A New Construction Project

 Never fear we are not starting to build another house, but some one is.

I was reading the paper this morning and out of the corner of my eye I saw something move in the courtyard. I looked up to see a rabbit carrying what I thought looked like a mouse in her mouth. A carnivore rabbit, surely not! On closer inspection I saw that she was gathering leaves and then taking them from the Japanese garden up to the top courtyard where she was making a nest in the stachys bed.

 We watched her go back and forth for about an hour and then finally she went to another part of the garden to collect grass to make the final soft layer.

As you know we have had baby rabbits born in the stachys bed before. I know I should really destroy the nest but I haven't got the heart she worked so hard. Anyway they may be dinner for Mrs Fox, although some how I doubt it.

Living in a Haze of Blue

 It is iris time again and just now everything is shades of blue. Believe it or not we currently have a period of prolonged heavy showers and growth everywhere in the garden is incredibly luxuriant, and covering the weeds! Of course it means the Under Gardener is on his mower every other day but fortunately it is a job he can do with his injuries.

 These little nepeta (cat mint) are called "cat's pyjamas", the name fascinates me.

  

I have not shown you a photo of our dry river bed for years (because it is normally covered in weeds)

 but just at present it is looking good.

Not Everything Goes According to Plan

 We have been gardening flat out for the past month as we had a garden group coming on 27th April. As usual it is frustrating to see the tulips all going over the week before the group were scheduled to visit and the irises just thinking about coming out. However we ended up saying it is what it is.

In addition I had foolishly offered to do a simple lunch of Lasagne, Mixed Salad,Strawberry Roulade and a glass of wine. Problem was people couldn't remember if they were vegetarian, gluten free or carnivores. However this turned out to be the least of our problems.

At about 4.30pm on the day before the visit John fell down our neighbours external stairs. As he now takes anticoagulent medication he was soon standing in a pool of blood. Jean-Jacque took us to A&E in Gourdon where John was seen straight away, stitched up and arrangements made for the nurse to call every other day to change the dressing. He also hurt his back but that was considered just a graze. Unfortunately the cut on his calf bled in the night and was worse when he got up. I knew he needed to go back to the hospital but we had 26 visitors arriving at 10 o'clock and I still had food to finish, tables to lay etc. before escourting them round the garden. So I enlisted Jean-Jacque again to take the patient to hospital. In fairness to the group they were very kind and concerned when I explained the position.

John returned mid morning having had more stitches and a compression bandage applied. At least he was able to open the wine when they did eventually sit down.

We raised 400 euros for the Open Garden charity. I told the national organiser that we would not be doing anything else for them this year as we had already given blood on their behalf!!

John is recovering slowly and has a bruise the size of a tea plate on his lower back.  Initially we feared  that he may have cracked a vertebra.

We are not known for doing things the simple way.