A Good Day

Today has been a 'good' day.

We took the dogs on an unplanned long walk this morning - it was perfect weather, sun shining and a nice breeze. Over the bridge and up the hill to the Chirnside/Preston road. We continued on taking the road to Lintlaw, turning right at the top. As we approached the Billiemains road Jen and Poncho were up on their toes at the sound of a dog barking. Suddenly a hare came racing around the corner and ran straight up the road in front of us before veering off into the field on our right. Luckily there was no sign of the dog we heard chasing it. It took quite a while before Poncho stopped pulling me up the road in a state of great excitement. A little further along and they both dived into the undergrowth - a pheasant emerged from the back, squawking and flapping away frantically. There were no further incidents which was just as well - it still took them both about half an hour to stop panting when we got home.

I cleared my cardbox before lunch.

After lunch I got out in the garden.

I started weeding the left hand side of the high bank. Considering it is a year since I last ventured up there the bottom section was not too bad - one sack of weeds, moss and general debris. I was really pleased to find some self-seeded foxgloves - I had been hoping the ones I planted last year would spread. Unfortunately the top section looks as if the brambles have taken over again.

Rather than continue up that route, which is very wet and slippery, I decided to start on my next big project - a path up to the top from the right-hand side of the fruit bush area. It is the ideal route as there are no plants other than weeds up there. It will also give me access to the rest of that area, which does appear to have had some shrubs planted in it by the previous owners.

So far that section has been totally ignored by me. It is overgrown with ground elder, nettles and brambles. I had no intention of attempting to dig them out properly, that would be impossible. However, I have done quite a good cosmetic job on it - enough to remove all the crap down to the bare soil. I then raided our building site, selecting some of the good-sized flat chunks of concrete and stones. Back to my path and I now have a series of stepping stones up to the back of the tree stump which leads to the top of the high bank. It was too late to continue on, so I settled on clearing the weeds at the back of the gooseberry bushes. All in all a good session, as shown by five sacks of rubbish.