One good thing is even though the weather has been, to say the least, a little bit chilly and a touch damp, our first bulbs came up underneath the bamboo including a few Russian Snowdrops (Puschkinia Libanotica) or Striped Squill as they’re sometimes called.

Very pretty, more Bluebell than Snowdrop but still – a gardening success

This first photo is before anything was done, as you can see it was in a bit of a mess and needed sorting but it was one of those things things that never rated high on the ‘must do list’ until this year.

The second picture shows the first sections of Indian Sandstone being laid on the hardcore base. One option was always going to be for us to do the clearing but with the amount of junk they removed and the hardware needed to clear I’m glad we let Phil sort it all out for us. As mentioned earlier, the weather played ball today and Phil managed to get it finished. If you need any garden landscaping done it’s worth giving him a call, very reasonably priced, good service and a job well done – cheers Phil.

All done, now all we need are some pots...

I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s a lot better, although a little bare. We intend to put a lot of pots and tubs full of all sorts of plants, some of them native wild ones to help out the local wildlife.

As for sea fishing, or any other type of fishing for that matter, we’ve not been out much as we’ve been saving up to go to Anglesey for a couple of weeks, can’t wait. Even though we’ve been many times before it’s still as exciting as the first few times we went.

On a completely unrelated note I saw some Cinnabar Moth caterpillars feeding on the Ragwort in the car park today so if I remember the camera tomorrow I’ll try and take a few photo’s as they’re quiet spectacular in their yellow and black stripes.

The main part of this is finally getting the rear garden, which floods all the time, paved with sandstone so we can actually do something with it rather than just watch the weeds get ever taller. This should hopefully be finished this week so we spent all yesterday painting the fence before the new stone is laid.

I did manage to get out during lunch a few times in Bolton and wander round Queens Park where there has been a huge hatch of Common Blue Damselfly (Enallagma cyathigerum), Large Red Damselfly (Pyrrhosoma nymphula) and a few beautiful Banded Demoiselle (Calopteryx splendens).

Common Blue Damselfly

Can you tell I like Damselflies?

There is a great website for The British Dragonfly Society which I always go to so that I can positively identify what species I am have seen.

On the fishing front, although we’ve not been out, we have purchased a couple of fly rods each. One for heavy / salt water and the other lighter for lakes etc. They all arrived this week with new reels, lines, flies, everything!!!! I was just like Christmas. There are few things better than getting a load of new kit to try out and it took a lot of willpower to do the DIY. I’ll write a new entry about it all once the rest of it gets here and we’ve had chance to play with it all.

And just to close this post I’d like to say how much we’ve enjoyed Springwatch this year – there’s been great chemistry between the presenters (Chris Packham had some big boots to fill but I think he did very well as a replacement for Bill Oddie), some fantastic photography and stories, and I’ve learnt a few new things about the wonderful wildlife in the UK. To say we were jealous of  Simon King filming at Cemlyn Bay, Anglesey, would have been a slight understatement – we’ve fished there (and caught Bass) , seen those Terns and chilled out almost exactly where he was sat – the jammy bugger!

Hedgehog in the Garden

A lot of the time we have to go out of our way to see some of the amazing things mother nature has to show us in the country, but sometimes nature comes to see us.

We sere sitting outside enjoying a brief spell of sun before darkness fell and more rain came down when we heard a shuffling at the bottom of the garden, thinking nothing of it and assuming it was one of the many cats from the surrounding homes we carried on chatting until I looked up and spotted this little fellow looking back at me.

I managed to get very close and as you can see, the Hedgehog was in no way camera shy.

We left him to his evening stroll hoping that he would eat as many slugs as he could find, they eat up to 15 a night so that should save a few of the leaves on the plants.

We haven’t been sea fishing or walking recently as the weather has been atrocious for June but we’re hoping to get out and about once the rain stops but looking at the weather forcast for the coming weeks it looks like we’ll have to keep our wellies handy for a while yet.

