Flora, fauna etc

Much of the remaining eleagnus is now in the bin, together with a lot of bird-sown cotoneasters.  The former is starting to revert, so as its main reason for survival is the variegated foliage for winter colour, its days may be numbered.  We've put out a feeler or two for the muscle work needed to dig over and improve the bed in front of the new fence and to reshape and edge the grass.  Overgrown for so long, a lot of it's now mostly moss or bare earth anyway.  We're also thinking of some slightly more radical landscaping: we put down some spare slabs in the shade of the trees at the top of the garden some years ago, and find that we enjoy sitting up there on warm days, so a bigger, professionally paved area would be nice.  The terrace at the back of the house needs to be lifted and relaid, and the retaining wall to the back garden is looking sorry for itself in places.  And there's also the small matter of the leaking pond...

The magnolia is starting to look really good, but the crocuses and daffodils are getting to the untidy stage.  Fritillaries are in flower, as are the tulips.  One potentilla is in flower, but the others seem to be debating whether to live or die, and the question remains unresolved.  Martyn chopped back the penstemons the other day, and I've potted up the cuttings taken from them last August (most now well rooted).  I seem to have taken cuttings with some enthusiasm that day last August: I have also potted up box, sage and a couple of varieties of cistus.

Our neighbourhood wren is much in evidence, more aural than visual, although it was down at the primrose pots on the terrace just now.  Blue tits too are around: there was quite a racket from their alarm calls at lunchtime, when we had a visit from a sparrowhawk.  Another visitor around the same time was a goldfinch, which we rarely see here.  Nijer seed and feeder now on shopping list.  We see far fewer squirrels at the moment.  I think they used to nest in the ash tree, the removal of which has made a big difference to the light.  We stopped feeding the badgers, much as we loved to see them each evening, when they started digging the garden up.  They've been at it again to a modest extent, so I've been filling holes and sowing grass yet again.

Of the taller fauna, no further signs of life from the conservatory people, and the double glazing fitter who was due to replace a sealed unit in my study yesterday has thrown a sickie.  Rebooked for the middle of the month.

Nice lunch here yesterday with Immy, Jon and their youngest daughter, Lottie.  Ages since we'd had them here, though we have hosted them for lunch in Lagrasse a couple of times when they have been returning from Spain.  We knocked out a big home-made pizza and salad, followed by a fresh strawberry crumble, and had a pleasant couple of hours catching up.  They now run a smallholding twenty minutes or so from here, and arrived bearing a dozen fresh eggs and a couple of chorizos: their latest venture.  I sometimes feel I'd like to send some of my feckless customers down there to hear how our friends have coped with financial and health shocks in recent years.  Another recent venture is the purchase of an Airstream caravan with a view to letting it by the week in the summer.  There is no end to these guys' enterprise: I wish I had an ounce of it.