After a morning shrouded in cloud, there is eventually sunshine in the afternoon with broken cloud. The Honey Bees are keeping busy buzzing around the Borage and the Bumblebees, are well, bumbling around the bee plants (the name of which escapes me!) Some plants look parched, and are in desperate need of rain, of which lately we have had very little. I watch the aerial stunts of a lone Swift picking up insects on the wing. Two fledgling Blackbirds 'Pip' and 'Squeak' are making light work of picking berries from the Amelanchier tree. A male Kestrel hovers overhead for its prey, without success. Disturbed a White Plume Moth.

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Yellow is abundant around the garden with Cephalaria, Coreopsis, Hypericum, Lysimachia, Sedum, and Sisyrinchium.

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Picked Strawberries and Raspberries from the plot. Cut back Granny's Bonnet foliage leaving few remaining to self seed.

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The day starts grey and cloudy, the garden is refreshed after a heavy shower. The wind is a brisk south westerly, which is rattling the windchimes. In the morning I see a Blackbird fledgling, the first this year, being closely guarded by one parent. I put out sultanas as a treat and top up the birdbaths. With neighbouring cats often using the garden as a thoroughfare, I hope it makes it to adulthood? The Granny's Bonnets are blooming, and heads of Poppy 'Pattys Plum' are opening, one by one.

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Pull out Forget-me-nots now past their best, before they go to seed!

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Another lovely day, with warm sunshine. Early morning I spend visiting a nursery, a new discovery, which is packed to the gunnells with plants, and buy a mixture of perennials, alpines and Dahlias. A Ruby Tiger moth, the first I have ever seen in the garden, settles on a Granny's Bonnet, long enough for me to take a photo. A Magpie is mobbing a Blackbird and a Butterfly is chasing a Bee! My dad leaves a pretty French Lavender on the doorstep which is an unexpected surprise.
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Cut back Bramble and pull/dig out weeds. The ever multiplying Dandelions will have to wait until another time, although I snap off and discard flower heads as I pass by. Divide Antirrhinum which have successfully overwintered and plant out.
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Warm and sunny, a blue sky and little cloud with a north-westerly wind. Today, for the first time in the garden, I see a male orange tip butterfly, along with a holly blue, peacock, small white, tortoiseshell and speckled wood. Following my every move around the garden, hoverflies are buzzing in my ears. Bees are finding nectar inside flowers of the yellow deadnettle and a wasp is on the ivy. I am enjoying the sound of a male blackbird singing in a neighbouring conifer tree and watching the dunnocks on the feeder. A local black cat who visits daily is watching me from the steps which lead to the top of the garden. The snails are attacking my hostas in pots, I knew they would; and brushing past a white iris I break off an emerging flower stem, I knew I would!

Divide primroses to make extra plants to fill in gaps in the borders.

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