Gardens and non-gardens and the whole hedgehog thing

gardening on a tiny strip above the river

a close-up - this is right above the river

summer house? whatever it is, I love it

green-veined white butterfly

Photos from a weekend wander in the Cotswolds. Check out the lovely allotments right in front of the church. I shouldn't mind to garden there, it would be very calming I think.

I love all the old clipped hedges and trees against the stone. Gorgeous. We found a tyre swing over the little river which appeared to be held up by a dodgy bit of string. We stuffed the littlest boy into the tyre and swung him out in grand style while the biggest boy yelled, "It's breaking, I can actually hear it breaking." We got him off without incident. I think at least one of our number, who shall remain nameless, would secretly have loved the string to break. The river was only about a foot deep and a couple of feet below, so it wouldn't have been too dramatic, as plunges into rivers go.

I've been looking back at the pictures of houses and lovely gardens and sighing a bit. Our next-door neighbour's garden is a sea of gravel, and over the past few days the people next to him have had their entire rear garden paved as well. There is not so much as a blade of grass left. I have been standing at an upstairs window gazing out at it all. While our garden isn't brilliant, it is still fairly full of wildlife. Together with the neighbours on the other side it is a block of every shade of green. Different trees, shrubs and blooms, a wildlife pond, a couple of nest boxes and birds, birds everywhere. Then there are the other two gardens. My heart aches for it all. No place for wildlife there at all.

To my way of thinking we have a responsibility when we taken on a piece of land, however small, to  care for it and the creatures that depend on it. We can't just take it all for ourselves and leave them with nothing.

To top it all, the middle boy and I found a dead hedgehog on a nearby road yesterday evening. It really rather upset me. The poor hog was no doubt wandering around looking for somewhere nice to be and all he could find was roads and paved areas. Even the better gardens tend to be inaccessible. None of the children have ever seen a live hedgehog, except a rescued one at the Wildlife Festival. And I've only ever seen one, when I was a child. We had a really long garden, and all of the gardens in the street were separated by two strands of wire, one about a foot off the ground and one about a foot above that. Hedgehogs could wander all over the place happy as clams.

We entered our sighting on a couple of websites that record hedgehog numbers ("Log your hog"). They even like to know about dead ones as it gives an idea of how many are out there. Apparently hedgehog numbers have fallen by a third between 2003 and 2012 alone. There were an estimated 36 million in the 1950s, now less than one million. A Guardian article suggests that the decline is due to habitat loss, poor management of hedgerows and fragmentation of habitat due to new roads, housing and other developments. A casualty of the world we are creating.

A final grumble - I discovered that one of the amazing and immaculate plots down at the allotment site is kept that way by frequent and liberal applications of weedkiller. It shattered my illusion I can tell you. So many creatures live down there, feeding from the plots. There's really no need for it.

Anyway, that's it. I shall keep my chin up and keep doing my bit. CJ xx

A bit of a breeze

It was a bit windy out on the headland the other day. I felt like one of those trees by the end of the afternoon. And my hair was really big.

It blew the cobwebs away though and made it extra delicious to get home.

Easter morning passed in a blur of treasure hunting and chocolate. In the afternoon we went to the Cotswolds for a trot round. I have far too many photos which I shall torture you with another day. When we got home the littlest boy tried to tempt me with pudding but I stood firm.

I'm looking forward to another week of no school. There's nothing spectacular planned, it will just be fairly local things and home things. No rain forecast, which is good on the one hand, but for us gardeners, well, it could all do with a good soaking. The biggest boy and I did our bird survey the other day and the ground had gone from deep mud to hard baked and cracked dust within the space of four weeks.

While we were down by the river, this tall ship sailed by.

She's the Kaskelot, a three-masted barque built in 1948. No doubt very impressive with all the sails up, or whatever the nautical term is.

How was Easter with you? Mucho relaxing I hope.

Spring energy

I can feel a bit of spring energy enthusing me at the moment. The glorious weather has helped, the blossom is looking fantastic and I'm hopeful that the bees are out and about in the dry air getting everything nicely pollinated.

The nest box definitely has great tits nesting in it. We see them pop in from time to time. No babies yet, I guess they are incubating eggs right now though. Oh how lovely it would be to see in. I like to imagine them in there all warm and cosy. The nest box is on a sheltered wall, the rain very rarely heads towards it. No doubt we will see the adults more once they have chicks to feed.

I got the bean sticks up the other day and sowed a couple of runner beans at the foot of each one. It's all under way.

Tomorrow evening I shall be setting out the traditional Easter treasure hunt that the little people like to do. We've already done more Easter hunts than I can shake a stick at. The first one was after school last Friday. A school chum with a couple of fields and an orchard had everyone round to look for chocolate. It was so warm and sunny it felt like summer. Then we did the trail at the wetlands place and we happened upon another one in Waitrose that we did at breakneck speed. Waitrose isn't our normal place to shop, but we were on an errand elsewhere, hence the speed. Everywhere we go people are thrusting chocolate at us.

I'm still being very good and not eating snacks (except fruit) or sweet things (except fruit). Haven't quite reached my target weight yet though... Oh, I'm joking, I don't have a target weight. But I do feel better for avoiding snacks and sugar so maybe I shall continue it for a while. Otherwise I over do it. I don't seem to have a happy medium, I am all or nothing.

I hope everyone has good Easter break. I've already done the traditional bank holiday things - gardening, queuing on the motorway, looking at the sea, eating outside. No doubt there will a little more of the same. And you?

