I’ve mown the grass – a lower setting than usual, which means the lawn looks unnaturally neat – and have put up all kinds of defences against invading birdlife. It looks like paranoia on my part . . . but those tiny leek seedlings didn’t pull themselves out of the row to wilt on the bare earth. My particular bêtes noires are wood pigeons, cats and magpies (I was too late in netting one of the pear trees). Even sparrows: I shan’t forget watching them nip off and eat the just-emerging gooseberries a couple of years ago. Gooseberries are now shrouded like phantoms – which does leave them vulnerable to gooseberry sawfly damage, since no birds can pick off the caterpillars. Red- and whitecurrants are similarly defended.
Anyway – to pleasanter thoughts. Everything is growing fast in the usual haphazard way, and the rhododendron is blooming again. (Five years, is it?) I shall be cutting back and pulling up ruthlessly, but at the moment there’s still room for everything. Even better: the weather is finally warm enough to make sitting outside a pleasure.
Old Shoe Box 