Gardening

Eeeurgh.

Or, well, no... actually, I was pretty pleased with my achievements in the garden today. This morning R and I cut up and moved the last big pine branch that came down in the January storms, which I'd assured him was all the gardening that was likely to happen today. So he then went off out for a walk, and I suddenly had a rush of blood to the head, fetched the power secateurs, and cleared half of a huge bramble patch at the far end of the wild garden. Then I got the tractor mower out, top cut the wild garden, and mowed the main lawn.

By the time R arrived back I'd tidied everything away - because while he likes to leaves evidence around just so I know what he's been up to, I always prefer it to look as though the elves came round and secretly did our work while we were asleep - and Sunday lunch was largely prepared. The whole secret elves thing did mean that I had to send him down the garden to empty the kitchen compost caddy, or he probably wouldn't have even noticed that I'd carried on working while he was out, and this obviously wasn't as satisfying as if he'd just walked in, gasped with astonishment, and told me that I was wonderful - but I'm aware that this is me wanting to have my cake and eat it. Not unreasonable, but maybe unrealistic.

By the time we'd eaten lunch and I'd remembered that I hadn't yet taken any photos it was quite cold and dark, and there were no invertebrates to be seen. So I scuttled around and shot a few plants, and of the few images I took, this is R's favourite, because he likes the way the euphorbia contrasts with the purple hellebore in the background. I'm adding my own favourite (probably), which is a close-up of the bowl of grape hyacinths I bought the other day. One day soon I hope to be able to bring you photos of a Dark-edged Bee-fly feeding from the muscari, and a Tawny Mining Bee on the euphorbia.