Happy Christmas!

Hi everyone, and Happy Christmas from myself, Eileen and all at River cottage.
We are all set for a festive feast and a white Christmas. Everything is winding down. The countryside is hushed, the birds quiet. The river is a murmur.

The tops of the hills and mountains in our view are covered in snow with more expected.

We have been busy decorating the tree, and bringing in holly and ivy from our garden and the surrounding hedgerows, to hang indoors.

Our shopping is done, the huge fresh ham and fresh free-range turkey sourced and bought locally.

The cranberry sauce and Christmas pudding, mince pies and Christmas cake are made. Today was the shortest day, the Winter Solstice. We have sent our cards to friends and family, bought in extra rations for our animals/pets - the cats, (wild rescue cats we adopted) Tom, Tammy and Mummy; our ducks, Donald Duck and Daisy Duck; our two hens, Marie and Henny; and our two patio pond goldfish - Whitey and Goldie.

We have plenty of carrots left to pull, some giant parsnips for roasting; beetroot, onions and shallots we saved; broad beans we froze. The vegetable garden is close to being rested in preparation for the new season, beginning with sowing early potatoes and onions in March around St. Patrick's day.

We shall be partaking in plenty of mulled wine and mince pies on Christmas Eve with a few friends, and we have plans for a a few dinner parties.

At some point in the lead up to New Year we shall be holding a Special Open Mike and getting together with our new neighbours to make our 'toasts', give thanks for life and all its blessings, and to reminisce about the past year.

We hope you have enjoyed following our blog during 2009 and stay with us during 2010.

Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year,

Mark and Eileen :)

Homemade Horseradish Sauce!

The other day, having plucked up sufficient courage, we decided to dig up our horseradish plant and make some sauce to go with steak and beef.

For us, this tends to be a two-yearly operation as it takes that long for the horseradish plants to clump up and form good, potent (for potent read hot) roots. It is the roots we are interested in and which the sauce is made from. I said 'courage' was needed earlier as making horseradish sauce involves grating the roots which give off vapours that have a similar effect to peeling strong onions - but horseradish also burns.

Once the long pliable white roots have been grated, they are mixed with créme fraiche and balsamic vinegar (a spoon or two of mustard if you are a real sadist/masochist). Then they are thoroughly blended before being potted in previously sterilised small jars. We managed six 4oz jars from one plant.

The bought stuff can't hold a candle to this organic, ultra-fresh, hot hot hot home-made variety. It doesn't keep for long as there are no preservatives, of course. But who wants to keep it long? We can barely keep our hands off it. Fridge it, and over the next couple of months enjoy sirloin steak and roast beef like it is going out of fashion, all washed down with a big fruity red wine. Heaven! Now then, how do you like your steak?

Autumn Update

We have had a bumper crop of beetroot. A new striped variety, 'Choggia', has done particularly well and has a lovely sweet taste with lots of natural sugars, even without the aid of frost. Next year we plan to grow a gold variety too.
Soon, we shall be constructing more raised beds, and getting ready to re-instate our fruit garden near 'Fuchsia Chalet'. We shall plant blackcurrant, gooseberry, rhubarb and some baking apple cordons in February.
We have plenty of wild blackberries here and have been enjoying blackberry and apple pie and ice-cream.
To our dismay our usual place of supply of sloes for our 'River Cottage Sloe Gin' which we enoy as an aperitif at dinner parties, is unavailable this year. All the blackthorn hedges were cut between flowering and berrying. We shall have to start outr own hedge at this rate. Oh well, anyone for a G and T?
Of course, now is cutting season for shrubs and trees so we shall be busy with that over the coming weeks so that our supply is rooted and ready to be potted up for growing on next spring.
Have a lovely Autumn.

Here at River Cottage on Achill island in County Mayo on Ireland's West Coast we are enjoying a fabulous crop of organic carrots, broad beans, shallots and lettuce. The big success story have been the carrots - fabulous big long ones without attack from insect or disease, due to our use of bio-fleece which has increased our yields and quality of veg four-hundred-fold.

We also recently adopted another wild starving kitten whom we named 'Timmy' and has now almost stopped spitting when we feed him. As yet we haven't managed to catch him or pick him up - it's a lengthy process gaining the trust of a wild cat even if you are the hand that feeds. We hope 'Timmy' will not have to be re-named 'Tammy' once we manage to check.

Take care - I'm off to shell the broad beans.

Summer in full swing..

Hi everyone,
Growth is in full swing here at River Cottage, and we are kept busy weeding and watering the vegetables and ornamental plants.

