Massacre in the Garden

Anyone reading some of my recent blog posts may well have appreciated the underlying anger at our current political situation. Anger is a powerful emotion and whilst it can spur us into action, irate reactions aren't generally the most productive.

I had hoped by now to be working off my own wrath in the garden amongst the healing power of nature. The flower beds have been springing into life for several weeks, our hedge has turned green but the vegetable patch still needs preparing for the crops that I am going to ask it to nurture over the next few months. Since retiring, March and April have usually been busy months in the garden and I had anticipated that 2019 would be the same.

Unfortunately plummeting temperatures, frosty mornings and a cold, biting wind have thwarted my intentions.

I have tilled some of the soil and applied fertiliser but, generally speaking, gardening this year has so far been restricted to the raising of seeds in propagators. Hopefully it is going to warm up soon or not only are my seedlings going to become very leggy as they continue to grow on windowledges rather than in the unheated greenhouse, but my own Brexit incandescence may well bubble over without an exertive effort to dig trenches for potatoes.

A warm Spring is always welcome, even when we have been spared a long cold winter and broke it up with that magical trip to New Zealand. Speaking of which, upon our return I did mean to give a shout out for Hamilton Gardens which have been overlooked my so many people I know who have travelled to NZ. Just off State Highway 1 and only an hour and a half south of Auckland they couldn't be more conveniently placed for those embarking on or returning from trips around the lower part of North Island.

On our previous journey there in 2017, pouring rain interrupted our visit and, although the themed gardens couldn't fail to impress, we were disappointed not to see them in all their glory. Yes we need to get outdoors to be at one with nature and at peace with ourselves but the weather, both at home and abroad, doesn't half make it unpleasant at times! Fast forward 14 months, however, and I was treated to another visit and this time the sun shone throughout our wander around the landscaping and plants from civilisations across the globe.

In recent weeks when I have been indoors rather than out, it has, just like at Hamilton, been a source of pleasure to look out on our own lawn and borders with the daffodil heads nodding in the stiff breezes whilst watching the visiting birdlife which, somewhat unusually for our garden in April, has included both reed buntings and willow warblers. However, it is only by getting outside that you fully appreciate the beauty of the flowers, bringing colour to what has been a drab landscape over the winter months.

Sadly nature isn't always as harmonious as we might like to imagine. It might cause my spirit to soar in retirement but nothing had prepared me for the massacre of the daffodils I witnessed this week. In the absence of any signs of rabbits or digging by mammals, I can only blame wood pigeons for the uprooting and beheading in, I assume, a desperate attempt to grab foliage for their nests. 

Then, just when I was recovering from the shock of pulverised blooms there, spread across the lawn, was the feathered evidence of the brutal digestion by a sparrowhawk of one of our bluetits.

For a brief moment I was almost convinced that politics isn't so nasty after all.