I think many people around here have decided to make it a long weekend. I managed to lay a new floor in the summer house this morning which required a lot of furniture shifting before and after, but now it's ready for the summer. Oh, where's it gone?

Another thing that went today was the contents of the nest box. All the blue tits fledged early this morning, an event I missed. It was easy to tell they had gone though - the garden was quiet again - no more blue tit chatter. I had to have a quick peek inside to see what they had left and found four tiny chicks inside. I reckong they were probably only about a week old when they died and had been lifted out of the circle of 'fluff' and put along the front wall of the box. From my calculations, I think their demise coincided with some pretty rotten weather we had a fortnight or so ago which must have made feeding them a nightmare for the parents.

But the good news, well probably four or five chicks must have made it out and quite possibly even more, as they do lay 8 to 12 eggs as a norm.

Emma had her Jubilee picnic party at school today and then went round her friend's house for tea. When we picked her up, we saw the new chicken run her friend's dad has built - most impressive. Especially interesting as we're thinking of keeping a few ourselves (but not until after the summer holidays).