Post Furlough Return To Work....

OK, yes I've been a bit absent the last couple of weeks, and with genuine reasons. Normally I pop on on a Wednesday afternoon after my weekly hospital visit, but with the current climate, I'm at work until the hospital appointments resume, and, working has been variable days and times, which means fitting in shopping and other tasks around my work hours, oh and not forgetting the HS2 road closures, narrow lanes etc as they ramp up their work!

So, I'm well, and I hope you're all well?

Any gossip, please tag it here.....

My local reserve I understand has been overwhelmed with visitors, so I've kept away, because in places, social distancing is not practicable. That's nature, not a fault of the reserve, making some paths very narrow. Long term, it doesn't look like things will get much better quickly, especially as a nearby town is experiencing uncontrolled Covid-19 cases, but not deaths, and if Leicester is anything to go by, if a localised lockdown does occur, then i will be impacted.

Lets hope not.

I've not been too busy with the camera, but here's a few, and some interesting rare visitors included....

A large white butterfly enjoying one of the new lavender plants

A peach of a sunrise....

The next two sunrise pics were taken about two mins apart.

A hiding pond lily

And a blooming nice lily

The newly planted erysimum and lavender plants are filling out nicely,

And the big surprise visitors, long tailed tits, of which at one point, we had at least ten on one feeder!

This pic below, there were two just out of the the image, which I didn't see til afterwards.

One cutely waiting its turn...

This one gave up waiting and found another feeder...

And once the feeding frenzy had died off, this one came back....

Take care and stay safe and I'll hopefully catch up with more posts over the weekend.

STOP PRESS!

More LTT's this afternoon!

  • Lucky you Mike ... good to hear you're doing OK even though everyday workaday life is greatly changed ... better for me of course being retired & voluntarily keeping away from all, garden keeps me sane along with being part of this community! Take care yourself!
  • Hi Mike, and welcome back!

    Your garden's looking...…. purple! Grinning

    Lovely clouds and colours, as always, in your sunrises

    10 lollipops??!! Greedy so and so lol

    Stay Safe

  • Good to hear your doing well Mike and to return with some lovely pics of the wee cutie lollipops....
    same old same old here..rain. rain and more rain. !
  • lovely photo update Mike, glad you are ok and to see the beautiful flowers in your garden and the charming LTT's including their young, always have a real soft spot for these fluffy tennis balls with racket handle lol
  • Good to hear from you again Mike and you are well. I'm still living in my lock down bubble roaming around the garden looking for subjects.
    10 LTT is really greedy, we have not seen any for months now but lucky you with all those visitors. Fab
  • Good to see the LTT's with several youngsters in there by the looks of it. Nice White too.
  • Good that you got back to work and are now hopefully getting into the "New Normal" Now Mike 10 lovely lollypops is just pure greedy, I have never had one in the garden!! Enjoy them, they are so cute. Your planted border looks very nice now that it has filled out.

  • WendyBartter said:
    Lucky you Mike ... good to hear you're doing OK even though everyday workaday life is greatly changed ... better for me of course being retired & voluntarily keeping away from all, garden keeps me sane along with being part of this community! Take care yourself!

    Whilst its nice to b back to work, its very strange.

    However, with the state of many businesses, depending on the numbers, I'm starting to seriously consider early retirement, because if things go bang, age and the fact I'm disabled will heavily go against me.

  • Lynn L said:

    Good that you got back to work and are now hopefully getting into the "New Normal" Now Mike 10 lovely lollypops is just pure greedy, I have never had one in the garden!! Enjoy them, they are so cute. Your planted border looks very nice now that it has filled out.

    Thank you, I've one more raised bed to sort out, possibly two, depending on some building work I want doing, then that will be just perfect. The last sighting of lollipops in the garden was over two years ago.

    Hmmm, the new normal!

    Not so sure I like it, very depressing.

    Since lockdown started, apart from the obvious we're all enduring, HS2 Ltd with the help of their contractors, have made great strides into the fast diminishing countryside!

    Local routes to reserves are closed at weekends for HS2 work, and public paths are closed, officially closed!

    And they call this progress!

  • PimperneBloke said:

    Hi Mike, and welcome back!

    Your garden's looking...…. purple! 

    Lovely clouds and colours, as always, in your sunrises

    10 lollipops??!! Greedy so and so lol

    Stay Safe

    Thank you

    There's certainly a lot of blue.purple! LOL