April Showers

April is here and cracking on at an alarming pace.  We are well into the year now and the Winter is most certainly over and done with.  Yesss!  The Easter holidays are just a few days away and there is plenty to look forward to and enjoy. But not everything in the garden is rosy.  Poor H2 is at home this week with a chest infection brought on by a bad cold last week.  Because he suffers from asthma I took him to the doctor on Monday and he gave us lots of medicine and a few changes to how I monitor the asthma.  Hopefully after a few days rest he will be feeling more like his usual self and be able to enjoy the holidays and an Easter egg or two!

After a day of showers and cool breezes, the evening turned out, as it so often does, to be sunny, mild and calm.  Pea and I took Middle Aged Labrador out for an evening stroll up the lane.  The puddles were back after all the rain but it has also made everything so lush and green.  There are buds popping out on almost every branch and twig right across the island.  The grass is more vibrant and the hedges look fuller and rounder.  As we stood gazing across the fields, we saw the first Swallow of summer swoop across the sky.  It was so lovely and heartwarming to see; a little lone bird that has seen things that I never will and endured hardships that I could only imagine.  But he's back in his place of birth and will soon be looking for a mate to start his own family with.  The perfect cycle of nature.

The problem with April showers is getting washing dry.  I have washed a load of towels about four times now and each time it starts raining as I am heading for the back door to go and hang them out on the line.  Then they sit in the wash basket for days until they start to smell.  Then I wash them again in the hope that the rain will keep off long enough to dry them.  It doesn't and the whole circle starts again.  Today however, there is a good breeze and the sun is most definitely out.  The sky is blue and there are only faint wisps of white cloud here and there.  I have already put a load of sheets out and the towels will join them in a moment.  H2 is curled up on the settee with his Lego Batman book and a dog and all the jobs I had earmarked to do today will be left undone.  I can never do housework with a poorly child at home.  It doesn't feel right somehow, or maybe that's just an excuse for me to be lazy and drink lots of tea!  I have been to the butcher in the next village, 6 miles away, so we can have a comforting tea of sausages in mustard sauce with mashed potato.  I made an apple and berry pie yesterday and there is (miraculously) half left, so that will be pudding.  I have an urge to make a Simnel cake too, but that could just be an excuse to open the marzipan and start nibbling.

Look at the seedlings!  One of the greatest pleasures of my life at the moment is to go into my poly tunnel and look at my seed trays.  Almost everything has germinated now but there are lots more seeds to sow over the next three weeks.  The radishes have germinated in the garden and this weekend we will be sowing parsnip seeds and some salads out there too.  Of course it's not that simple.  As the weather warms up and the seeds start to grow, so do the weeds and the downside of having a garden in a rural location is the wildlife.  Well no, the wildlife is a major plus -  until it's gardening time.  There is nothing more wonderful than seeing pheasants and partridge pottering round the garden, until they start to graze on the delicate seedlings that we have painstakingly planted.  Then it's a different story.  Something in the poly tunnel has been helping itself to our sweet peas too.  We don't want to harm anything at all, but neither do we want them nibbling our precious plants.  It's an ugly battle.

I must go and hang the washing out now and then stick another load in while the going is good.  Then it will be time for a cup of tea, some baking and tea preparation and before I know it, Pea and H1 will be home at the end of another day.  Sometimes I long for a bit of excitement in my day, but really it is the days of nothing-ness that we treasure the most when excitement does come into our lives.  I will try to treasure this one, hope you do too.

Have a lovely day, get some washing dry and bake a cake! xxx