Spring is now most definitely here. Sarah has been out in the garden photographing and videoing just some of the song and ferocious activity afoot as the birds sing and plan for a new season, new nests and new young.
The bees are also working hard and you can see all these busy chaps doing their thing.
Closer to the Lodge house, here are some shots of this thrush who has taken up house in a very old nesting box in the oak tree next to the terrace. She is enjoying the spring sunshine and napping in her new home.
Of course with the spring comes a riot of colour as iris, azalea and clematis all spring to life. The grass is growing at super quick speed – and the weeds are in overdrive too!
Ghillie continues to find sticks and to helpfully bring them into the top garden, together with the fir cones being shed by the mighty Monteray pines, as well as a selection of particularly rancid old tennis balls and other revolting toys in use last year that were safely discarded in the undergrowth last winter.
Talking of discarding stuff, when the old garden was bought, it had been untouched for probably around 50 years. That is except for those who visited to leave rubbish of all sizes and types at its extremities. The first of these treasures to go was a 40 foot plug for a commercial motor boat, which had to be cut up and disposed of by Mr Farwell.
We are used to picking up glass, old tins and all manner of things when working there and as we clear and the earth is turned more comes to the surface. However, the worst of this has been piled out of harm’s way.
Easter saw our first skip, full and ready to leave us. Underneath the builder’s rubble, we chucked laminate flooring, hairdryers and all manners of metal waste. Who goes to a place with this sort of stuff and makes their way to its further corners to dump this sort of rubbish? I can’t imagine, but people most certainly did. More skips and more clearing will be needed as the restoration continues.
Very importantly, here is a Victoria sponge, a practice run made with Barbara’s help and eaten and approved by some lovely neighbours over Easter, I now need to make many for the impending opening in June and am being helped by lots of kind people to make sure that tea and cake flow on the days!
As we hurtle towards to garden opening, I realise just how much there is still to be done, and that some things will be left undone. The sweet peas are in, extra planting in the meadow is on the list, together with a multitude of other things.
Thankfully the plants, shrubs are trees are blossoming – literally – and they will make up for the writer’s shortcomings and uncompleted job list!
Contact sue.grant@fernslodge.co.uk.