Shepherding the family home.

A day where I did little I intended to.  The bin men came and I took in the compost bin and began to fill it again.  The last of the grass growing in the gravel has gone. Bits under the bay window are gone too.  Plastic edging got delivered and looks tougher and nicer than I expected. I immediately  began to tidy up the pavement beside the fence.  Some earth sneaks under the fence so it all got scraped up and returned to the garden.  I'm having to think carefully about the edging as the three posts that the fence hangs from are set firmly in blocks of concrete below the soil. I have a cunning plan to deal with this and will give it a try tomorrow, rain permitting.  It drove me indoors today and I had a read until it was time to go to the recycling with the forsythia stumps.
When I came back, Linda phoned.  She and Margaret and I are going out for lunch a week tomorrow.  It's at a garden centre cafe we used to go to a lot.  Great excitement at what used to be an ordinary occurrence.
By the time we stopped chatting I gathered my camera stuff together and went to photograph in the still falling rain.   It was dark and overcast so I didn't want to go far and thought I'd have a look at a wood full of wild garlic near Collessie.  Stopped at Heatherhall Woods to take a few shots there in pouring rain but when I got to the wild garlic wood the rain had stopped and the sun was trying to break through.  Couldn't believe it. It's a huge area of garlic and the smell is almost overpowering but wonderful just the same.
Stopped at Birnie on the way home to walk. There was only one other car there.  Nothing else but beauty and silence.  Photographed a mallard standing on it's pedestal meditating(see extra).
Further round I came across the swans shepherding their seven cygnets back to the nest. It's on an island and fairly safe.  What luck to arrive at the right moment.  The garlic will still be there tomorrow.