This morning, while on a daffodil dead-heading session.
I also pulled up swathes of Sticky Willies along the Back Drive. These sinuous weeds climb everywhere and if not deracinated will reach the tops of the highest shrubs, bearing clusters of white flowers.
Afterwards I wandered back with the camera on this overcast morning.
The daffodils have been late to bloom and struggled to linger this year, but there were still quite a few to dead head.
The forget-me-nots sharing that first daffodil picture, like those accompanying the Spanish bluebells in the first of the next trio of images, proliferate in the garden; as do the English/Spanish hybrids.
Honesty is cropping up everywhere, as in the Patio Bed and behind the mossy stumpery with its yellow cowslips.
Lichen blooming on the bench beneath the pieris on the lawn, and bleeding hearts on the West Bed managed to add splashes of colour.
This afternoon the sun did put in fairly regular appearances, so Jackie and I took a forest drive,
where it set the gorse glowing on the moorland flanking Wilverley Road, up which
a group of energetic ponies trotted at an unusual pace for them.
I had hoped that they would pause for a drink in the pool, but they were more interested in slowing the traffic.
Further down the hill another pony did slake its thirst, while
others continued trotting through the undergrowth.
This afternoon we all dined on well cooked pork chops coated with almonds and mustard; with creamy mashed potato; crunchy carrots, and succulent peppers, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Shiraz.