Warblers, wobblers and wholesome living...

Spring, spring where are you? Does anyone else feel like spring has barely happened this year. It’s really been a long winter and I’m only barely noticing that spring is upon us. That said the world keeps turning and the garden’s coming back to life. The bulbs are flowering and plants are sprouting, even if the sun's not shining to match. An addition to spring this year is Tanya’s new squirrel proof bird feeder (it's rock 'n' roll round here). Filling that with sunflower hearts (top tip for bird attraction) has given us a veritable virtual aviary outside our backdoor. There’s been goldfinches, chaffinches, bullfinches, greenfinches, blue tits, coal tits, thrushes, siskins and collared doves (plus the usual crew you'd expect). It’s been the talking point at every meal as we sit and watch the avian feeding frenzy. And talk about education? Both the kids are now better than us at working out who’s who at the dinner table.

 Glamourous greenfinches

Gorgeous goldfinches

And on from warblers comes wobblers. We’ve had a few of them. Emily is desperate for a wobbly tooth and despite a few false starts is still waiting. It’s not really the tooth wobbling though I suspect, more the tooth fairy visiting that she's waiting for. Niomi’s also had her fair share of wobblers. Of a different variety that is. Threenagers can be tricky, and she’s no exception. We regularly go from moaning, to crying, to pushing her luck, to laughing, to ignoring everyone, all within the space of an hour. It can be really very trying at times. But maybe like spring’s changeable weather, Niomi’s wobblers will just pass. At least we hope so. The final wobbler is more of a wonky-one. We’ve discovered Emily has a wonky thumb and we’ve no idea why. Ever since she discovered ‘thumbs up’ we thought she just wasn’t doing it properly but it turns out her thumb has a cute little kink in it. Baffled the doctors it did, so let’s see what turns up.

Wonky thumb

And then onto wholesome living. Spring is always a time when you feel like you want to come out of hibernation and get on with all those things you’ve been meaning to do for a while and start to feel good about it all again. So we thought it about time to actually fill up the veggie beds I built last year with soil, and get some vegetables on the go. And everyone joined in. Over two days we moved three tons of soil. All the girls did more than their fair share of shovelling, barrowing, raking and labouring; and I was dead proud of them all. So with job done, watch this space for growing updates, and if you plan a visit near our harvest time then we’ll try to share the garden's bounty.

Videoclip: The arrival of soil

Job done

Barrow love