Peonies and Poppies

This month sees the hot, vibrant colours in our garden.

The pale pinks and purples and blues make way for the scarlet and crimson - colours so bright it almost hurts to look at them!

Memo to self - plant more peonies - I just love them!

A glimpse

Boxing Hares

A new bathroom

A new wall - yes no more open-plan bathing in our house!

Unfortunately, a boarded up window, the wood was too rotten to save and we are going to need a new window.  This will be very exciting when it happens, it's just a bit odd having no natural light in the bathroom at the moment!

It's all looking very clean and sparkly though . . .!

. . . and I'm aiming to keep it that way.  I have become quite obsessive in my cleaning, but hopefully after the novelty wears off so will my level of cleaning.  I have also spent some time examining the cleaning products in our local supermarket and came across this amazing cloth.  If you haven't heard of the e-cloth before it is a miracle worker!  All you need to do is spray on a bit of water and rub and all the water marks, smears and soap disappears for a wonderful finish - it works on the chrome too.

There still needs some prettifying to be done, hooks to be hung, a glass shelf to be reinstated but I am enjoying the clutter free look at the moment!

But this new bathroom has been such a joy so far.  A walk-in shower cabinet feels like a luxury and ooddles of hot water too, so there will be no more banging on the bathroom door with shouts of 'don't use all the hot water', when I get lost in the moment, enjoying a good soak!

Becoming a twitcher

My mum has always been a bit of a bird lover, well any animal lover really.  The amount of bird feeders and birds she has in the garden now makes me feel overwhelmed and resistant to following in her footsteps.  But I thought I should really be feeding the birds so we put up a little coconut feeder which should feed most garden birds.  Well as you can imagine we are now all hooked!  The Little Ones can see the feeder from the kitchen table and we've started to name the birds - yes . . . really!  There's 'new Daddy', a Robin who looked very scrawny who was obviously feeding himself, a wife and some babies.  Then there's 'Grandad', another Robin, who has been looking after 'new Daddy'.  It's so interesting to see their little social lives happening outside our window.  Apart from Robins, we have a Coal Tit and a Great Tit and some Blackbirds but they haven't bothered with the feeder yet.

I decided that this was a good opportunity for the Little Ones to learn something about birds and how to recognise them so I downloaded some photos of the birds that we might see in the Garden with a few notes and then discovered that the RSPB has a Youth section where you can download pictures of common birds to colour in, which were a great hit for the Little Ones. 


The only downside to all this feeding is that it does have an effect, as we have now attracted another Robin family into the garden and I know that Robin's are very territorial I just hope I haven't inadvertently started a Robin War!!  A similar thing happened in mum's garden, she had so many Sparrows feeding in her garden that it attracted a Sparrrowhawk!!!  Ah nature . . . there's no stopping you!

What birds do you have in your garden?

In my garden this week

This is the best time of year for our garden, end of May, beginning of June.

The aqualiguiers are out in force and springing up everywhere.

An old allilum . . .

. . . and a newly planted one!

Inspired by Soule Mama's Lilac Season here are some of my own.

I was hoping to pick some to bring indoors but they are on the turn so I left them where they are.  Next year, oh next year I'll remember to do that!

Then there are promises of later in the month when the purple, pink and lilac season is over

and the hot flowers make their presence known!

A fallen blossom rescued from the pavement.

 

What's going on in your garden this week?

Half Term in Pictures

Camping in Wales (Pembrokeshire) doesn't get any better than this!