Hydrangea

A gift from DH, to cheer me up when I was low.

Honeysuckle

Many years ago, weaving our drunken way home late one night from a rather fine party, we passed a mass of honeysuckle hanging over a fence. The smell of the honeysuckle was just heavenly, so we helped ourselves to three small cuttings. One took, and we've since propagated more plants from it and taken it with us wherever we moved.

The specimen against the vegetable garden fence is just coming into flower, and I can't wait to enjoy the scent once again.

April green

The village green this morning. Sometimes I forget just how lucky I am to have this at the end of my driveway.

Nesting Sparrows

We have Starlings in our nestbox and House Sparrows in our roof. This is the female of the House Sparrow pair, snapped through my bedroom window.

Unknown annual

This oddly-coloured but gorgeous annual self-seeds around our vegetable patch. We sowed it a few years back from some gifted seed, and currently have no idea what it's called.

Horse Chestnut blossom

The Common Horse Chestnut tree (Aesculus hippocastanum) in flower - one of the true glories of the English Spring.

Olivine

A thin section through a piece of the mineral olivine, viewed through a polarizing microscope.

Hidden snails

Although it's been so warm here, it's been very dry, so the snails are still tucked into their winter hiding places. I found these hiding away between two large decorative pots in the veg garden.

The Cook's beer

Because there's nothing like a nice long glass of cold Czech lager while you're preparing dinner :-)

Dandelion clock

It shows how mild our Spring has been so far, that the earliest Dandelions are already over and setting seed.

Fly

Another insect picture from the garden.

If you go down to the woods today...

A sunny afternoon down in the 'new' wood. I know that dandelions are weeds, but they are also most beautiful - like small suns blazing brightly in the grass.

Apple blossom time

The peach blossom is done, and now the apple blossom is taking over.

Bee Fly

This weird and wonderful creature is a Bee Fly (Bombylius major). We get them here in the garden in the Spring, hovering around like small fat bumble bees and feeding on nectar with that long proboscis. Size about 2cm/three quarters of an inch from proboscis-tip to back end.

Tulip

The tulips came out while I was away.

Chilling out

A Common Frog, Rana temporaria, sitting out the unseasonally warm weather in my father-in-law's pond.

Greening up

The village green, living up to its name.

Sea mist at Holkham

To Holkham beach, on a day when the sea mist never cleared and everything had that feel of where the sea meets the sky at the edge of the world. Perfect.

Flies

Stopped off at a friend's house for coffee, and when I came out my car was covered in flies - no idea what was attracting them. Very odd.

The first Bluebells

The first Bluebells of Spring, down in the woods of deepest darkest Somerset. Gorgeous.

Rainbows underfoot

Finally finished DD's rainbow socks, which I'm pleased to say she's delighted with :-)

The Roman Baths

Growing up so near to Bath, I guess I always sort of took it for granted. Visiting Mum over Easter we decided to take the kids to the Roman Baths for a look around and a taste of the spa waters in the Pump Room. The baths were just as amazing as I remembered, and the water just as disgusting (although DS drank it because he thought the minerals in it were probably good for him!).

View from the Tump

The Tump is a piece of common access land, covered in scrub and bracken. From the top you can see over the entire valley - the lake, the villages, and all the way to the Mendip Hills. When we were kids we rode horses up there, had adventures, cooked sausages over campfires. Now I know it's a classic outlier, an island of younger rock remaining over older with everything around it eroded away. A special place to many generations of youngsters.

A beautiful day

A beautiful day walking over Mendip.

Yellow Archangel

Yellow Archangel, growing in the hedge of the sunken lane leading up to the top of Burledge Hill.

And the winner is...

DD and her friend came second in the Best Turned Out competition at the stables today. I just wish I could get her to work as hard at cleaning and tidying her room as she did at cleaning and grooming Storm today...

Kings College chapel

A classic Cambridge landscape today - Kings College chapel from the Backs.

Walking around town with a camera slung round my neck makes me feel like I need a t-shirt that says "Actually, I live here" in big letters...

Batty Bat

In the process of dressing to impress for our trip to the theatre DD dug out an old favourite of mine, the bat hair clip (most apt for a caver!) that I used to wear when my hair was long. An old favourite of mine, and now a new favourite of hers :-)

Blossom in the breeze

Housman got it right:

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

Amen to that :-)

Charity Pig

DS has come up with the bright idea of collecting up all the money he finds and donating it to charity (not such a daft idea - although not a huge sum, DS's finds are not trivial - he seems to have a talent for finding money that others have dropped). As we searched for somewhere to collect this money, DD remembered a 'paint your own piggy bank' kit she was given for her birthday. So this afternoon she spent a happy hour painting our Charity Pig, who will sit somewhere prominent and collect up all our lost and found change.