Flower Scent

I was out on slug patrol at around 9:30 this evening and I notice a wonderful scent in the air, I look around trying to work out what it could be:

Sweet Pea – No, I only cut them off earlier and put them in a vase

Cornflower – No, they don’t particularly smell

Cosmos – Same as above

Jasmine – No, it’s not in flower yet

Rose – Perhaps, slightly too far away

Nicotiana – Ah ha, there we go! I never realised they smelled so nice! I grow them for the Moths, but hadn’t ever noticed their perfume before, likely due to the poor weather for the past couple of years.

Fledglings at last

It’s been a wonderful day here, and I’ve just been sat out until almost 9pm. I only came in because I needed a drink and was getting a little bored – really ought to have taken my book outside with me!

I’m thoroughly relaxed, and confused trying to decide which jobs need doing and where I can put those last seedlings I have left in pots!

We’ve just had a Foxy in broad daylight, and it was most definitely a youngster! Yay, just a shame I never got to see them actually as cubs, how on earth did they manage to hide them so well?!! No photos, but I know had I managed it they would’ve been quite good enough as there was enough daylight. Never mind, I’d much rather experience the moment then run around the house trying to get the camera!

This Goldfinch has a tag on its leg, I wonder if it’s the same one as in the photo I caught a couple of months ago.

Great tit at last!

Sadly I didn’t manage to get one of the babies.

Looking some what rough, I’m not surprised raising all those babies!

Baby Blue Tit,

Looking rather mean for one so cute!

This guy was pretty much fresh out of the nest I think. It wasn’t flying very well and could barely make it into the Cherry Tree to escape me. I didn’t get too close as I didn’t want to make it fly into a predator’s path.

Tagged!

I've been tagged by Emma at Orchard Studio!

What's your favourite colour?
In general I go for cool colours, I’m not a fan of yellow/orange or red, but will have them in the garden if they are especially good for wildlife.

What's your favourite clothing in your wardrobe?
Oooh, this is tough, I don’t think I have a favourite… Is that sad? I’m not big on clothing, my style is generally relaxed/surfer type, kind of, almost! Ha ha.

What's your dream job?
Wildlife conservationist, but since I don’t have the degree/A-Levels needed it’s very much a dream.

What's the last thing you bought?
Some biscuits for father’s day tomorrow. Personal – shopping spree in Norwich, handbag, purse, hand cream, books.

What are you listening to right now?
Tv, Eurosport is on… Some sort of athletics somewhere…

What's your favourite ice-cream?
Strawberry

What's your favourite fruit?
Not a massive fan of fruit, I usually blend them up to make them go down better. But I do love the flavour of strawberry.
What inspires you?
Life, beauty, wildlife

What's on the walls of your bedroom?
Some of my own prints bought off deviantART, as well as other member’s prints I’ve bought.

Who is your favourite designer?
Piet Oudolf for gardens... Otherwise I wouldn’t have a clue if you mean clothes.

Do you admire anyone's style?
Piet Oudolf, I love his ‘natural’ style, I’ve got a long way to go before I’m even close to his but I’ll get there as I gain experience!

Describe your personal style?
As mentioned above, I generally live in surfer type clothes and usually buy from fat face, I also have uninteresting clothes for work. I like modern design and would love to be able to pull off antique styles – rose patterns and such. The house is generally clean colours, so creams, whites with nice Edwardian coloured accent walls of calm greens and such.

What language would you like to learn?
Portuguese because my boyfriend is, only he’s so Portuguese that he’s actually rather poor at speaking it and even worse at teaching it. I can read it fairly well as it’s similar to French in some aspects, but speaking is a whole other story.

What is your favourite quote?
I don’t live by quotes, sorry. Perhaps I should use my little signature on my blog :Doesn’t like reality: - I don’t.

What is your favourite magazine?
I’m not a big reader of magazines or newspapers. But I do like gardens illustrated (plan to subscribe) and used to buy lots of design mags at uni but eventually gave up.

If you had £100 what would you spend it on?
Oooh, it’s a tough choice, I could do with some new clothes, but I think I’d end up spending it on the garden. Some new chairs/table would be good.

What is your current obsession?
Photography, gardening, birds, photography, birds, photography… Get the idea?

What are you wearing today?
Yoga trousers, layered tops – long sleeve with short sleeve tank top on top. Then gardening jumper on top of that as it was a bit dull this morning, but it’s lovely now and quite windy.

What's for dinner?
Pete bought some Chinese… So looks like I’m having Sweet and Sour Chicken with rice, shame he didn’t get the real stuff from the Chinese supermarket… I guess Marks and Sparks know how to cook it properly……..

What would you eat for your last meal?
Satay chicken.

What do you think of the person who tagged you?
A great photographer, designer with great style – something I wish I had.

