Waxwings in Sheffield

So, I saw a flock of Waxwing again today on my way home, I’m glad to see they’re still around! If anyone is from Sheffield and happening to read this I saw them just behind the large B&Q warehouse on Queen's Road, they were headed towards the city centre from there. A flock of around 40, I assume the same flock I saw a couple of weeks ago during the snow.

If only some would breed here – preferably in my back garden :D

Spring at Last

Woo hoo!

I had a lovely surprise Friday evening, I went out to check on the plants I put in the new pots last weekend, then made my way along the pots with the bulbs in to discover Iris had suddenly exploded in two of the pots!

I’m amazed how quickly they popped up!

I was so excited when I saw them, probably better than Christmas, hehehe.

When I looked on Sunday there was no sign of them coming into flower, there were the leaves, but nothing else. Crocuses were almost out too, some of the Prinz Claaus were obvious but that was it.

I could’ve sworn I checked during the week too… Obviously not.

So, anyone care to guess what I’ll be doing this weekend? :D

I have Monday off… Pretty much due to it being William’s Christening on Sunday, and it’s going to pretty much eat up my whole day. So that’s going to be exciting… I really wish I could say I’m looking forward to going to it, but sadly I’m not.

Double woo hoo, this morning when I was waiting for the sun to come round into the garden so I could take photos of the Iris/Crocus, I also discovered a snowdrop! I hadn’t even realised I’d planted any in the front bed… Obviously I did :D

I also did some work in the garden today, although not much... I'm holding back until I sort the new fence out.

Finally cut the roses back, I cut some last week as I noticed some new growth on them. I did the tea roses out front, I'm just unsure how I'm supposed to trim the shrub roses though??

Snow visitors

The snow is still here, far too much of it, and I’m tired of ranting about it now! Haha!

Recently we’ve had Song Thrush visiting, I think we have more than one but I’m not entirely sure as they’re still very nervous and won’t come close or fly off as soon as they/it sees me.

Lots of BB’s visiting, probably thanks to my sunflower hearts I put out for them on the walls/steps.

The sun has been brilliant for the past couple of days and a fair bit of the snow has melted, especially off the rooftops. However it seems to have made little impact on the snow on the grass, it’s just too deep to see a massive difference yet. I had a clear a path up the garden to the feeders so I no longer have to wear wellies just to refill.

Supposedly we’re to expect some tomorrow according to Pete, although when I looked a couple of days ago it was supposed to be fine.

If it snows again I might just scream very loudly.

Instead I’m going to hope for lots of rain, obviously only during the night, then we can have lovely sunshine during the day – been nice and warm sitting in it!

And because snow is so beautiful…

I threw out a lot of sunflower hearts for the birds last night, and then this morning had the ground feeder inside keeping out of the snow and filled it with some more after brushing away a lot of the ice snow off the pots and plants.

This morning I decided to go onto the main road, hang around for 10 minutes or so and if a bus didn't arrive then I'd set off home.
Sadly one did arrive within a few minutes, but everything was pretty much crawling and I was very glad I'd put my wellies on.

It's sunny at the moment, hopefully it'll melt a fair portion of the snow, as I don't want it to damage the plants, nor do I want to walk home on ice.

Schnow!

So the snow came…

It was quite good actually, although I do feel we should've been sent home from work as when I got home and discovered just how deep it was I was rather angry they hadn't bothered.

I set off at 4, rather than working late as I should've, I didn't want to risk it and was so glad I did.

The kids were out for a short while having a bit of a fight, at first they were a fairly large group of around 5/6, threw some at me as you'd expect and missed. They dispersed out to 2/3 and made a snowman. This was dutifully rolled around the street, then down off onto a joining road and then I lost sight of it.

Here is was very deep, well deeper than I've seen since I was little. We did have a good show around 5 or so years ago, but I do think this was deeper.

Some shots from last night:

I threw out a lot of sunflower hearts for the birds last night, and then this morning had the ground feeder inside keeping out of the snow and filled it with some more after brushing away a lot of the ice snow off the pots and plants.

This morning I decided to go onto the main road, hang around for 10 minutes or so and if a bus didn't arrive then I'd set off home.
Sadly one did arrive within a few minutes, but everything was pretty much crawling and I was very glad I'd put my wellies on.

It's sunny at the moment, hopefully it'll melt a fair portion of the snow, as I don't want it to damage the plants, nor do I want to walk home on ice.

Where does it go?

Is it February already??

I can’t believe where it’s gone!

I must’ve had my head in a hole somewhere, because I swear it can’t be.

I’m struggling at the moment, I feel really down and gloomy. I missed Christmas, I don’t know where it went. I think it’s because I was ill, so all the little things I have to do in order to feel Christmassy were missed and then wham, it’s gone.

Seriously, I need to grow up.

So, anyway, it was warm. Yesterday was a lovely spring day, a touch windy at times but for the most part very nice. We made our way to the park where we used to live – I needed to go to pets at home for some bird seed. What a wasted trip. They don’t do the RSPB bird mix anymore. Very annoyed. I wanted the ground food, as it doesn’t have loads of grains and rubbish added in that the birds don’t eat and you then end up with a barley field in your garden…
There was very little in the park, but that’s because Pete and my brother took so blimmin’ long to get out of the house that by the time we got there it was midday. A bad time in general for bird watching. So no Nuthatch for me :( Actually, we barely saw anything, we could hear them though!

We found the city farm, had a poke around although at this time of year it’s hardly surprising that there wasn’t much to see. They sell plants there, so I think I’ll get some from there in a few weeks rather than lining the pockets of some large garden chain. These plants are obviously grown/potted by them at the farm, so I think it’s far more worth it. I plan on picking up a campanula or two, berberis and honeysuckle. I have a few roots/corns I need to plant too; Coneflower, Sea Holly, Salvia, Hollyhock, Primula and some other plant I forget the name of.

We’ve had snow today, although it didn’t settle until fairly late on, it’d been mixed with sun for the most part. There were a few visitors, and I threw out extra food on the ground. I didn’t get to watch the feeder for long, as ma and pa came round, closely followed by my brother and the baby- flying visit, hardly a surprise! Hmmm.

Not many signs of spring so far here, the bulbs are still poking their heads out – which they have been since October/November. They’re now behind last year, as I have photos of the Iris out around the 23rd/24th January. However, I noticed the Hybrid bluebells are coming up, some are quite big. So that’s one good sign at least. (of course I’ll cut their stems off so they don’t hybridise with my real English Bluebells (Hyacinthoides Nonscripta)
One thing I noticed when walking to the park, a fair few gardens had been weeded/dug over. It surprised me actually as I thought the ground was still too hard, I guess that’s my key to go out and do some myself. Although I am procrastinating a wee bit until I get the fence sorted then I’ll start work on the other stuff.

Ah yes, and I've given up on getting a new kitchen for now. I'm thinking with all the redundancies and such it's better off used as an emergency if the worst should happen to either of us. So that's at least a bit of a relief, I can start spending again on all those things I've been putting off for months now...