Bank holiday snapshot

There has been sunshine and you can almost hear xylem and phloem pumping throughout the garden so, as the last collection of the brown bin by the council looms, it was a day to spend outside.
Gulls (various), tits (blue, great, long-tailed), sparrows, blackbirds chasing magpies, wood pigeons shaking the last few flowers from the magnolia. Robins grooming in the sunlight, calling their claim to territory, starlings and swifts sweeping above.

Bees humming, hover flies over the pond in which a large frog and a teeny-tiny one hide amongst the flowering bog-bean. A spreading froth that maybe late frogspawn (or perhaps a neighbour's cat has been sick). Few butterflies so far, only cabbage white. Wisteria opening, also the holly buds and a 'borrowed' white clematis; wygelia pink-budded, loganberries showing promise of summer fruit.

Bluebells (and pink) still in flower although the daffodils have gone over, leaving some swelling seed pods. Forget-me-nots, bright lime-green euphorbia spiked with alium stems, first buds on roses. Unrolling ferns and the tiny pink flowers of who-knows-what, a welcome airy annual which lifts the darker areas. Wine-red columbine in the herb garden, bracket fungus on the deadwood pile. Foxgloves reaching skywards, but not as many as I would like.

 

And through it all runs the goose grass, horsetail and dandelion.
Of course, today it is raining and cold enough to consider lighting a fire!