The Hedge.

Mrs TD was working today, but I was instructed to be ready to start giving our privet hedge its annual hair-cut when she arrived home at 3 p.m. and she would help. I dutifully started work. Just as I was giving up for the day three and a half hours later and having filled our quota of three wheelie bins with the clippings, Herself strolls up to help tidy the last of the rubbish away. I'll do the other side on Thursday (weather permitting) after the bins have been emptied. I have to admit that I have seen a less skilful example of hedge trimming than this, it was the handiwork of Jnr under my expert tuition; as he commented at the time, “If you pay peanuts, you get a monkey - if you pay nothing you get me.”

Wikipedia can't make up its mind whether the shrub is native to just Asia and Australasia, or if its range includes Europe and Africa however, the page on the common privet (Ligustrum vulgare) allows it to extend as far north as southern Europe. The plant has all the hallmarks of an invasive alien specie as it is not at all popular with our wildlife; the garden birds will not nest in it and neither will the aphids suck its sap. In spite of this, there were quite a few bumblebees working the blossom; mostly common carders but with a few white tails and buff tails thrown in. My skills are not up to identifying that featured on the "extra" from the picture, but I think it's the buff tail.
Myself, I would dearly love to uproot the hedge and replace it with hawthorn or beech but, surprisingly, Herself will not countenance the idea.