Late this morning a took a walk around the garden with my camera.
We have a number of daffodils and primulas that have survived the ravages of the squirrel in search of tulip bulbs, because Jackie has continually kept putting back disturbed soil.
There is hardly a bed without a cluster of our peripatetic spreading snowdrops sometimes sharing space with
prolific self seeding hellebores,
or a planted pot containing neither violas nor pansies.
Camellias are not the only currently flowering shrubs; we also have a
couple of Daphne Odora Aureomarginata aptly named for their very sweet fragrance.
Bergenias have bloomed throughout the winter.
This afternoon I watched the rugby Six Nations championship match between Italy and France.
Our dinner this evening consisted of baked gammon; boiled new potatoes; crunchy carrots; tender runner beans; moist ratatouille; and piquant cauliflower cheese topped with sliced tomato, with which Jackie drank Diet Coke and I drank more of the Côtes du Rhône Villages.
CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. THOSE IN GROUPS ACCESS GALLERIES THAT CAN BE VIEWED FULL SIZE.
This morning’s dawn promised a better day than forecast.
And so it proved, at least for the first hour or so. I took an early ramble round the garden on which more light was cast than yesterday. This brought forth an open-mouthed gape from a bespectacled gentleman atop the skeletal honesty in the Weeping Birch Bed.
Camellias and hellebores were nicely backlit in some areas.
Here is the view from Fiveways;
bergenia, daffodils, and hellebores in a corner of the Dead End Path;
and more hellebores, alliums, and vincas.
Jackie is particularly delighted with the daphne odora Aureomarginata that she put in last year. It is apparently quite a fussy plant.
When shopping at Lidl this morning, Jackie had spotted that the supermarket was selling very reasonably priced wheelbarrows. She drove me back there to buy one. After this we travelled on to Friars Cliff for me to post, into one of the beach huts, the prints I had made of photographs taken of two little girls on the beach on 24th February.
On one side of Christchurch Road stretches a number of extensive fields which, at this time of the year are occupied by hundreds of ewes and lambs. On the other, in front of a farmhouse, is a much smaller rectangular enclosure, not much more than a fold, really. We have always thought of that as the nursery for very newborn lambs before their decanting across the road. Today we saw confirmation of this.
The most recent arrivals and their mothers could be seen through the fencing bars. The rolled folds in the babies’ skin demonstrated their newness. Already, just like the grown sheep, they were stamped with identification numbers.
Even so young, some of the lambs were as inquisitive as the ewes,
whereas others and their mothers were not quite so sure.
As we arrived, a farmer drove a large tractor and long trailer from the farmyard, around a bend in the road, and through an open gate into the field opposite. He proceeded to unload his cargo of ewes and their lambs,
which were very soon suckling fit to fill out those rolls of skin.
The farmer was very gentle with his charges, even when offering a whole new meaning to the phrase, ‘giving it some welly’, as he encouraged a reluctant little one to join its patiently waiting mother.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s pasta arrabbiata, sugar snap peas, and rocket salad, followed by tiramisu. I drank more of the Fleurie and the Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden.
