Travelling Jan: Nature Diary #12

Square-stemmed St Johns Wort

Well, I really shouldn’t be calling this a nature diary anymore, as there has been very little Nature spotted this week but, as I can’t think of a better title, I’ll leave it for now.

I have been very busy all week – Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday I was decorating my cottage, Wednesday I had a gardening job and Friday was my volunteer day at the market garden, so all nature spotted was more or less accidental!

Mary and I did take a walk to the lake on Wednesday afternoon, with thunder rolling ominously in the background and a large black cloud lurking on the horizon! We both took brollies, as it was too hot and muggy for a jacket but, in the event, didn’t need them. We were quite startled to find a car at the lake, beyond the new padlocked gate, until we realised that it belonged to the owner who was doing a bit of bramble cutting to maintain the footpath on the far side of the lake. He seemed surprised to see us, even though he knows that Mary has been walking her dog boarders here for years, but he told us that he is going to close it off to the public and try to maintain it as a private nature reserve. We hope that he is not going to exclude us from walking around it! The only wildlife we spotted was a female roe deer in the far corner of a field, who watched us warily for a few minutes before gliding silently through the hedge and disappearing from view.

The decoration of the cottage is progressing, but far too slowly for my liking. I have had offers of help but am not used to working with other people when decorating, and also came to the realisation that I am a bit ‘precious’ about my decorating! 😀 So, I shall continue making slow but steady progress and, eventually, it will be finished and the house can go back on the market. I do find myself being distracted by the view, however, as it is fascinating watching the weather patterns and the clouds - I even saw a skein of about eight geese flying past one day.

The unkempt outside of my cottage

All tidy again!

The outside after a few hours of weeding!

On Wednesday I weeded the herbaceous border that I cleared last year and was pleased to see that all of the shrubs that I pruned rather drastically have a) survived and b) maintained their better shapes. It was all looking quite pretty, although some plants (notably the day lilies) still need some attention, but the roses are beautiful again this year. I also planted a new rose in another area of the garden, where it is designed to form a screen, with honeysuckle, on a large wire and post support. I recommended Rambling Rector, a rose that I first saw growing through a mature tree at a community in Essex, so I hope it is not going to be too rampant! It’s a lovely garden to work in and I always feel slightly disappointed when my four hours is up, although I do get pretty tired and need a sit down when I get home!

This morning, I finally got out in my garden, only to find that things had gone mad after all that rain! Even though I had netted the gooseberries, blackcurrants and redcurrants, something had managed to get in and raid one of the gooseberry bushes. The berries had all been carefully collected into a heap and then each fruit chewed open and the insides eaten, leaving the skin! I have no idea what would do this, but it’s really annoying as the fruit wasn’t properly ripe yet. It meant that I then had to set to and pick all of the remaining (unripe) fruit just so that I wouldn’t lose it all. Luckily, you can make gooseberry jam using unripe fruit. I then decided to pick everything else that was ready and ended up with quite a bumper crop!