Signs

By the time I'd put away my gardening tools and walked Hugo last night I couldn't face cooking my planned supper of Nigel Slater's asparagus and lemon risotto. Instead I resorted to a pre-cooked meal that I've been alerted to and recommended, namely the Cooks range which is sold in the Co-op. I've ignored the heads up for ages, but I had eventually bought a roasted vegetable lasagne for the freezer, and this I cooked last night. I can report that it was excellent, putting the very good Charlie Bigham meals to shame. I scoffed it all very quickly and then regretted that I'd bought the pack for one and not two. It'll be the risotto tonight then, if I can drag my aching body to the stove and keep it there for 20 minutes. I seem to be developing something, with a heavy, sore head and tingling in my nasal tubes. I'm sleepy too. It will be with a heavy sore heart if I have to cancel my weekend plans too. Der Rosenkavalier tomorrow night, Renee Fleming, the Met, say no more. Though I'll have plenty to say if I have to miss it.

There's been a lot of bird activity in the garden. Bright scarlet bullfinches dart through the hedge, their slightly paler cousins the chaffinches flit about, and the quicksilver red, gold and black goldfinches flash their colours as they lurch from tasty to bud to bud. There are yellowhammers too, their telltale call resembling muted blacksmiths at work on the anvil. A tiny wren nests on the ground behind my field maple. And of course there are tits of all kinds and robins. No sparrows though. Funny that. Blackbirds will always be my favourites, especially on a sunny evening. Their call is sublime, though someone recently said on TV that it couldn't be perfected. Actually, that last bit of each sequence, the scraping, cawing finale to each clear song, could go as far as I'm concerned. Nick had heard a nightingale as he cycled up from Peasenhall on Wednesday. He said they are out in the daytime too, but it's generally too noisy for their song to be heard. All of this is very encouraging. A few years ago after a trip to noisy Sussex I feared we'd lost most of our songbirds in Suffolk.