadow and the wood plot, the only ones I can find are popping up in nearby flower beds (thanks to the squirrel relocation service)
Wood Anemone – also known as ‘Wind Flowers’
20. Snake’s Head Fritillary (Fritillaria Meleagris)
Immediately identifiable and one of the most unusual wild flower species in this list, this beautiful bloom is now classed as vulnerable in the UK. So called because of the snake-like pattern on it’s petals, it has been the subject of a huge conservation effort across the country.
I deliberately planted loads of these in the meadow, including the white version to make them easier to spot. As a result they’re looking beautiful in amongst the grass and encourage people to look closer and then spot some of the smaller flowers.
Frustrating as always, the gravel path is currently chock-a-block with these.
Snake’s Head Fritillary – now classed as a vulnerable species in the UK
As always with any activity in the great outdoors, please take care not to trample or upset the species growing nearby. Wild flowers are particularly delicate and all too often in the meadow, the prettiest flowers are the ones my husband has just squashed flat with his shoes.
Everyone seems to be handing over apples from their garden at the moment. It’s clearly past the point where they celebrated the arrival of first fruits and hit the “what do we do with them all?” stage.
As one of the early examples of late Victorian town planning, every house in my area was planted with either an apple or pear tree and such is the luck of the draw that we got the pear tree, an over large, under-fruited centennial. I’m guessing that most of the pear trees were taken out because they’ve never really been as practical, as useful as apples. Maybe we would swap it out if only it weren’t the most marvellous sight in the Spring with all of its blossom.
Given a choice of fruit tree, I’d prefer a plum tree. there are lots of good plum recipes, and who doesn’t love a good plum crumble or clafoutis.
Pears can be tricky.
But whether they’re over or under ripe, or that scarce resource, perfectly ripe (around 1 hour in a fortnight and then you can’t pick them all in time) a chutney works well with pears.
Initially I thought that this would be more of a sweet but bland chutney, the kind to pick up cheese on a cracker but in the end a heavy hand with the spices led to something else entirely. We used this as a substitute for mango chutney – a sweet chilli spice with a hint of aniseed.
Ingredients
200g demerara sugar
200ml cider vinegar
100ml perry (pear cider)
1 star anise
1 tsp ground cumin
2 red onions, chopped
1 tsp grated ginger
10 firm pears, peeled and chopped into bite-sized pieces
2 red chillies, halved (and deseeded if you prefer)
50g sultanas
Method
STEP 1Put the sugar, cider vinegar, perry, star anise, cumin, red onions and ginger in a large saucepan and bring to the boil.
STEP 2Add the pears and chillies and simmer for 40 mins until the liquid is syrupy and the pears are just cooked. Stir in the sultanas, remove from the heat and leave to cool, then spoon into sterilised jars.
This is the most lemony cake I could find to make and serve at a tennis match last night. Even so, I found myself regretting pouring off some of the drizzle – I should have left it for 5 minutes and come back to see whether it had already absorbed.
Using a Bundt (ring) tin takes most of the stress out of cake making. The middle can’t sink because it isn’t there. The sponge is already a bit more dense than usual so can soak up the lemon drizzled through. Modern spray oil means the cake will release easily from the tin.
And of course the pattern always looks impressive.
Without a bundt (and they are hideously expensive) use either two loaf tins or a normal ring tin.
Prep Time20 mins Cook Time45 mins
Ingredients
For the bundt cake:
225 g butter, softened
300 g caster sugar
6 large eggs
350 g self-raising flour
250 ml plain full-fat yogurt
3 lemons, zested
For the marinade:
2½ lemons, juiced
3 tablespoons caster sugar (45ml)
For the icing:
½ lemon, juiced
75 g icing sugar
Instructions
Preparation
Put a baking sheet in the oven. Preheat the oven to 180°C/ 160°C fan/ gas mark 4/ 350°F
Grease the Bundt tin with the spray. Spray evenly over all the surfaces, right into every nook and cranny.If you have the non-spray version or are using oil, use kitchen paper and/or a pastry brush to get into all those crevices
Leave the tin upside down over the sink to stop the oil from accumulating in the bottom
For the bundt cake:
Put all the cake ingredients into the processor, mixer bowl or large mixing bowl and blitz until mixed(Butter, caster sugar, eggs, flour, yogurt, lemon zest)
Scrape down and mix again. Pour into your tin, using a spatula to get all the mixture into the tin and smooth the top
Place the tin on the pre-heated baking sheet and cook for 45-50 minutes. Check if it’s done by pushing a skewer in. If the skewer comes out clean, the cake is doneThe cake will be well-risen and golden
For the marinade:
Mix the lemon juice and sugar until the sugar has dissolved
Leave the cake to cool for 5 minutes, then push a thin skewer or cocktail stick into the cake all over and spoon half the lemon marinade over. Leave in the tin for about 25 more minutes
Gently push the cake away from the edges of the tin. If the cake has a domed top, you may want to level it off with a sharp knife so that it sits flat
Put a wire rack over the top of the cake and turn upside down. The cake should slide out of the tin
Use the skewer/cocktail stick to make more holes and spoon the rest of the marinade over the cake. Leave to cool
In lockdown, my partner was diagnosed with Pakinson’s Disease (PD) and that would be properly gutting, if another friend hadn’t been diagnosed with motor neurone disease at around the same time.
