Sunday, June 19, 2022

Another milestone reached

Yep, I've finally reached the grand old age of 65. Does that mean I'm a grown-up at last? Nah!!! We had planned to go for a nice visit to an Open Garden but as the weather was over 30 degrees we decided to save the trip for another day. A neighbour asked me if I was going to stop running now - heck no, I need to keep the arthritis at bay and I've still got more fund-raising to do and adventures to have!

Speaking of adventures, I went along to one of my favourite ultra marathons, the Weald Challenge last weekend. Just under 32 miles of unrelenting uphill/downhill and rutted tracks. The weather was hot, hot. hot but I didn't care and had a fab day out helping a lovely lady to acheive her first ultra marathon. I didn't take any photos en-route as we were keeping a close eye on the time so as not to miss the cut-off but we did have a photo taken at the finish:

I had some excellent comedy tan lines from wearing my compression socks!


I also got another of these trophies, my 3rd in fact, for being first on my age category.

At home I've been busy out in the garden whenever possible but had to stop planting my new border as the ground is rock hard and I can't get a spade or fork into it at the moment. We need a few days of rain to soften it a bit. In the meantime the yard looks like as if I'm starting a small garden centre with all the plants sitting waiting to go into the ground!



The wildlife continues to delight us with lots of new arrivals:






It's been a tough year for the ducks as there are too many Rooks and Crows around to steal their babies.
She brought them to show us, headed to the pond, came back later with 3, went away and came back with none. So sad.


Mummy Rook with baby in the wild garden


A young Squirrel


Meanwhile there's been lots of fighting between the male ducks who don't have a mate. They're really vicious!




Apologies for the poor photo but I managed to catch a photo of Mrs Mouse in my shed. I knew something had been eating my stores tulip bulbs but never saw anything until yesterday when she made an appearance when I was potting up some plants!




Around the garden there's so much to see:

The wild section of the back garden is full of wildflowers both in the orchard and the lower section and we were delighted to count an amazing 49 orchids as there was only 1 small group of 7 last year!




In the front garden there's just so much to see and it's teaming with insects:

The Shade Garden we created during lockdown has settled in nicely.



The Golden Oat grasa has florished this year and looks stunning in the sunlight.

The giant Cardoons are about to flower

I love how this pretty blue Nigella, aka 'Love in a mist', has seeded into the golden Oregano.






























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