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It's Friday and the first week of the new term is coming to an end.  H1 had a GCSE exam yesterday, which he felt went pretty well. In his usual laid back way, he's hoping for a B but will be OK with a C.  Pea has AS mocks coming up in a few weeks, so she is revising hard for those.  She's hoping for an A* and won't be happy with anything less.   H2 and his friend have begun making a model of a Griffin for the Urdd Eisteddfod, but he isn't happy as his art teacher seems to think it's her entry and won't let them use their own ideas.  The lanes and countryside are full of mud and huge puddles, so a walk with the dogs results in vigorous rubbing down and a filthy kitchen and the compost bin has blown over leaving a small forlorn pile of veg peelings behind it.  Just a normal week, then.

Regular readers of my blog may have noticed that I don't get many comments.  When I began blogging over a year ago, I worried that either no one read my posts or that they were so boring no one came back to read again.  After a little while I stopped worrying and remembered the reason I began blogging in the first place and that was for the love of writing and sharing my every day life.  The fact that any one reads it is a bonus and a real delight to me.  Gradually the comments came; not thick and fast by any means, but a trickle of people who left kind and heartfelt words that meant far more than a thousand people all telling me how wonderful I am and how gorgeous my life looks.  (Like most people's lives, it can be pretty rubbish at times.)  I blog because I love it and if at times I dry up and have no enthusiasm for it, I wait until I feel better.  It doesn't matter.  I try to be honest and not flower things up.  Plenty of things go wrong and plenty of things are wonderful, but wonderful in a small way, like the wind drying my washing or finding the perfect birthday present unexpectedly.  Or discovering snowdrops coming up in my new garden.

When readers leave several comments it feels like getting a message from a friend and even though I may never have met these ladies, it makes me happy to hear from them.  Earlier this week I received a comment from someone who didn't leave a name, but it was so nice to read that I will add it here so you can read it too, not as a way to blow my own trumpet, but to say thank you to the anonymous writer. A Stitch in Time
Anyway, if you leave a comment I am delighted to receive it, but if you just enjoy visiting my blog for whatever reason, and never leave a message, it doesn't matter, I am happy either way and feel truly honoured you take time out of your own busy lives to bother to read about mine. Thank you for doing that.

As I mentioned, there are snowdrops coming up in the garden!  They are scattered in tight little clumps around the base of an almost dead tree.  I have no idea what kind of tree it is as there are no leaves on it and my landlord said he would pull it out if it is dead.  We are giving it a chance first though (yay!) and I think there are some tiny buds appearing at the very top of its branches.  I did wonder if maybe I could persuade my landlord to leave it and then I could grow a scrambling rose up it.  Oh, the romance of a rose climbing a dead tree!  There are also clumps of bluebells making an appearance here and there, to my utter delight.  I love seeing bluebells nodding their scented heads among leaf litter in dappled shade.

The bluebells (above) are coming up near the poly tunnel and looking at this picture, they have been chewed a bit!  Despite the ghastly weather, it hasn't been very cold at all, so slugs and snails are still alive and kicking and munching on new shoots.  Must get some hens...

Anyway, the poly tunnel is looking much better after Pea and I spent a few hours in there over Christmas.  You may remember my fear of finding rats and other rodents all partying like mad and refusing to leave; squatters' rights and all that.  Well, to my absolute relief (and Pea's too) all we found was a small,dry mouse nest in a little plastic plant pot.  Oh thank you!  There are so many pots, tubs and seed trays in there I will never need to buy any, which means more money to spend on seeds!  Oh and tons of compost too.

The floor is a bit untidy, as the wind keeps blowing the membrane up, but a few bricks will sort that out.  I don't care that it's got weeds and it needs a clean, I never thought I would be lucky enough to have such a magnificent thing at my disposal in my garden.  Yippee!  I am extremely happy.  Also, Pea is getting the gardening bug too, which only adds to my pleasure of it.  She would love a blueberry bush and a fig tree in here.  I don't think we could grow them in the garden as it would be too windy, so an unheated PT should suit them fine.

I found a brave little primrose this morning, and a violet and the first pulmonaria!  That's how mild it's been, these shouldn't be flowering yet, but they are a welcome sight in the dark winter days and the early bees will be thankful too.

A sunny but cold day is forecast for tomorrow, so I have warned the children that we will be stripping the beds first thing so I can get them all on the line early enough that they have a chance of drying.  Then we will be marking out and digging over the vegetable garden.  The boys buried their faces in their hands when I mentioned the above to them and threw themselves about dramatically.  Not sure why, they love it when they are out there.  They don't actually do anything to help of course and appear completely underwhelmed at anything Pea and I achieve. Somehow the magic of a whole pile of bits of tree, branches, nettles and dead leaves behind the poly tunnel has captured their imaginations, and even though chunks of aforementioned rubbish are turning up all over the garden, they are at least away from cyber space for a few hours and being normal boys instead of zombies.  Roll on Spring!

Have a lovely day and thank you so much for reading and please do not feel obliged to leave a comment! xxx