The peculiar thing about ageing is that there’s always someone else in a worse situation, and whilst that doesn’t make our own individual situation better, it does make it more difficult to complain, at least out loud. Motor neurone is seriously unpleasant with a short prognosis, limited life expectancy and a rapid physical decline. The woman we know has gone from full out athleticism to unable to eat or drink, slurring words in speech and now struggling to walk, all within six months. She will die soon.
Common Dolphin
Finding out that your husband has PD is bad, but not that bad. It won’t kill him (probably). It will be the shape of his old age.
What does that mean?
The PD journey is very individual, dependent in part on how deep you have dug the well of health to start with and how well you have nurtured good habits and health.
Almost everyone diagnosed has had the disease for a good ten to fifteen years before they’re diagnosed, with the weirdest possible symptom, a lack of sense of smell, arriving early in our experience. I’d been pushing for a doctor’s visit and diagnosis for a couple of years, spurred on by a seemingly gradual increase in frailty and a decline in small motor skills (crabby handwriting) but it wasn’t until lockdown that he decided to follow through on it. He’d also managed to push through the pension administration hoops and retired. Having pushed for a diagnosis, I was still gutted when it arrived.
He’s very early on in terms of symptoms and medication. He has occasional light tremors in his hands (not all do) which makes fine work with his hands more difficult. He plays tennis twice a week, has a session once a week of Pilates and another of tai-chi. The tennis is good for his cardio-vascular system and gives him lots of balance practice (lots of chop and change of direction and balance). There is strong evidence that people who work out two to three times a week have a more gentle progression of the disease. The Pilates should be good for his core strength. The tai-chi should be good for his balance and if the worst comes to the worst, should help him fall well. There is some soft evidence that people with PD who practice tai chi fall less or at least feel less at risk.
Having been put on an initial medicine, his tennis coach noticed a large difference in his physical rigidity, but the rest of us really didn’t see much everyday change.
Humpback Breach
Parkinson’s Disease cannot be cured.
When someone tells you that they have an incurable disease, do not immediately google the disease and come up with helpful new treatments. Just don’t. You will never have the expertise of people living with the problem so it just isn’t helpful. Treatments for the disease are largely centred on managing the symptoms for as long as possible whilst mitigating the side-effects of those drugs taken over the long term.
PD is a gradually progressive neurodegenerative condition. The etiology and pathogenesis remain incompletely understood. The movement disorder of PD occurs largely due to the selective loss of neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta, with consequent depletion of dopamine in the striatum. The drugs work using a number of different methods, by being metabolized to create dopamine, or by activating the dopamine receptor in the brain, or by preventing the breakdown of endogenous dopamine. Currently my partner is being dosed with selegiline, a drug that helps prevent the breakdown of his own dopamine.
Dopamine is the happy drug in the body. It’s part of the fight or flight response as well. As a result, when the process to create and use dopamine is interrupted as with PD, the physical results can (and in our case do) include anxiety and/or depression.
My partner is routinely anxious. All day, everyday. Nothing is too trivial to worry about.
And anxiety is tiring. He’s lost weight.
My partner is also routinely glum. All day, everyday.
It’s wearing.
I have spent most of my adult life caring for my children. I had expected to have maybe a decade or so of freedom before finding myself caring for my older husband.
It’s difficult to express how very angry the diagnosis has left me feeling and almost impossible to share the frustration living with this disease second hand. My life feels wrecked, though it’s not my illness. It feels as though I’m left carrying the burden of it because he cannot, physically or mentally.
This February we spent twelve days on a rather small boat, hunting whales (for photographs) along the Baja peninsula, down the Pacific and up into the Sea of Cortez.
Fin Whale
My daughter, who is a small woman to start with managed to lose 4kg or just over half a stone in weight not because the sea was rough (aside from a couple of days) but because the cook was rubbish and there was nothing for someone with a dodgy stomach to eat.
Fin Whale
When you’re seasick the last thing you want is to be faced with a plate of something not-quite-curry-notquite-sweet&sour.
