Spring in the garden

Butter yellow daffodils, the neat, prim ones with the short, orange trumpets and no frills, prove that January is not too late to plant bulbs. Bluebells mass under the apple tree, and the vetetable patch is a jungle of forget-me-knots around the burgeoning rhubarb. Primroses spill onto the lawn, tulips stand proud if a little blowsy, and the kerria, Moth's shrub chosen years back by Jemima for our tabby's grave and in her memory, is heavy with vivid yellow pompoms. Plum blossom has come and gone in a shower of petals, but the apple tree has tightly clenched buds the colour of crushed raspberry and the conical, lime green rhododendron buds are starting to show a hint of lilac frill. Lest economy of truth paint too idyllic a picture, we should include the ankle high lawn ablaze with dandelions, across which the rambling rose is rambling rampantly in the absence of an arch. A week ago, everything was suddenly green; now it is lush.

The vivid orange flowers of the thorny berberis outside our bedroom window, more small tree than shrub, conceal a long tailed tits' nest crafted from twigs and grass and covered in grey lichen, teardrop shaped with a small hole through which I glimpsed the eye and beak of the incubating parent. The long tailed tits are perhaps our prettiest garden birds with their rapid, flitting movements, bobbing tails and pink tinged black and white plumage. Today I saw a fledgeling jump upwards from a branch, flap madly, then glide down to the lawn and return home in a series of semi-airborn hops. In April Jemima and I were fascinated at breakfast to watch a thrush constructing a deep, open-topped nest in the ivy which clothes the house wall outside our patio door; she laid a clutch of turquoise blue eggs speckled with brown, and sat calmly on them as I trotted in and out with baskets of laundry; but a fortnight ago she disappeared, perhaps frightened away by the evil tortoiseshell Shadow's attempts to climb the ivy. Jemima wept and wanted to save the unhatched baby birds, reluctant to accept that there was nothing we could do for the cold, abandonned eggs. The nut and seed feeders in the trees and the hanging bird table attract many small birds : blue and great tits, greenfinches, chaffinches and the occasional goldfinch, sparrows and robins. Blackbirds, starlings, magpies and collared doves are constant visitors, if not residents; woodpeckers alight occasionally, and a few weeks ago Peter saw a sparrowhawk pursuing one of our plump little nut-stuffed sparrows.

Messy, but full of life.

Janet