Yet again, the raised vegetable beds are proving very succesful, and crops are showing good, steady growth with no signs of disease or pest attack.

We continue to use Bio Fleece, a woven nylon mesh that was designed to stop carrot fly, which we have used exclusively for the past few years now with great success.

We find it stops onion fly, mealy bugs, and many other pests and diseases, simply because they can't get at them.

Of course, for flowering crops, you need to uncover them when they reach that stage of growth so they can be pollinated by insects and set crops.
At present we are enjoying losts of leafy salads - three varieties of organic lettuce that are beautifully fresh and crisp.

Broad beans are flowering profusely and there is a constant buzz as bees visit their quite wonderful flowers in purple and lilac shades.

Radishes are almost too prolific to keep up with, but need to be eaten before they get too big and turn woody. They have a great peppery tang and are crunchy and juicy at present.

We are growing a cylindrical, Italian beetroot this season and it seems to like our organic growing methods.

Eileen is continuing to paint, when she can make time, and Mark is busy with his writing. Summer is in full swing and the birds and bees know it.

Of course, the longest day of the year was yesterday.

Wednesday, Mark is reading his poetry at the local library - It is St. John's night which is traditionally celebrated here with bonfires.

Have a great week. I'm off to to have an egg salad for lunch.

A bird like an insect...

Returning home from a Poetry reading in Ballina late the other evening I pulled over for a break and opened the car window. And there they were. Singing beautifully in the dark stillness - Grasshopper Warblers. The air was full of their cricket-like mantra - a bird that sounds like an insect. Their song lends a distinctly mainland European flavour to the Irish countryside; like Greece or Spain, perhaps.

The Grasshopper Warbler is widely distributed but seldom seen. We used to hear them in certain areas of Macclesfield, the town where we lived in Cheshire, England. But I rarely caught a glimpse. More often than not they were skulking deep among bramble and Rosebay Willowherb on railway embankments; skulking is their habit.

They favour anywhere wild and unmanaged; low scrub and overgrown grass. In fact, they have an elongated middle-toe for that is ideal for grasping several grass stems or such like; the Reed Warbler and Sedge Warbler are different, having a foot evolved for grasping individual reed stems.

Their reeling song is unique. And when singing they turn their heads from side to side producing a ventroloquist effect, so that the sound rises and falls, comes and goes, sounds here then there, making it a joy to listen to, but very difficult to pinpoint.

They don't tend to sing on bright nights so you won't hear one singing when the moon is full. Their preference is for dark, still nights when they can sing undercover to their heart's content, to use a cliché. Last evening, here at River Cottage, was one such evening, and the night air was full of them.

If you do catch a glimpse of the bird you may be disappointed - apart from the thrill of having actually seen one - by its appearance. They are quite a nondescript small brown bird, and you may find yourself wondering what all the fuss is about. But that elusive bird always causes my heart to leap - as though I have set eyes on a Secret of Nature. Make no mistake - the Grasshopper Warbler is special. And I'm glad to say their distribution is increasing.

Best Wishes, Mark

Willow warblers, Wild flowers & Painted Ladies

In the calm of this evening, the sweet song of a willow warbler drifts through mys study window from the top of an alder tree thirty yards away. Ah! He has raised his first brood and is establishing his territorial rights for his second brood. That is great! For a few days now the garden has been full of young willow warblers, easily identifiable by their light eye-stripe. If we have a good Summer the birds might manage three broods. I hope so.

One sign that the ecosystem is healthy here is our resident sparrow-hawk. We see him now and again, and I have written poetry about him. I once saw him take a resting swallow straight off the telephone wire. But, more usually, he picks off a siskin or a coal tit - here is the poem. I call it 'Sparrowhawk'. I read it publicly only last weekend at The Force 12 Writers Festival at Belmullet, here in Co. Mayo:

Sparrowhawk

He'll be along shortly

hugging the river's bouldery course

then a twist and lift will bring him

gliding silently over the gate

to arc round the willow tree

where peanuts hang invitingly

for greenfinch, blue tit, coal tit -

his intended prey!

Even though when they

see his silhouette

they seek to resist their fate

it's almost too late by then -

a slow-motion death-dance follows

as they dash out all instinct and panic:

A mistake!

This is his moment.

This is how he

earns his daily bread, his survival.

He presses his honed advantage,

an almost casual talon-snatch

seeing him carry away his kill

for a frenzied feed in his plucking tree.

So it goes from week to week -

one can't help but admire his technique,

perfected over a hundred Millennia.