If you could have a house furnished and paid for anywhere in the world what/where would it be?
Hmm, I’d love to live in the Cairngorms, perhaps in my own little castle with turret. Or a lovely Georgian house somewhere.

If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour where would it be?
Lisbon – because I’ve never been.

What are you going to do after this?
Cook dinner!

What are your favourite movies?
The Departed, Working Girl, Bourne trilogy, and Aliens.

What are your favourite books?
To Kill a Mocking Bird, Pride and Prejudice, The Book Thief, Piet Oudolf books.

Do you collect something?
Not particularly, I seem to be collecting cameras, we used to have a fair few pets but now we’re down to three.

What is the most important rule for life?
Look around you, look at the small things – there’s just so much more to life beyond money, the television and the computer.

Wordless Wednesday

Garden Birds

Over the weekend I got some shots of the birds visiting and as usual the Greenfinch were incredibly difficult to get and the tits never showed – I don’t know why this always happens, they just don’t come when I’m hiding in the summer house. I had hoped to have the Blue/Great tit fledglings but they must obviously know when you're around - although they've been more than happy to come down to the feeders when I'm a similar distance away at the veggie planter.

I'll try again next week and hope for the best.

I put up a reed screen that I’d bought to put on the fence for some added privacy, and it seems to help calm the birds a lot because they can only see a small amount of me.

Goldfinch

Juvenile Sparrow

Greenfinch

Goldfinch, Greenfinch and Sparrows

Juvenile Sparrow

Male Sparrow

Juvenile Goldfinch, I think this one has been out of the nest for a while as it already has some of the red feathers coming through on the top of its head.
I did have one baby that had obviously only just fledged as it was ending up anywhere but on the feeders, cute to watch but worrying in case a cat should see it fluttering around unsteadily.

Greenfinch are a nightmare to photograph, just the click of the shutter scares them away, I’ve practically given up trying!

Wet Sparrow, I assume it had just been bathing :)

I think my lovely Clematis ‘blue eyes’ is suffering Clematis wilt, some of the flowers have suddenly gone droopy. Not all of them though, it’s rather strange. It can’t be due to lack of water as we had heavy rain yesterday again. I’ll see what tomorrow brings, perhaps a slug/snail has eaten through the stem?? I’ll have to check more closely tomorrow.

Maturing Garden

Perhaps it’s time to look at how the garden is doing now, it’s interesting to see how things change without you even really realising.

Yesterday we did some work on the tier, I put the slate down, slabs and put up the new feeding station. There’s pebbles yet to be put down and the idea is to have plants amongst the bark/slate/pebbles too but that’ll have to wait when I get the hang of propagating!
We’ve still got one third of it to do, but I bought more bark today so we should be able to get it finished next weekend :)

Front bed by the house

View looking at the garden, once the Magnolia, Cotoneaster and Elder as mature it should mostly be blocked – there’s a clear view up the garden from the street and I don’t like it!

The new border I’ve been working on, the idea this whole slope will be one flower bed (extending up beyond the Magnolia as seen in the previous photo) but rather than pulling all the turf up now and it being a big muddy expanse I’m working on it a bit at a time.

I wonder how things will look in 5/10 years time? An exciting thought, I wonder if I'll ever want to move after putting so much into something!

Fluffers, Fledglings and Floods

Summer is such an amazing time, we have plenty of fledgling birds at the moment, it’s just a shame the weather has been rather dull recently, so rather poor photos:

First we have the Great Tits, this little baby was shouting at its parent early Friday morning before I set off for work!

By the time I got home we also had baby Blue Tits, sadly the weather had turned.

Great Tit demanding food again, I’m unsure exactly how many there were, but I think I counted at least 4 at one point.

They really do seem to shout at the adults sometimes!

“Finally, I’ve shut it up!”

I’ve also got another new visitor for my garden list… A Jay!

Is this a good or bad thing? I’m thinking the latter option, especially with all the youngsters around at the moment.

On a different note, last night we had some storms, it was so incredibly heavy that it would appear the city has had some flash flooding. My tub that I use for weeding was completely full with water this morning, it must be 10inches deep! Obviously I couldn’t say whether it then flowed over too, but I would expect so.
There’s some cleaning up I need to do as soil and stones have been washed down and the newly blasted walls are now a nice muddy colour. Looks like I’ll have to clean them again before I can paint them!

Prior to the flooding we’d had a nice sunny day and I’d been out in the garden weeding and such and taking photos. Today too has been a lovely day, just those 4/5 hours of torrential rain mixed with some hail caused quite a lot of havoc! So glad I wasn’t attempting to get home in it all, as typically it started around 3:30, I’d expect no less! :)

Thankfully I'm not in the same house as the floods of 2007, where our cellar flooded and we were at the top of a hill!