Day 15

I'm not doing very well at posting every day.  The truth is that whenever I think of spring, I'm drawn into the garden, where before I know it I'm clutching a fork or a pair of secateurs and am clipping or tidying or re-potting something, or else I'm just smiling idiotically at the emerging plants and birdsong.  It turns out that blogging's not one of my spring activites and I think this will have to be, therefore, an early-spring tree of a project.  I'll add more once I've given my thoughts time to grow.

For today, here are a few photographs of the odd-shaped patch of land that takes up so much of my attention.

This is how it looked at 7 o'clock this morning:

And here it is this afternoon:

The daffodils always  come out late here: we're almost at the bottom of a west-facing valley.  It's noticeably colder, even in summer you can feel the temperature drop as you come down the hill, but it's a magical, hidden place, loud with birds, much to the cats' delight.  Here they are with their new obsession, the blue tits' nest on the ash tree:

I caught Hellebore shimmying around the tree towards the nest earlier, clinging to the trunk.  So far, she's been unable to reach the bird box, which is firmly attached to the tree, but the poor parent birds were obviously worried and were flying around the tree in an attempt to distract her. 

And here are the hens, back in their run for the evening: