Hello again

Hello again to you all, and please excuse the short hiatus I took from keeping this journal. I managed, alas, to aggravate an old shoulder injury that I once picked up whilst attempting to disembark from a boat onto a rocky island in choppy seas, and so on the orders of the doctor I have been resting my arm - thus leaving me unable to type. Thankfully it seems to have improved a little now, so I thought I'd post a little message to my journal just to keep things moving along.

As promised I will continue to show you all around the garden very soon, but for now I will just mention a couple of things of interest that have been going on recently at home and further afield.

My wildlife pond continues to act as a temporary home for a number of tadpoles, who all seem to be doing well. The vegetation is starting to take over a bit - it always surprises me, one moment it's early spring with the buds just opening and a few wildflowers in attendance, and the next it's getting on for early summer and seemingly everything is coming into leaf and flower - so it is getting more difficult to observe the tadpoles and the frogs. The water mint in particular is beginning to get a little big for its boots - or at least a little big for my compact and bijou wildlife pond - so I will have to trim it down somewhat in the near future. I shall take some more photographs of the pond and the rest of the garden for you all very soon.

This afternoon I went for a stroll along the canal. Though it was quite windy, the sun was out and was pleasantly warm without being excessively so. I hadn't taken a stroll along there for a little while, and so I had an enjoyable time just ambling along and looking at the different plants that were now emerging or flowering. I don't suppose I spent more than an hour down there, but being lost in my own happy little world it seemed more than double that time, and I felt most refreshed afterwards once I'd returned to the 'real' world from my reverie. Along the canal much of the hawthorn was already decked out in froths of white bridal finery, and the white theme was continued amongst the plants along the towpath and banks, where cow parsley, garlic mustard, white dead-nettle, common chickweed and large bitter-cress were all in flower. Amidst the green and white a few splashes of alternative colour were found in other flowers, such as the yellows of dandelions and buttercups, the deep pinks of campion and the pink-purples of bush vetch. Most of the trees appeared to be coming into leaf, with the notable exception being the ash - generally one of the last trees to do so. In the midst of this bright green carnival of spring the ash trees were marked by their skeletal, wintry appearance. They were not a sombre presence however, rather they had an air of quiet patience - having already flowered earlier in the year they were perhaps content to wait a little while before pushing out their leaves and welcoming in the summer.

Well, that is all I shall write for the moment - I don't want to risk aggravating any more ancient injuries! I will write more soon, and hopefully have some more photographs to show you.