Friday 29th, Royal Wedding Day

I've been watching the television report all day, transfixed.  Wow, didn't it all turn out beautiful, congratulations in spirit to the couple and all who organized the day to such perfection.

No, I didn't sit solidly in front of a TV screen, I did manage to do some thorough cleaning in a couple of rooms and prepare a couple of meals, and John painted 1½ walls of the new build having sealed these walls yesterday, here he is on the scaffold:

Neither the bluetits at the back of the house nor the ducks were much bothered by this activity, they seem used to constructions and ladders and people going up and down them.



Having left the television late afternoon to re-fill the ducks' water containers I took the opportunity for some more photographs, first from the new room upstairs and then in the garden:

The two "monsters" of barley straw which can be seen at the right hand edge of the pond did their job - after three days the layer of green algae was gone.

It maybe cannot be seen very clearly in the photo above, but the yellow dots in the centre of it are the first blooms of the yellow day lily, and just behind it the dicentra are looking lovely even though they've not grown very tall.

The rose "Fru Dagmar Hastrup" in the large bed alongside the garage has opened its second bloom, and under the pergola I found some very colourful pansies:

The double lilac and tulipforme magnolia behind the house are still making a good show, but I'm waiting eagerly for the first few buds of the Maigold roses to open.



The orange tulips which were lighting up the garden for such a long time have finished now, and the 'black' ones I've got in one or two places don't show up so well, but there are some bright splashes of colour coming up here and there like the red peonies:

Mustn't forget reporting on the ducks - rip-roaring fights are still going on between the three drakes and both camps are wary of each other. 

I'd seen Captain and Hedda coming up for food, cautiously, and I managed to hold off an attack by BBD who came running from the frog pond.  In spite of this they turned back immediately - they don't seem to mind the many scavengers waiting in the wings, but the threat of BBD or Blob panics them .................. and it works the other way about, too.  Captain running up sends the group of nine into equal panic, I'm just glad there've been no actual injuries!