It's been very cold and there hasn't been much sun but there have been very definite signs that summer is on the way. OH and I have sighted swallows -- and they wouldn't come back unless they knew it was safe to do so -- the fig tree on our eastern wall is reluctantly breaking into leaf, and our seedlings are pushing ahead in their little trays.
Yesterday, I headed outside to tackle the overgrown jungly back bit of "my" side around the Egremont russet apple tree -- lots of stupid muscle work for hours but when I was finished, I was absolutely ready for a bottle of Bavarian Weizen and very proud. Thanks to OH, who had mown the lawn and weeded the little triangle bed by the patio, the garden now looks a little more as though someone actually lives there.
As we were wandering up and down during our periodic tea and chocolate breaks and admiring each other's work and motivating each other, OH tried to tell me that one of the reasons why our garden, as opposed to the more manicured ones, has so much wildlife is because it is so wild. "Yes," I said, watching the two Kropotkins hoover up maggots and other soil critters less than a yard away from us, "but I also like a garden gardened." The Kropotkins would have agreed, had they not been so busy wrestling earthworms thicker than their own legs into submission for their brood. As far as the two robins are concerned, the more we garden, the easier we make their food shopping. If we carry on for another two weeks, they'll be so tame as to sit on our heads as we weed.
The blackbirds are equally tolerant of us. Mr Booze is currently bringing up this year's young and has a cute demanding little fledgling following him around all the time.
OH did a plot run in the morning to grab some rhubarb and some of the leeks, and as he was wandering back to our house with all that produce in a bucket, a large car stopped by him and an elderly gentleman asked him if he had a garden and wanted some spent mushroom compost because he was selling bags of the stuff and could deliver. And that's how I got called out from the weeding by OH who shouted across the fence if I had any cash left. I did and so we bought the couple's entire bootful, probably about 16 bags, enough for the garden AND the allotment. The lady did look at me a bit curiously though, and it was only later that I realised why: I was wearing a clothes peg in my hair to keep the strands out of my face.
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