Monday evening, sitting by the pond, listening to the raindrops for ten minutes (the video is only 30 seconds) after a long and busy day...
Tuesday afternoon was spent in the woods with a four year old. I have already written a post about that... wish I could be in the woods like this more often and be told what to do by a small person! A nice change from more usual daily life at the moment!
A red admiral in my garden on Wednesday, a few minutes of fresh air, taking a break from working inside the house.
Friday was a tough day - a lot of mess, a lot of hard work and a lot of aches at the end of the day! I spent the morning taming the garden and found a few creatures as I worked...
A month ago I found vapourer moth eggs in my garden and commented that I'd found the eggs several time but never actually seen the moth or caterpillar. Well, there's a vapourer caterpillar sitting in my garden! I guess it came from some eggs laid nearby that hatched earlier this year.
Also spotted was this common frog - the first amphibian I've seen in the new garden! Next year, all being well, there will a be a pond and I'll see frogs more often.
Above are three shieldbug nymphs hiding in laurel! I'm not sure what to do about the laurel... I have three behind my new shed and a few down one side of the garden but I don't like them and I know they're non-native and think I've read they're invasive too so really, I'd like to dig them up and plant something else. On the other hand, they will grow quickly and block out next door's view over my patio (can't wait for that to happen) so I'm tempted to keep them just for that reason... any suggestions?!
Today I took a day of from the house renovations and went for a walk. It feels like so long since I last went out for a good walk - I've had a few short wanders in the last few months but really haven't had the time or energy for proper walks - so the last decent length walk I did was way back in March, a 9 mile walk from Wildboarclough. Today's walk was around 5 miles and it was really nice to spent a few hours out, making up the walk as I went along.
The heather smelled amazing! I can see some heather moors from home and also a little bit from my new house (yay) and the colour does keep catching me eye! I've noticed on my travels recently how good the heather is looking this year - that's what made me declare a day off from renovations to get out an appreciate it whilst it is looking so good! I wish I could somehow share the fantastic scent of it through the blog!
I munched bilberries as I walked and had an ice cream for a late breakfast! I also kept one eye on the plants looking for invertebrates and found -amongst other things - grasshoppers, a spiked shieldbug adult and a nymph too, a tiny lizard, a fox moth caterpillar... various birds were spotted too. I have a lot of photos to sort out from my walk and I think I will share a few in a separate post when I have chance but here are some finds mentioned already...
I am very much looking forward to the day when I can have more weekend days like this, when the house is done and my weekends are my own again! I miss getting out for long walks... perhaps I should take more days off from the renovations, even if that will delay moving day some more!
I wasn't due to be working tomorrow but then SWT asked if anyone was available to help with the launch of Wildlings at The Roaches and I got in there straight away!
The Roaches is where I grew up so I'm looking forward to doing SWT's first Wildplay up there as part of the new South West Peak partnership that recently formed. With the new South West Peak dedicated staff member, there will be other things happening in the near future much closer to home than all the other work I do for SWT and I've already registered my interest in working at those sessions, hence being asked about this one tomorrow, so I'm quite pleased about that.
Aside from Wildplay work, I doubt I will have much time outdoors as the week is already looking pretty full and busy, but who knows what I might squeeze in to my week?!
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