Spring Things

We are getting a new gate. It's going to be about two and a half meters in front of where the old gate is at the moment. Saturday the posts got cemented into the ground. The gate will get hung in a few days when the cement has cured properly.

This is some of the CLAY that was dug up when digging the holes for the new posts. I could start a pottery with all the clay under Whitelees.

Aquilegia - Granny's bonnets - In the wild it would be columbine.


This is Mike. Mike and I discovered that we're three days apart in age.

You can see the new gate leaning against the shed. The new gates will be from the corner of the shed. This will give us a whole bunch of new usable back yard space. The old gate is broken and needed to be replaced. We might as well put the new gate in a better place.

Mike and his wife Isobel are our friends. It is handy that their children are friends with George. Mike brought most of his children with him when he arrived on Saturday. We like having them over. The kids are kind, well behaved, grateful for any baking I have done and TALL!

Here they are watching Groundhog Day on video in our tv room. Polly inspecting Mike's trailer. You can see the new gate posts leaning against the stone dyke.

Yesterday evening when I was walking Polly I thought that as the light was so beautiful, I'd take the camera with me. The hawthorn is just getting to be past its best, but the perfume it makes is wonderful! There's loads of it around here and I think it makes it seem as though the hedgerows and forests have been festooned for a wedding.
Pretty, isn't it?

The rhododendrons and azaleas are in high bloom at the moment too. Rhododendrons have become a real pest in Scotland. As pesty as they are, they are still beautiful when in full bloom. Rhododendron blossom poking through the undergrowth.

Coming back, Polly discovered that her friends the cows are visiting and are right up to the back fence. You can just barely make it out, but there is a cow nibbling on something behind the chicken run. I showed you the front of the place the other day. Whitelees is still partly obscured by trees but this is the view from the road looking at the rear of the place. Well, the view of Whitelees from the the rear is prettier. This is because you can see the hills of the Lake District when you are looking south, as this last photo illustrates. Some days the hills look closer like on Tuesday evening. The hills look closer when it's going to rain. Sometimes one can pick out individual fields on the slopes going up. Other times, the hills look like they've moved back and are further away.