Looking Lively

Summer came to the country today. It was a gorgeous treat but it makes me nervous: warm spring, wet summer, that seems to be the way of things. I wasn't going to spurn it on the grounds of its unfair appropriation of available decent weather though, and out we went to make the most of it. Pound Farm, aka the Woodland Walk, was washed in sunlight, and we took ourselves there for a gallop. At least Hugo galloped, I lolloped. It started badly when a car pulled into the car park just after us, radio blaring, and out came a woman with two huge dogs. When I see a walker ahead of me I take the other route so as not to crowd them, but this woman decided to follow me. Up charged her dogs, racing round and round me so that I waited helplessly to be knocked over. Hugo didn't help by urging them on. Then the big black one, cross lab/Rottweiler maybe, jumped up at me and placed muddy paws on my trousers and jacket. "I'll walk on briskly" the woman told me lightly, no apology. So rude. We turned and went the other way. After that it was lovely, calm and quiet and hot, and we wended our way where I thought we wouldn't meet the unruly gang again. If a walk like that doesn't set you up for the day I don't know what would.

Back in the garden I got down to the weeding. An unexpected gift of five beautiful white hellebores yesterday became the answer to the problem of what to do in the rhodedendron/azalea corner. Once I'd cleared this space I planted them, and I'm delighted with the result. An order for 237 plants - ground cover mainly but not exclusively - should begin to tackle the weed issue. I'm going to try to cover every space with something that will grow and spread, and be pretty too.

It's a big area, and slow work!

Hugo reminds me oh so gently when he needs something. He doesn't run to the door or the gate when he needs the loo, nor does he become bothersome when he's hungry. He just comes and stands by me and leaves me to interpret his actions. At one point I lay down on the lawn in the sun and he looked at me for a moment then lay down beside me, one arm and his head on my outstretched arm. That meant I need a cuddle now please. Who could resist?

As we wended our way around the fields for our evening walk we spotted the barn owl again as we have done every evening for nearly two weeks now. The other day it flew straight through my garden, but this evening it kept to the bottom ditch, quartering backwards and forwards with great strokes of its powerful wings. I hope it's still around in a couple of weeks. My family are passionate owlophiles, and they'd consider it a huge bonus if there were close sightings.