Orcas
But we certainly found whales.
Orcas Hunting
And dolphins of many types, even a porpoise though since that was being hunted to death by a (rare) type of killer whale, maybe that was less than lucky.
Common Dolphin
The reason for choosing this trip in particular was the access to lagoons along the coast.
Humpback
The lagoons alongside the Pacific are where grey whales calve, and unable to do anything but feed their calves for months on end in a desperate bid to get them strong enough for the journey back to the Arctic, the whales get very bored and curious.
Grey Whale Baby
So when people descend (only one boat is allowed in the lagoon at a time) in little skiffs, the whales approach and interact.
Petting a wild grey whale that has come to be scratched and scritched by you and your fellows sharing a tiny little boat much smaller than the baby whale never mind its mother lifting it up to see you, has to be one of the most amazing experiences.
Petting Grey Whales
Two full days of whale petting later, and we set off south to find humpbacks dancing and singing in the waves off the tip of the peninsula along the way meeting up with bryde, fin and blue whales. The female humpbacks swim south to breed, but are quite likely to decide once there that they don’t fancy it and turn around to swim back. A dominant male will accompany her on the journey in hope of breeding whilst others approach and attempts to jostle him away from her side.
Humpback Watching
From the boat, this all looks incredibly serene: a family group happily travelling in tandem. From above the slicing and dicing of swimming males trying to cut each other up in the water, blowing bubbles to warn of territory and threat is more apparent.
Humpbacks
It was both the best and worst of trips.
Mother and Child Breach
Best news of all: I will never feel a need to go whale watching on a boat again.
Humpback BreachHumpback breach
Worst news of all: Photographing in the wild is hideously expensive, and incredibly addictive. Tigers in India are next.
Why do houses keep breaking? You spend a sizeable amount of time in your twenties desperate to be able to afford your own home, only to find out when you eventually own the deeds that they come with a never ending litany of disasters.
So getting the house painted on the inside, top to toe, had been put off for a decade or more. It seemed sensible to schedule the work for when I was away on a trip to Baja, but then who would have though it would over-run by two weeks? I arrived home after more than twenty four hours of travelling to find the house in chaos, dust everywhere bar a one metre square on the sofa in front of the television where he obviously sat down each day. All else had been left to gather dust and debris.
Two weeks with workmen in the house is difficult, even if they’re nice enough people who work quite hard to not get in the way, to be pleasant company. And since I was glad they’d been there to keep him company (and were on a fixed charge) I couldn’t get too cross. Painting was followed by a leaky radiator that required the heating to be turned off for a fix, which in turn was followed by repairs to two toilets. The final fix was supposed to be yesterday, but flushing the toilet led to a flood in the bathroom – at one o’clock in the morning obviously – so clearly we’re not done yet. And that’s not counting the repair to the roof, the trim underneath a dormer window is letting water through and damaging the newly painted ceiling underneath. Joy.
Maybe a better question would be: why do I have to be the one to fix stuff, or to stress and organise the stuff being fixed? Because every family seems to have one person who for want of a better reason gets stuck with this stuff. And in our house that person is clearly me. When the toilet flushed and the floor flooded, it was the second time in the evening. Why didn’t my daughter or partner recognise that there was a problem? At least it would have been earlier in the evening, and someone else would have been around.
It’s got to a stage now where my partner literally thinks of something that ‘might’ break, and feels a need to let me know. What if? And because I’m a manic sorting kind of person who needs to solve problems, once he’s pointed out a possible problem, it’s very difficult to ignore it.
Apparently the annual RSPB UK bird count survey is over and whilst I recognise the birds, it seems a bit different to my own garden feeder.
RSPB birdwatch – the top 10 birds
1. House sparrow – almost never see these in the London garden 2. Blue tit – probably the most common visitor 3. Starling – an occasional visitor 4. Wood pigeon – not so much of the ‘wood’ but we see the city sort daily 5. Blackbird – at least weekly visitors 6. Robin – each and everyday second only to the tits 7. Goldfinch – never spotted on my feeder though a friend four streets down is regularly mobbed by these 8. Great tit – probably the second most common visitor 9. Magpie – each and every day 10. Chaffinch – cannot remember the last time I spotted on here
My birdwatch – the top 10 birds
1. Blue tit 2. Great tit 3. Robin 4. Pigeon 5. Magpie 6. Long tailed tit 7. Rook 8. Jay 9.Blackbird 10. Nuthatch
All about me!
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The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Bluebell carpet, Norfolk
Bluebell, also known as cuckoo’s boots
Comfrey in pink
Comfrey in white
White Dead Nettle 
Purple Dead Nettle