A turn around the garden

The big news of the day is that a pair of great tits are making a nest in the nest box. The two younger boys made it about three years ago at a wildlife activity fair. They got to wield power tools and everything.

It's taken a while, but finally the birds are used to it and this morning they were happily flitting round the garden collecting fluffy things to make it all soft and nice. You can see I tucked some sheep's wool into the bird table roof. This is because they were actually picking off bits of the roof. The wool has gone now so I'll look out for more next time I'm wandering near sheep. There's usually some to be found clinging to the fences.

The pond is a wriggling mass of tiny tadpoles. I should have divided the iris and the water lily back in the autumn but I didn't (it was one of those jobs I put off and put off) and I've a feeling they might get a bit big this year. I won't be able to meddle with it until all the little creatures have grown up though.

On the food front there is purple sprouting broccoli, rocket and sorrel, all absolutely delicious. And I still have a few things in the freezer - borlotti beans, French beans, broad beans, rhubarb, blackcurrants and blueberries.

The little plant in the pot is a white pink, Mrs Sinkins. I got a good-sized plant from Jekka's Herb Garden earlier in the year and took six cuttings. They all looked dead, but happily I didn't throw them out and a few weeks ago suddenly - life. Roots out the bottom of the pot, new green shoots. I think I'll plant them down at the allotment and hopefully there will be a few to pick next year. They're the best scented pink, absolutely divine.

I found the big chunk of tree trunk down by the river a while back when I was with the biggest boy doing the bird survey that he does. It weighs an absolute ton. I asked him if he thought I could carry it back to the car. He said no. It was about half a mile. I heaved it up and staggered along as best I could. Where there was grass I rolled it, otherwise it had to be carried. The biggest boy tried it for a while, but gave it back pretty quickly. He said he didn't have the motivation. I wanted it, therefore I was motivated to carry it. Anyway, I did it. I pulled just about every muscle in my upper body doing it, but here it is.

I thought I'd add it to my wildlife log pile, but in the end I dumped it on the ground as soon as I reached the garden, and it's stayed there ever since. I can picture it in the summer with a cold drink on it and maybe a good book and a salty snack. Occasional table!

Life as usual

Thank you all for your lovely encouraging comments on my last post. Happy to find so many like-minded souls and hear so much positivity.

I have been down to the allotment a bit more now that things have started to grow. Sadly there has been another vandalism attack, a more serious one this time. My plot neighbour has decided to give up his plot after his fruit cage was destroyed. He does still have half of another plot, but it's a shame to see him throwing in the towel on the full one. A couple of other long-standing allotmenteers have each given up one of their plots as well.

I am feeling rather flat about the whole writing thing at the moment. I'm contemplating a proofreading and editing course. But mainly just feeling restless and, oh, I don't know, useless I suppose. I don't want to drift along, I want to actually find something I can do. Support and encouragement can be rather lacking around here, so I need to cheer myself along, and sometimes I just run out of oomph. Not to worry though, no doubt it will be back.

I had a hot and bothered afternoon today, driving in a stuffy car to watch a football match half an hour away. When I got there I found it had been cancelled. I drove back fuming that the biggest boy hadn't bothered to tell me and rehearsing all the cross things I would be saying. When I arrived home I realised I had put my phone on silent when I was at a thing earlier on and forgotten to turn the sound back on. There were about five missed calls and a text. Oops. And I had all those speeches ready prepared. I am filing them away for next time. In the meantime the other half had completely forgotten to collect the other two from school, so there were calls about that as well. The littlest boy was quite thrilled by it all. "Dad forgot us, for an hour!" It's a new world record.

I am pressing on with my Lent avoidance of snacks and puddings. Last week I put on a quarter of a pound. Astonishing no? It's hard to imagine how I did it. Although I do maybe have a little extra to make up for it... Wouldn't do to start feeling weak.

Hope all are well and enjoying a little sunshine. CJ xx

Standing together

If you don't mind I think I might say something about the environmental situation, which is looking more than a little grim both across the pond and also here, where Brexit will surely be followed by a watering down of environmental protections. And about the local situation as a nearby wildlife pond is due to be filled in, fields are being filled with new houses and a supposed charitable organisation has been indiscriminately ripping down huge towering ivy plants and other valuable foliage.

The biggest boy, the birdwatcher, gave me some horrendous figures for the drop in various common (or now, not-so-common) species the other day. For example, a 62% drop in skylark numbers over the last fifty years, a 71% drop in house sparrows and a 96% drop in turtle doves. That's almost all of them. And down on the ground hedgehogs are faring badly, with numbers at an estimated 50% lower over the past 15 years alone.

As our seas fill with plastic and our land is torn apart and poisoned, pretty much all I can do is keep on doing the little things. Not buying too much of anything. Choosing organic when I can. Walking not driving as often as possible. Looking at exactly what I'm purchasing and asking if I really need it and if there's a greener alternative. Growing a little of my own food. Planting a few flowers for bees and butterflies. Looking after my wildlife pond. Speaking out for another one.

It is heartening to know that  many other people feel the same way, are making the same choices and trying to stem the tide. We need to attend to the small things, as well as protesting the big ones. The slow food movement has a saying, I think in response to the merger of Bayer and Monsanto, 'They are giants, but we are millions'. Nothing makes me happier than meeting like-minded souls who care deeply for our planet and the other creatures who make their homes here. Are you with me?