Pear blossom

During what turned out to be a busy and productive day, I spent several hours in the garden and managed to weed and tidy the whole of the large rose bed. Once I'd finished I put the sprinkler on it for an hour, because it was so dry that the soil was like clinker, and the herbacious plants were already looking sorry for themselves. In April!

I didn't have my best afternoon with the camera, partly because I was more engaged in my work than in looking out for invertebrates to photograph, and partly because it was very warm, and the bugs I did happen to notice were zooming around like crazy things rather than posing nicely. I couldn't honestly blame them: after the recent bitterly cold spell that's kept many of them in their roosts, they have plenty of ground to make up if they're to complete their life cycles successfully.

Luckily the ornamental pear tree next to the rose bed has now come into blossom, and though it's already taken quite a bit of frost damage it was looking attractive in the afternoon sunshine, and seemed worth recording. It's a rather messy tree with a tangled habit, and I don't always find it easy to get clean images, but this shoot was far enough away from the clutter of growth behind it to give good separation, and I'm quite pleased with the way it photographed.