Day 4, #30dayswild

On 1 June I was in Yorkshire, and not able to write a post for this blog, but now I'm back there's a chance to catch up. Yorkshire was lovely, especially Nunnington Hall, a National Trust building with a delightful organic garden which nestles in a beautiful riverside setting. An added treat on the visit was the exhibition of 2014 British Wildlife Photography Awards winners (the link will take you to a gallery of the finalists, which is well worth a look, especially the Animal Portrait winner, which went to a photograph from the Farne Islands, and was my own favourite - having found the website I'm going to be looking at them all again!) Serendipity, or what?

Next day we went to Whitby - not much observable wildlife apart from the herring gulls, but a nice example at the Abbey of the effects of nature on sedimentary stone over the years:

We were in no doubt about the efficacy of weathering, the wind was an icy blast on Monday. On my last day, somewhat beset by the weather again, we drove past Rievaulx Abbey but didn't go in - somewhere warm, with coffee, beckoned. There were plant stalls too - pity I was travelling home by train.

Back home and there weren't too many dramatic developments in the garden, again the result of the cold weather, but the may blossom is now fully out, and will shortly be followed by the elder. One of the first things I did was head out to the greenhouse to see what had been happening there. To my horror I found that the nasty sticky yellow whitefly trap, which I put up because my precious scented pelargoniums were suffering, and which I thought was preferable to spraying, had caught two small bumble bees. I am now racked with guilt, and the trap is in the dustbin! The pels will just have to take their chances in future. I've sent off a donation to the Friends of the Earth Bee Cause to assuage my conscience, and will be assiduously assisting any bees I find from now on to make up for it. I was very impressed, visiting my brother and his family at the weekend, to see his bumble bee hive - sadly, my budget won't quite run to such a gesture, but I have got a house for solitary bees to put up this week. I've also sown some catmint for them which will need planting out soon. I think I might manage to make a woodpile too - well, more exactly, I'll collect up the random bits of ash tree which have come down, and put them somewhere in a better, and undisturbed pile. I don't expect the existing inhabitants will mind a minor change of location!

Tomorrow I think I'll take the camera for a walk...

O Western wind, when wilt thou blow?

This house has been far out at sea all night,
The woods crashing through darkness, the booming hills,
Winds stampeding the fields under the window
Floundering black astride and blinding wet

Till day rose... (Ted Hughes)

Have I mentioned before that I hate wind? Even ordinary blustery days turn me into a cat with my fur ruffled the wrong way, skittery and tetchy and generally on edge. I hate my hair being mussed up the minute I go outside, and the way every object develops a will of its own and refuses to cooperate: flowerpots snatch out of your hand and whip away into the distance, smoke from the chimney blows in your face, dust gets in your eyes. In this not-very-windtight house doors left ajar for a moment bang incessantly, then slam when the back door is opened. Last year a gale almost blew the side wall off the garden shed.

Today is just such a day, and it has followed a night of relentless clattering and howling. I crave silence and respite from the ceaseless movement. I'm reminded that I still haven't phoned the tree man to come and deal with our ageing ash trees, which are constantly shedding small branches, and occasionally a larger one. But rather than spurring me into action, the knowledge is a further irritant. I can't do it now, it will have to wait until my fur will all lie in the right direction.

We're getting all fluffed up, here...

The chickens, too, are all ruffled up, and look at me very reproachfully when I go outside. I have tried to create some shelter for them at one end of their run, but like me, they'll have to manage until it blows itself out. The forecast for tomorrow is slightly better, but much the same as today on Sunday. Humph!