The territory has shrunk to my back garden, but I thought we could do with a few peaceful and pretty photos this week. Although it has been cold, there has been a long dry period, and spring is beginning to move at last. There are birds nesting in the hedges, and yesterday I heard all the sparrows yelling at each other for the first time in the usual nesting colonysetting boundaries way. Their tenement is in the back hedge this time – cold winds have left the side hedges bare of leaves and a bit too exposed to the attentions of a pair of magpies and a big crow that comes every morning to check out the pond. I suspect he is the reason why we have no frogspawn this year. As well as the usual coal tits, blue tits and great tits, I’ve seen wrens, robins, dunnocks, blackbirds and thrushes, and most exciting of all, a pair of bullfinches, which are a rare sighting here. There was a wren scoping out a pot of ivy on our side wall, and for a wild minute I hoped they might nest in it, because it is just below my study window, where I would be able to see into it. On reflection, though, it may be too near the back door.

There’s a lot to keep me busy just now. I have been clearing the debris from the winter and seeing what has survived, repotting plants on the patio, and starting seeds. Somewhere along the line I seem to have ordered more vegetable seed than ususal and now I have lettuce, radish and spinach in big pots and a lot of seedling peppers, aubergines and tomatoes in the greenhouse.

Geese are heading northward this week, and there were bumble bees in the garden when I was out, at last. I had begun to be afraid they had all drowned when the soil got so wet. I missed the curlews arriving, and I have yet to hear skylarks from the fields, but with the sunny weather, I’m sure it won’t be long.

I’ll be doing a couple more virtual launches over the next few weeks, and a newsletter, perhaps by the weekend. It got held up, not only because life got so weird lately, but because it will feature dandelions, and the flowers seem very late this year. In the meantime, I wish you all good health, peace of mind, and pleasant company.