Plan for today

Rough night. Lungs feel like they've been put through the grater but the cough is at least productive, and there is no fever. Having surfed around the web in bed this morning, I was reminded of the humble onion as a really good cough remedy. We still have loads of last year's onions left hanging in plaits from various hooks around the house so I shall throw two of them into the moulinette and mix myself a raw-onion-soft-cheese spread. My environment tomorrow will thank me no doubt but I won't care because I won't be able to smell anything.

OH has warned me to take it easy today so I will only

* sow the rest of the seeds
* plant the reduced-price pansies into window boxes: 72 slightly frost-damaged but by now fully recovered plugs for a total of £7.50
* plant the Lidl gladioli bulbs and the T&M begonias
* go to the allotment and pick up some rhubarb and leeks


The promised sun isn't materialising but temperatures are alright, it is dry and there is a bit of a breeze bringing fresh air. Neither of us is well enough for heavy-duty earth-shifting down the plot but if I nag OH enough, maybe he'll put together the new handcart (we're currently missing a vital tool that we've mislaid somewhere in the house or shed) so that we can use the longer evenings now to do a couple of hours later in the week.

Garden wildlife update:

* First sightings this weekend: two butterflies (admirals), several bumble bees, two frogs
* I think I mentioned it: Mr Kropotkin the robin has found himself a fellow revolutionary wife and they're obviously nesting somewhere as they're both very busy gathering food.
* The Boozes (blackbirds) are also raising their young in our barbered leylandii hedge. Whenever I lay out more cat food on the feeding station, I've by now practically got Mr Booze sitting on my shoulder demanding more supplies. They've really become quite tame! But they also have a more militant side: the other day they mobbed our resident magpie who was scouting for easy fledgling pickings in the hedge. A sight to behold: both Boozes squawking angrily at this opportunist of a bird double their size, buzzing him and basically telling him to **** the **** off or else. An inspiration to all of us citizens, surely.
* Spotted a beautiful woodpecker in our birch the other day!
* The two jays are visiting the gardens again.
* Saw 5 crows in the tall maple beyond the boundary at the bottom of our garden, one with nesting material in its beak, clearly thinking whether it's worth moving in.
* Our garden is Pigeon Central, which I don't particularly like -- their colours are quite nice in an understated Farrow&Ball sort of way but their eyes let them down and make them look really dumb and greedy. The only reason I tolerate them is that if we get cyprused, we can trap and eat them without having to deleverage for local muntjac on the black market. Hilariously, we've now got someone's escaped racing pigeon getting ever fatter at our feeding stations. If whoever owns this bird sticks some wattles under its beak, maybe it can race turkeys in the future but it sure as heck won't race other pigeons.