He captures perhaps one in three:

To watch him kill, is poetry.

(c) Mark F Chaddock 2009

With the warm bright weather the vegetable growth has picked up - it needed to. Even with the fleece we have permanently covering the raised beds the vegetables were behind for this time of the season.

The wild flowers by the river have been commanding our attention. We are lucky to have the beautiful wild flag iris; the early purple orchid; ragged robin; flowering plaintain; ox-eye daisies; rhododendron ponticum; buttercups; dandelions; birdsfoot trefoil and many more. We are like children again - I spend time trying to capture their beauty with the camera; their relationship with sunlight.

We were beautifully swarmed by migrating Painted Lady butterflies on 31st May. They were racing everywhere in pairs in their tens of thousands - I do not exaggerate - and then after two days they were more or less gone again when the wind changed direction carrying them south towards mainland Europe. But they must have left behind a legacy of eggs from their flight of passion. And later in the season the island will be overrun for the second time by Painted Ladies. What a wonderful promise! Eileen spotted the bright green clustered eggs on a Torbay palmtoday; I'm not sure what the caterpillar foodplant is, but I doubt it was Achill's palms that attracted them here.

Have a lovely week :) Mark

Painted Ladies & baby Goldfinches

Growth is well under way now that the warm humid Summer weather has truly arrived. Some of the birds seem to have hatched and fledged clutches earlier than other years so we are hoping it may be a two or even three clutch year for some species.

In particular, jus now, we are over-run in the nicest possible way with small flocks, a 'charm', of fledgling Goldfinches, their high pitched jingles and bright yellow wing-bars instantly identifiable. They are drawn to our feeders.

We saw a Painted Lady butterfly on daisy flowers yesterday and that is, indeed, early for that species with us. There are plenty of Orange Tip butterflies about.

I thought I might leave you with a view of Achillbeg island, the next island to us, between ourselves and Clare island, though both are much smaller that Achill which is Ireland's largest island.

Enjoy the good weather.

Nesting box Success!

Over the past few years we have been working hard at making River Cottage gardens as attractive as possible to birds. This has consisted of increasing the amount and diversity of shrubs grown, not being too tidy in the way we garden, avoiding the use of chemicals, and providing food and nestboxes.

For the first couple of years nestboxes we had carefully sited in our Rowan trees weren't used, though plenty of interest was shown by blue tits, coal tits, and great tits. We began to worry it was due to Rowan trees being late leafers. However, we need not have because this year Great tits have been successful and now they are busy in and out feeding their young who can be heard clamouring and cheeping whenever a parent bird appears.

So all's well here. The Cuckoo is still calling and preying on meadow pipits. The sedge warbler is singing and the 'crowlets' across the river in the nest in the top of the old Scots pine tree are croaking and thinking about testing their wings.

Have a great week.

Driven Cuckoo!

Despite being woke up a few times each night by our local cuckoo whose hormones have him calling almost incessantly, we are making good use of the beautiful weather.
Mostly, this means continuing to clear the new 'plant nursery' area, and re-instating the fruit garden near 'Fuchsia chalet'. Despite the area being scraped by machine two years ago it had totally overgrown with grass, rushes, and 'wild rhubarb', our giant weed here.
However, we are getting somewhere and will shortly lay 'mypex' sheeting, (the horticultural cover), to suppress weed, allowing us to establish raised beds and gravel paths. That should give us maximum use of the area as well as minimum maintenance.
The rugosa roses, zanteschia aethiopica lillies, and fuchsia magellanica are flowering freely. And a number of ornamental flax are throwing up flower spikes.
We have been tentatively allowing the ducks and hens to free-range openly in the garden when we ourselves are out and busy. So far there have been no casualties from a daytime visiting fox. But, in view of recent losses, we are very cautious. At other times , they free-range in their pens. The hens and ducks are laying freely at present. As I am writing (7pm) Eileen has just knocked on the study window and directed my attention to a very healthy red fox a few yards away in next door's land. It's a good job the hens and ducks are just put in. Phew!

