5th May - cuckoos

5th May, and there is talk of cuckoos on the radio, so doing a 'search' on my blog records that we heard cuckoos on this exact date last year.  Pottering is the blog, and I see the bluebells are almost over, whereas last week the flowers were just starting.

Woke up early to the heavy downpour of rain, and when I fed the birds this morning, the doves were soaked, their feathers dark grey.  Yesterday I sat out in the sun and recorded what I saw, you will just have to imagine the bees I am trying to capture and never do.  But that thin strip down the side of the house which is left to follow its own way, has had small dark violets, bluebells and the wallflowers that always grow wild in the front, plus of course the red valerian coming into flower.  Wilderness even in the smallest part of the garden just happens, but  you must stay the hand from weeding and acknowledge the wild flowers.  There is also the yellow poppy, which I dearly love for its bright lemon colour, the buds are still at the hairy stage before they burst into too brief a flowering.

Maybe these bluebells go back to an earlier woodland here.

tiny dark violets with their heart shaped leaves.  When I was a child you could buy bunches of violets.

Flashing by in the background is our male blackbird, the starlings always send him off in a rage..