Wednesday 28 April 2010 - At last I've found time to post again

It's been a busy few weeks, with the Easter holiday and my family here in Brittany, then me taking them back to Cornwall and then coming back again to plant loads of bedding and perennials.  I've really missed writing my blog but there just didn't seem to be enough time to sit down for long enough.

It hardly seemed possible that I had been in England for only six days, everything had grown so much while I had been away.  The weather has been wonderful - hot and sunny, with hardly any rain at all - perfect growing weather.  It's been strange having to spend the evenings watering things again after so long. 

Last year I planted a wisteria.  I've never been lucky with wisterias before.  I hadn't pruned it back at all, and it was waving all over the place.  I'm so glad I didn't prune it, because when I looked at it at the weekend there were beautiful lilac coloured blossoms emerging.

Last week I bought five nearly four week old Vorwerk chicks which are just lovely. 

I collected them in the morning and they have settled in well.  None of my chickens have ever had chicks before, so it was really great having them.  Incredibly, during that afternoon I went up to the henhouse on my field and there was a little yellow chick chirping away next to his Mum - I couldn't believe it!  B had noticed that a white bantam hen had been hiding under the straw bales, and when we pulled them away, there were twenty eggs which she had been sitting on.  We carefully carried them down to the run with the new bantam chicks and put the eggs and the new yellow chick in the little house.  She has so far hatched six eggs.  One chick died.  Apart from one hiding under her Mum, here are the ones I have now.  Ahhh!  They are are so sweet and I can't believe I have chicks which have hatched from my birds.

The countryside around me is all changing too.  Lots of fields are filled with oil seed rape, and I know a lot of people don't like it, but I think it's beautiful, lighting up the landscape with the bright yellow flowers.

Bulbs are everywhere and these orange and yellow tulips made me stop the car when I saw them on the way back from Laniscat.

Some local livestock munching away happily in fields on a very hazy-skyed April day.

There is so much cherry blossom around at the moment, both white and pink, and because there's been so little wind, the blossom is staying put on the branches.  This is some white blossom from a garden near the church in Caurel.

Three beautiful things:

1.   Finding and eating my first ripe strawberry in the polytunnel.

2.   Lying in the sun and falling asleep in the warmth.

3.   Seeing my first little fluffy chicks.