Part of the reason we came to live here at River Cottage was a lifestyle change. We had grown disillusioned with our noisy, busy, but rather empty former lives. Our proffession was also failing us in a number of ways, we felt. There was a deep unmovable restlessness at our core. We wanted to live in a quiet, peaceful way close to nature, to grow our own food, to make things; to paint and write. To find out who we really were and what we really believed and valued.
Fourteen years later we are continuing to align our lives with living here in a quiet, appreciative, hopefully inobtrusive, way among wild rivers, mountains, the ocean, wildlife. We feel the more successful we are at this the more the next phase of this journey will unfold, or reveal itself, to us. Is it a journey of gradual awakening to the 'now'? Being fully conscious of our surroundings and appreciating each moment. I think that is coming close to it. Being fully present. Paying attention. Noticing the ordinary, everyday miracles.
A skylark spilled its beautiful song high above us in the blue sky this afternoon; we both stopped working and looked up, listening. Whatever it is to be present and at peace with the world, that lark was living it through his song.
Have a lovely week.

Rain and Painting

It has been wet at times here this past week. And misty. The river is swollen and thundering past the cottage. It has only a short journey of half a mile or less from us to the sea - Achill Sound, in fact.

Prevented from working outdoors on a couple of days, Eileen has been able to dedicate more time to painting her flower canvases in our studio/chalet. This week she has made rapid progress with them.

The rain has caused a surge of growth in the garden. This, unfortunately has proved most beneficial to weeds, and as one of our weeds (gunnera manicata) loves water, our mild climate, and is one of the largest perrenial plants known to man (some leaves reaching 8 feet across), this is not good. Vigilance is called for.

However, the rain has also been beneficial to our vegetables and ornamental plants/shrubs. So, we are grateful to the rain. The soil here, being light and sandy/peaty, rapidly dries out in a few days if we have no rain.

Our friend the sedge warbler has arrived back and is singing in the scrubby/brambly/willowy areas around us. The gorse continues to flower (see photo above fm. yesterday afternoon), and the wild rhododendron ponticum is now making a show with its lilac and purple blooms.

The Cuckoo is back!

The Cuckoo is back! Less than an hour ago we saw and heard the first cuckoo this year.

It's always so thrilling to have them back. They will be calling here for the next couple of months or so, as they prey on the local meadow pipits which will be laying and incubating eggs just now.

Cuckoo, you may be a predator but it's great to have you back. Both you and the swallows darting about the blue sky above River Cottage mean to us that the Summer stage is set for the official first day of summer on friday, May 1st, 'May Day'.

Have a great week.

April News

Mark is pleased to have finished the fencing that needed renewing. The bottom land boundary is now secure again so that we can concentrate a little more on growing plants and shrubs for sale at Achill Country Market ( see http://www.achillcountrymarket.blogspot.com/ ).

We shall now aim to re-establish both the soft-fruit garden ( blackcurrants, rhubarb, gooseberries, strawberries, and apples (baking and eating) and a growing-on area for pot plants and cuttings. We had been holding back previously because we were not stock-proof. There are plenty of sheep on all sides of us.

Our garden has established well over the past few years. We consciously decided to develop a more coastal theme as well as planting and encouraging native species of trees and shrub. We wanted a garden that would contain plenty of evergreens to provide structure and colour throughout the year, as well as big plants that would establish quickly and could put up with salt storms.

We planted Torbay palms and lots of variegated New Zealand flax five years ago and they have established very well. The palms flowered for the first time last year and are now 10 feet tall. The flax are similar in height, big dramatic specimens that throw up their exotic flower-spikes to 14 feet or so.

We have been blessed with good weather and so we have been busy gardening and making plans for further projects - paddocks in the back acre. In addition we have to try and finish the chalet interior at least partly - a ladder, a kitchen, something to sleep on!

For now the sun is shining and the days long - we're not making hay but we're busy.

Eileen is keen to get oil-painting again and I need to start some raised beds in the front garden.

Best Wishes,

Mark

Fencing, sowing, & butterflies

The Grasshopper warblers are back from Africa. We have seen peacock and small tortoiseshell butterflys about that have come out of hibernation from last year now the mild weather is here.

Eileen has sown broad beans, french beans, dwarf french beans, and courgettes - yellow and green.

Mark has been busy putting up a new boundary fence and setting more willow slips along our boundary. Eileen weaves willow baskets occasionally. We have been blessed with sunny, dry weather.

We need to source some wine yeast so we can begin making country wines again. In the past we have successfully made nettle, carrot, gorse, beetroot, and fig and rosehip.

Happy Easter!

Eileen and I were out taking the air on the Atlantic drive here on Achill island last evening. We are fortunate to have some of the most beautiful scenery in Europe on our doorstep. The deep blue of the Atlantic ocean stretched away to the horizon, only interrupted by islands now and again; close by, Achillbeg island and Clare island, further out, Inishturk. Fulmars wheeled about the cliffs beside us, and the ringing calls of choughs were clearly audible. Lambs were crying, wheatears were flitting from boulder to boulder, and meadow pipits were performing their lovely 'parachuting' song. Our inner wells were filled again.

