Nature

 As always it is that frantic time in the garden when everything needs doing at the same time and nature beats all attempts by the gardeners to keep up. The "mower man" is literally on his tractor every other day as the sunshine over the Easter weekend has been followed by warm rain with ongoing showers for the foreseeable future. Nevertheless I am pleased that I have finished setting up a number of projects. The lavenders have all been planted. 

The standard roses have been moved yet again with the three survivors being planted in pots (ever hopeful that they will not go the way of their mates!!).

 

The "old white bed", rechristened by John "the Harlequin bed", has been set up. I was fearful that I needed to move plants that were about to flower but took the chance anyway and all seems well. 

We have a lot of agapanthus which I protect in the porcherie every winter. Despite my molly-coddling we get very few flowers, so this year I have taken the bull by the horns and split or repotted them. It has turned out to be a much bigger job than I expected and may, or may not, bring better results. Finally the "wedding cake" has some flowers. The hydrangea and the roses are growing and I am about to plant the dahlias. 

Yes we are frequently exhausted and even the restorative glass of wine has failed on occasion.

The wildlife continues to give us endless pleasure. The trail camera caught the fox the other night but it also caught another visitor, a pinemarten. We are aware that they are in the vicinity but we have never seen them.

If he stays at the end of the alley that is fine.....they can cause havoc if they get into your loft!

Fingers Crossed

 In fact we've got everything crossed as we are hoping that this morning was the l;ast frost!  It was only a light one (about -1 deg C which is nothing compared to the -6 or -8 we experienced over the past couple of weeks) and then this afternoon was sunny and warm, so we are celebrating Spring.

Certainly the animals are saying it is Spring.  We have our pair of Kestrels around the house, we have been visited by a flock of about 40 Chaffinchs, we have to keep filling up the bird feeders for the Tits and even for a woodpecker who is visiting us fairly regularly, we have hare and deer sightings in our alley and even the gardener is cheerful!

Most of the World really does care

 It is so upsetting to see the poor people of Ukraine suffering in every way imaginable and unimaginable. Wanting to do our bit (however small) on Sunday we went to a small village 20 minutes away as they had arranged a concert in aid of a charity which supports refugees.

The concert was held in the church as is the custom here. Normally the audience for such events fills the first 6 rows of seats so we were astounded to see the church full with some standing.

The Mayor gave a lengthy introduction (as is the norm) but when he introduced the two Ukranian families who had been taken in by residents of the village the audience stood and burst into spontaneous applause.

Some of the "acts" were of dubious quality but they were contributing to the cause so "what the heck". However the final choir were excellent and brought the house down. I have added a link below to their website if you are interested in seeing the sort of thing they do. The genre they perform may not appear to be to everyones taste but I can assure you that the concert audience was totally diverse and they went ballistic.

http://panderovox.fr/index.html

A Cold touch

 Two days of morning frosts -5 deg C so far (with another forecast for tomorrow 5th April!)

Our poor tulips do not like it at all.

Whether they will survive another frost...?

 

We have also had some snow and snow showers and the poor male kestrel had to shelter on the barn.

It's a good job it is Spring.