Some writing of Toadlet's from ten years ago

I bought this Year Book on a visit to Sulgrave Manor in 1991

I've used the notebook to record sightings, often first sightings of the year, of birds, butterflies and flowers. Yesterday, when I entered my first sighting of a peacock butterfly and hawthorn budburst at the Boggy Brae ("Brsd" in the notebook. The other places mentioned, "Lottie", which was my allotment, "WH", and "309W", are all places in Oxfordshire), I noticed an entry by Toadlet. I think it was actually 2005 but the numerals 5 and 3 are easily mixed up when you're four and a half, as she would have been in March 2005 and when she also would have been able to write about poppies. She made some other entries that year too. Birthdays were clearly important!

The Ruth whose birthday that was wrote to her granny about my "bfdy" at a similar age.

I think the reference to crocuses is my favourite. There is one about Daiys (daisies) in 2004, on reading which I decided Toadlet was just making the dates up all along!

Still, the entries probably were from 2005. We've never had any red crocuses.

Spring things

Near the pond and carpeting the ground in the copse is the spring gold of Opposite-leaved Golden Saxifrage (Chrysosplenium oppositifolia).

Daisy

Near the drive where I was clearing some dead fern and pulling dead wood out of a rhododendron bush, I found a toad frog. I apologised for disturbing him and re-covered him with his moss blanket.

<< Now you see him;

now you don't.

Bullfinches come quite regularly to eat the buds of the wild plum tree and today I saw the first Boggy Brae butterfly of the year.

Peacock butterfly

A young hawthorn tree in the hedge has burst its buds and I took the picture below just for the colours.

Rhododendron ponticum
flower shoot

Light through leaves

Ivy

Fuchsia

Elder

Honeysuckle

Daffodils

Holly

Really feels like spring this morning

Flowering Currant (Ribes sanguineum) doing its stuff for early bees.

Not sure if this is Goat Willow or Grey Sallow;
the main thing is that it's waking up from its winter sleep!

Ground Elder shoots (Aegopodium podagraria) are springing up in their usual places on the boggy brae. Boggybrae wildflower (well, plant, anyway; it will flowers later) no. 8 for 2015  >>>>

The beautiful spring leaves of Pyramidal Bugle
(Ajuga pyramidalis)
Boggybrae wildflower no. 9 for 2015

There are Pignut leaves by the thousand, here with
a Polytrichum moss.
(Conopodium majus)
Boggybrae wildflower no. 10 for 2015

Gorse! (Ulex europaeus) Boggybrae wildflower no. 2 for 2015
Yes, I know it's out of order. Story of my life ;)

A tangled daffodil with some young Yarrow leaves.

Young Yarrow leaves (Achillea millefolium)
showing why its other name is Milfoil
from the Latin "thousand leaves".
Boggybrae wildflower no. 11 for 2015

Primroses from above on the south-east slope. There are still only a couple of patches of flowers open. We've a bit of a way to go before there are a thousand plus flowering at once.
Boggybrae wildflower no. 5 for 2015

The wild daffodils still have a way to go too. These are the first few. Boggybrae wildflowers no. 7 for 2015

A walk in the hills by Auchengaich Burn

The glen of Auchengaich Burn

A bryophytically enhanced fence post

Love larches

There are several old shielings near where these larch trees grow on the lower slopes of Beinn Chaorach.

Magellanic Bog Moss (Sphagnum magellanicum)
and blaeberry (Vaccinium myrtilus) shoots

I want to know why this moss is called magellanic. Wiki doesn't seem to know. Anyone?

Update:
DerbyshireDaughter sent this link about the Magellanic Moorlands of Tierra del Fuego. I guess this sphagnum moss growing on similar Scottish moorlands was named after Darwin's comments about the peat bogs of that part of the world.

Larch cones

Caterpillar curled up on the mitt of
Little She Bear

Bilberry plants teetering on the edge of the ravine

The drop into this cool, no! cold!, pool was quite dizzifying. The bridge across this ravine was pretty impressive too.

March morning

This is the holding wall at the back of the house this morning. I call this section the bistort wall because of its 'shawl' of some kind of bistort.

This is what it looks like in June

and in August when I've cut back the ferns.

From the south-east kitchen window

On the south-east bank lower down the crocuses got a bit snow-swamped:

February News 2015

DivingDaughter took part in her first diving competition on the last day of February this year so the Boggy Brae dwellers trooped over to Edinburgh to watch her and her diving pals. We did not arrive quite as early as planned because Toad and Toadlet, once again, made the mistake of following me. They know what my sense of direction is like! Actually, I maintain it is quite good, it just doesn't kick in until I realise I've gone the wrong way.

So! we got onto one of the buses DivingDaughter had specified. The only problem was that it was going the wrong way. It is about thirty-three years since I swam in Edinburgh Commonwealth Pool (when I was pregnant with DivingDaughter, as it happens) and twenty-nine years since I lived in Edinburgh. That's enough time to have forgotten a lot. However, half way down Leith Walk I had a classic "hang on a minute!" moment, dived down the bus stairs and asked the driver to let us off which, with a bemused sigh, he did. We crossed the road and caught the bus going the other way. Toad and Toadlet had a jolly time being amused by my directional incompetence while I smiled serenely and suggested they look things up and make travelling plans in future. They'll catch on eventually ;)

The diving competition was fun. The diving club was set up for kids who dive in a lot of competitions, so they got to judge the adults' performances. Sweetie bribes were mentioned in hushed tones but I don't believe a word of it. The scariest-looking dive from my point of view was the one from the high boards where, with their back to the pool, the diver's toes are all that is actually clinging to the edge of the board. They then just lean backwards, dead straight, into the dive. That wasn't one of the dives DD did. She is a relative beginner in diving terms but we were still impressed with her cool diving poise. Watching diving close-up instead of on the telly really helps you appreciate the skill, nerve and muscle control required.

From the pool we walked in drenching rain to Rigatone's Restaurant on Clerk Street. Jo hadn't eaten there before but she had seen a Vespa parked in the restaurant window so, obviously, it was a good place to go. Her instincts were right. The place was fully booked from six o'clock but they fitted us in with delicious food and fast efficient service. I have not drunk any wine for quite a while because even a small amount has tended to give me a headache over the last year or so, but I really fancied a glass of dry white after watching the diving. I had some with my wonderful cheesy pasta and no headache, so that was nice. Now all I have to do is reproduce the ideal wine-drinking circumstances of train travel across Scotland, leading the family astray in Edinburgh, walking in drenching rain while sharing a brolly with Toadlet (quite a dangerous exercise; Toad walked behind and apologised to those affected by Toadlet's poor brolly control. She may be able to drive a Landcruiser but she can't drive a brolly on a city street yet without putting the eyes of passers-by at risk!), eating delicious pasta prepared by someone else... then I can enjoy another glass of wine.

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I spent a good deal of February making items for my Etsy shop. I made several commissioned items that didn't go through the shop, such as this coffee table mat. The specifications were "mossy, earthy, and a splash of colour".

 My younger grandson turned two in February so I sent two placemats for his birthday

and then another two for DerbyshireDaughter's birthday ten days later. All the mats are washable.

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There is a grey heron making quite a racket at the top of the cypress tree in the bottom east corner of the garden. I wonder if it has been looking for frogs in the pond.