In addition, Eileen had a great time at The Achill Country Market for whom she is Public Relations Officer. The advertising poster she had designed and we had posted up all over the island seemed to have paid off. There was plenty of custom and plenty of goods on offer. All our baking and hen and duck eggs sold. See http://www.achillcountrymarket.blogspot.com/

Today, I shall be planting more potatoes and Eileen is keen to get her leeks and beans sown.

A marran hen we thought had stopped laying for good has started laying again. Sometimes there are these nice, unexpected surprises; marran eggs are very deep brown and the white and deep yellow yolks shine out in perfect contrast. I'm off to have breakfast.

Have a lovely Easter!

The 1st Swallow of Summer!

Here at River Cottage it's a beautiful sunny day and we have just seen our first swallow. That is the earliest we have known them back from South Africa in the fourteen years we have lived here.

Eileen thought she saw one two days ago but wasn't certain. And yesterday was rain all day. But today they are out racing about a blue sky and along the trees by the river. Welcome back swallows - harbingers of summer!

Willow warblers, carrot sowings, and straw bedding

Hi everyone, busy up the hillside at the back of us collecting dead grass for straw for duck and hen bedding. This is the last chance to collect and store, as after this the new growth takes over.
Sowed five rows of carrots as the weather was fine and sunny.
Mark has been busy digging fence-post holes ready to re-fence some of the boundary at the front of our land which was taken down for machine access when we were building Fuchsia chalet. We have approximately an acre and a half of land here at the cottage, as well as an acre by the shore, and a one-acre bog to cut turf from for fuel.
We heard the first willow warbler back from south Africa, singing their sweet sad tune from our neighbour's just leafing alder trees beside us this afternoon. The skylark's were busy with their own singing, high up like dots in the blue.
Have a wonderful week.

Charlie drake II and the 1st bees and butterflies

A couple of weeks ago a day-time fox killed our drake (Charlie), leaving his headless corpse for us to discover. Luckily, a smallholder friend, whom we had previously given a Light Sussex cockerel, had a drake to spare. He settled in quickly and we have named him Charlie Drake II. Both himself and Daisy duck are happy.

We saw the first bee and first butterfly (small tortoiseshell) of this year today. We had to be careful not to pay the butterfly too much interest as our 'kitten' Tom-tum was getting curious also.

The last of the parsnips (8 kilos) and carrots and potatoes (6 kilos) were cleared from the raised beds today and the beds limed and fertilised as necessary.

As our weather has improved enormously – a mild 17oC today - and is set to continue for at least the next few days. In view of that the onion sets will be planted tomorrow and the spring onions which were germinated in blocs in plant pots will also go in. Eileen also plans to sow leeks, carrots, parsnips, lettuce, beetroot, beans, turnips and cabbage in the coming week.

Our first-early potatoes will be planted in the next couple of weeks.

The hens and duck are laying well. We haven’t seen the mangy fox that killed our duck for a week or so. We are having to keep the hens and ducks penned now. It’s unfortunate as they’ve been able to range freely without worry for the past 12 years. Of course, we have them out when we are out gardening and they are able to swim in the pond and slurp the slugs.

Spring continues to unfold here - pussy willow, daffodils, alder catkins, bees and butterflies.

Tom-Tum and his Mum

Last year we unexpectedly became the adoptive-parents of a stray cat and four of her kittens. However, the circumstances were much more complicated and heart-rending than they sound (albeit, we are sure, just one tale of many thousands of tales of suffering due to the irresponsible actions of cat-owners).
It began, (as it so often does), with us becoming increasingly aware of the most woeful miaeowing cries around our neighbourhood ‘wild areas’. Then, a cat began to come to our garden on a regular basis, though it wouldn’t show itself voluntarily; we had glimpses of an emaciated black and white female cat with amber eyes. So, we began leaving a saucer of milk for it which was eagerly lapped up if we backed off and left it to its own company. Any attempt at approach on our part resulted in spitting and it running into cover.

After a week or two, a very young starving, cross-eyed, feeble kitten appeared with her - wild and unapproachable, spitting as herself. He also voraciously lapped up milk offered. He wasn’t far from death, shaky and trembling, his little skeleton all lumps and bumps stuck out; this even a week or two after we began feeding him. We named him ‘Tom-tum’ because of his ability to drink saucer after saucer of the white stuff. Gradually, he and his mother gained confidence through familiarity and began taking table scraps and a little dog-meat, and letting us a little closer.

