Saturday 5th April - waiting for The 'Real' Spring

 I've had a fine time sorting through my box of seeds. 

I had planned to sow lettuce, spring onions and radish, all with cloches to help them along, and also prepare pots for crimson flowering broad beans and some peas. But one step outside the back door into the sun, and into that biting wind, and I turned tail and fled back indoors. 

So I made a pot of tea and rooted through my seeds, chucking out a whole load of scruffy, very out-of-date packets and just keeping the slightly out-of-date packets. I've now got a shopping list. My friends are always meeting up for a coffee at garden centres around and about,  so I'll see if they're happy to get me some fresh seeds.

As I'm always saying 'tomorrow is another day'!

Cuckoos and music

Cuckoos start arriving in April. When we first moved here, 46 years ago, we were on the edge of the town with nothing but fields behind us until the bypass. The stream and strip of woodland either side are still there,  but ther fields are now an upmarket housing estate and a popular golf course. This could be why we haven't heard the cuckoo in decades...

Here's Benjamin Britten's setting of The Cuckoo from his set of children's s9ngs called 'Friday Afternoons' 

Cuckoo, Cuckoo, what do you do? 

In April I open my bill; 

In May I sing night and day; 

In June I change my tune. 

In July Far far I fly; 

In August away I must.