Wednesday afternoon, 15.6.2011 - remembering brother Hugo on his birthday

I finally got around to clipping the leylandii in the front garden, the 2 spirals and the pompom, starting yesterday early morning and finishing at lunch time today.


This is as far as I got by lunchtime yesterday having started on the street side with the sun at my back.  It was an unusually hot day, not at all as expected.
You may notice the black triangle of earth on the right of the spirals; John had dug out one of the viburnums there and the wild rose. 

 
In the third picture below you can see that he's put grass seed down and covered it with white fleece ...... several cats had been in the loose soil overnight!

This second photo I took last night  - I had to stop and leave the clipping half finished as I had very sore hands and was trying to stop a blister from forming. 

But by mid-day today the job was done:

I'm not sure if I mentioned in these diaries that I delayed the clipping of the trees because I'd seen blackbirds going in and out frequently, and I suspected there to be a nest in the left hand spiral, the one in the middle of the photo above ..............
I didn't find the nest until this morning, it was so well hidden, roughly where the white arrow is pointing in between the third and fourth tier.
 

All the time I was busy cutting these trees I noticed a male blackbird nearby, watching me.  Was he worried, maybe, that I was destroying his cover as he and his mate were planning another brood???

The view from the top of the steps was very good, here are a couple of shots towards the house [the philadelphus/mock orange blossom is in full bloom] and towards the street:

 

[The roses on the pergola look so bare because I cut off all the diseased leaves yesterday!]

Can't  post in my duck diaries without including one or two pictures of our little group of five.  Captain worried me this morning as he was lying all on his own by the side of the pond  and his four girls were busily swimming in it.  I've decided it's the moult weakening him as I've seen him on the move since. 





My 'drooling' over pink peonies in a previous posting has had unforeseen consequences, first Pine and Micha sent me this photo of lovely pink peonies and red gerbera,

and this morning John and I unexpectedly received an early anniversary present from Gerd and Maria, THANK YOU!