After a while they moved into our shed to live, and we were able to feed them a little meat and milk at the back door beside it. There was no limit to what either of them could consume, especially milk. We simply called the older cat ‘Mummy’.

We assumed Tom-Tum’s siblings had died of starvation, and we are certain another week before he came to us would have seen him follow the same fate. Indeed, ‘Mummy’ was in a pitifully thin state, no doubt due in large part to the demands of ongoing pregnancies and attempting to feed frequent litters. Such terrible, terrible, avoidable, suffering. Ignorance is no excuse in these informed times for poor pet-husbandry. The remedies are easily available to prevent this kind of thing through various schemes. We’re meant to be the superior race on this planet. A society is judged by the way it treats its animals.

So, we decided there and then we had seen a bellyful of suffering. We agreed that as soon as ‘Mummy’ stopped suckling ‘Tom-Tum’ and he was six months old, we would have him neutered and her spayed. We would not have ‘Tom-tum’ adding to the misery by fathering semi-wild, unwanted kittens. In addition, ‘Mummy’ could begin recuperating from the misery that her life had been. Her body was ravaged. There was nothing to her.

Then, fate intervened, as fate is inclined to do. We heard movement in the shed when neither ‘Tom-tum- or ‘Mummy’ were in it. On investigation we discovered three more young kittens about two weeks old.

So, we liased with our local cat rescue centre who gave us advice to advertise the kittens locally through placing posters, so homes might be found by the time they were were weaned from their mother at about eight – twelve weeks. Meanwhile, they would place them on a long list for re-homing, and send us two certificates to assist with spaying and neutering Tom-tum and his mum at a local vet.

This is not a nice tale. It has a good outcome in that we now have two loved and lovely cats who have recovered and are happy, playful, and living good-quality lives here as part of River Cottage. However, 'Mummy' remains very apprehensive and will not enter our house, she is constantly worried the door will be shut on her and cut off her avenue of escape. We think she must have been abused in the past as we found a big callus under her ribs from an old fracture - we presume she took a kick off someone- Tom is fine now and has grown well. 'Mummy is a plump cat that loves food and is very, very loving and affectionate. The three other kittens were found good homes with owners who wanted cats, and who will have them neutered (all three were males) at 6 months old. But it could all so easily have all been prevented, the misery avoided, for a little thought and a few miserable euros.

A Profusion of Primroses

Spring is here! The weather has become milder. Daffodils, ‘Tete-a Tete’, ‘February Gold’, and our native ‘Van Sion’, are all perfect - glowing with sunshine - and not, as is the case some years, battered by storms. There are other spring beauties flowering too; helleborus orientalis, the Lenten Rose, is a lovely, velvety, maroon, with an almost white centre. The crocus tomasinius are almost gone over - new ones have emerged in palest lilac-blue from beneath an elder bush - I hardly remember planting them - a welcome surprise!

A profusion of primroses are flowering, along with the small starry blue flowers of variegated Periwinkle minor, and the first bees have been visiting them. Dandelions and daisies are a cheery, welcome sight – they are such lovely weeds! The willows are all in bud, the silver-white buds lighting the bare brown branches.

The birds are calling and singing throughout the day now, as they feed on peanuts and gather any spilled seeds our ducks might have left behind.

I was fortunate to see a goldcrest today. He was announcing spring from the fuchsia hedge beside me as I tidied the raised vegetable beds; an insistent song almost too enthusiastic at the end. They are here every year, across the river in the fir trees, but they are most heard from a thicket of silver birch and rhododendrons. We often hear their song, but rarely see them.

The first lambs of the season arrived in the village on Saturday. Our neighbour pointed them out to me, on the hill at the back of our cottage; twins. We were anxious for them as the season is early but they are hardier than you might think and the ewes are good, attentive mothers. They become stronger and more playful with each passing day.

Frogspawn has appeared in our drainage ditch over the past two nights. They seem to lay around the 20th Feb. every year. Some nights we can creep up quietly and hear the frogs “singing” and splashing in frog heaven. Then, next morning, there are the half-submerged black-spotted glistening eggs we are so familiar with from our childhoods.

Our only laying hen and a newly-matured duck have started up this week – the eggs are most welcome – by the way a duck-egg is perfectly boiled at seven minutes.

We are still missing ‘Prince’, as he was such a part of our everyday lives, involved in everything we did with the garden and poultry. He is with us in spirit.