Tuesday, 22nd March

Today, Tuesday the weather is beautiful in the early morning.  Cold of course, already we have the dawn chorus interspersed by pheasants and the cock over the road.  I go out to let the chickens out and feed them.  Also fill the bird table with bread and seed, first to the table will be the squirrels and pigeons, the thugs of the fauna race, the two collared doves will appear alongside the blackbirds who appeared about three weeks ago.  The rooks and jackdaws occasionally make low level swipes for the bread on the bird table.  As the larger brethren have their fill, the smaller birds will take their share, chaffinches, tits and robins, thought I saw a hen blackcap yesterday and of course the little wrens will flutter along the ground like brown butterflies.

Celandine on the verges, the occasional glimpse of a bee, snowdrops dying down and the wreaths of daffodils that decorate the verges are beginning to flower.  Blackthorn blossom in sheltered places, all show spring is on the way.  The rooks that are building nests in the small copse behind the garden are making a mess, bird s--- everywhere and the lawn strewn with twigs.  The jackdaws have their eye on the church, saw one fly into the porch yesterday, surely they are not going to build a nest their?  Soon it will be the turn of the swallows to build their nests under the roof of the church.  We moan the loss of many birds but there are still plenty around, I suppose you would call them the 'common lot' but still welcome.

My daughter came down for the weekend, the children went with their father to the cottage at Whitby, there are family changes on the way sadly.  We went for a meal at the pub next door, K and I had a rather delicious chicken in wine and cream but LS had something that did not agree with him.

We met a local farmer who lived at Riseborough, must write about the place some day, he had bought in a couple of dozen eggs in for Harriet, but he complained that she could not keep them in the kitchen of the pub but upstairs because they were not marked (little lion, remember them) and bemoaned the bureaucracy of today.  The man who provides the logs for the pub also came in, but his wood did not seem to burn too well on the fire, elm, sycamore, etc.  Then there was the gaitered man, beautifully dressed  in tweed as a countryman, he described himself as a hunter, mink and rats I suppose.

When I went a walk yesterday, four baby rabbits disappeared down a freshly dug hole by the river when we made an appearance, I have a feeling that the rabbits in the long bank by the field have been killed.  But after all this land was described as a 'Warren', you can occasionally find pillow mounds, built for the rabbits in medieval times, and an easy source of food.