Reed Mace de-seeding

An eventful day for Basil who was due to meet Nan this morning for a bath and haircut and nail clipping. We dropped him off at 10am then returned home after dropping off two bags of empty jam jars at Judeth's . She makes marmalade and jam for the church to sell. She wasn't in when we called but drove into the Coop car park where I was waiting for Len to come back out of the shop.

The bush telegraph works. No sooner had she returned from walking Brandy and Bramble when neighbours told her that strange people had been into her back garden.

I cooked the egg and bacon this morning. Len complained that I hadn't done enough mushrooms. Afterwards, I slipped out to take photos of the pink cherry blossom across Fairway Road. Strange about photographing blossom. You're much better focusing on a single spray rather than trying to capture the mass of it.

Home just as Len was coming out ready to drive to Osgathorpe to fetch Basil. By then, the cloud had broken and the sun was coming out. I was able to walk around in a t-shirt and an open hoodie. We drove on to New Lount Nature Reserve which lies on the site of an old coal mine. It operated for 40 years last century and closed in 1968.

It always reminds me of my geography classes at grammar school in the early 1960s where we learnt about the North Leicestershire coalfield. Now I practically live next door to it.

The soil is poor being largely ash and waste from the mine. Silver birch and willow have taken hold. You see flowers in summer, not so many at this time of year although primroses have begun to grow in the woodland (extra). We walked up to the pools at the higher level and were able to get across the first boardwalk, but beyond there the ground had been churned into very sticky mud, so we came back down the steps. A few reed mace had burst and were spreading their seed.

Spagbol tonight.