Ophiopogon Nigrens

Last week we finally finished the front garden after purchasing a couple of plants to fill in some holes. One of them, Black Dragon Grass (Ophiopogon Nigrescens) we’ve put amongst the rocks which looks great, the other, Pieris japonica ‘Katsura’ is against the front wall. Both look very good against the purple slate and are already showing signs of new growth.

This recent heat wave means that we’ve been watering every night, and that coupled with plenty of sun means that all the plants, new and old, are shooting up at a remarkable rate.

To say that we are pleased with the results of our first proper foray into gardening would be a massive understatement and I only hope that we can keep the garden in as good a condition as it now deserves.

Pieris Katsura

Now all we’ve got to do is figure out what to do with the back garden! The problem here is that it floods due to the clay soil so the current plan is to pave or gravel the entire area and put in a lot of raised beds and pots which means that we’ll be able to control the conditions for the plants a lot better. If we just plant directly into the soil the plants either bake solid in the clay or drown in the winter rains but this is a project that is still to be finalised so only time will tell what we end up with.

Anyway – enough about the garden, sea fishing and walking is what this blog is supposed to be about so I best find something relevant before I have to produce a gardening blog.

The front garden now looks great and the new plants are shooting up, especially when we remember to water them! We ended up getting three new plants for Wendy’s birthday from Mum & Dad; a small fir tree, a dwarf rhododendron and a japanese maple (or acer) and you would not believe the new growth they’ve put on in just a couple of weeks.

That’s about it for this week – sorry it’s a bit short but nothing to report on the main topics of this blog. On another note we finally finished our new website at work today – you can have a look by clicking www.d-room.co.uk

While I was there I thought I’d try out the Nikon 2200′s close up facility and as you can see by the results – it seems very good. This first picture is of the Apple blossom with the conservatory, blurred deliberately for effect, in the background.

The conservatory got a good soaking as per Mum’s instructions so I moved outside to check on Dad’s veg.

This got the same treatment and I was pleased to see that the carrots had started to show through as well as the onions and leeks and other seedlings so I must have been doing something right.

Then came the bit I’d been looking forward too and putting off until I’d done all the bits and pieces I was really there for. Every year the Swallows come and nest in the garage so I slowly opened the door hoping to see one sat on a nest only to be greeted by this little fellow and a couple of his friends.

As well as the Swallows a Robin (I think) had build a nest within a stack of old seed boxes an this year had managed to fledge at least three young. This was probably a lot easier this year as while Mum and Dad were away their cat, Woody (along with Becky and Megan – two gorgeous black labrador retrievers), had gone to a friends for his own enforced vacation.

I made one last circuit of the garden to check on the Moorhen and her chicks and took a few final photographs of the cherry trees for Mum and Dad just in case the blossom had fallen by the time the got back then, very pleased about seeing the fledglings, left for home.

The weather that week was fantastic and reports from Mum and Dad after they got back confirm that I didn’t manage to kill anything – in fact they say I did quite well, but it’s not exactly a hardship when you get to visit such a beautiful place and see such wonderful things.

Cherry in Bloom

At last it seems that we’re getting a bit of spring sun in Lancashire, although last weekend it rained almost constantly and flooded the garden once more. The picture is of one of the first cherry trees in our street, looking out of my front upstairs window. It won’t be long now until we can get some proper walking and sea fishing done. Sea fishing in the rain isn’t really a problem but fell walking in the mud isn’t much fun.

Hopefully this coming Sunday Wendy and I will be taking on Pen-Y-Ghent but it mainly depends on the weather staying moderately dry. I purchased some new boots a couple of weeks ago and still havn’t given them any challenges so before Sunday I’m planning on walking round the River Douglas marsh just to break them in a bit.

On another note I saw my first swallows of the year last Sunday. A group of about 4 flew past the back garden, heading North towards Blackpool and futher up the coast although with this cold snap in the weather I hope they’ll be OK. My parents,who live at the bottom end of the Trough of Bowland near Chipping told me yesterday that their yearly visitors have already arrived (they nest in Dads garage every year).