In the garden ....and my nearest and favourite walk

Weekend gardening.... weeding round the dahlias.....

and discovering this late flowering bulb...not sure what it's called but we saw masses of them in Madeira when we went on holiday there in September 2011....a year into Robin's illness...

...on a walk along one of the levadas...Robin had sprained his ankle....the going was tough in more ways than one.

Clearing the stream at the very end of my plot beyond the bamboo now that lovely gardener has cut back all the brambles and nettles I can see where the little waterfall is that marks the boundary between me and the field next door.

I need the wheelbarrows to take all the bits of old rubbish and broken pots and tiles buried under the hedge to join the rest of the junk I hoiked out of the stream...... and more I uncovered in a tangle of brambles after the strimming. I will need to do a dump run. Or rather get someone to do it for me.

The goats' milk kefir ( from the Chuckling Goat Co.) I drink every morning ....holding my nose. When you open a new bottle  -  very slowly - you have to stand it in a bowl as the fermentation process makes it explode out of the top like a bubbly volcano. 

This damson and apple and almond crumble that I made on Sunday is reward for gulping the goat.

I think the kefir does help my digestion ....but not a hundred percent .....I'm just including all the unhappiness in my gut at the moment...trying to find out what I need to do to live with it ....what it is trying to tell me....being patient. 

The wildlife feeding, hunting outside my kitchen window gives me endless pleasure.

This morning...

I wake to mist hanging over the hills

and a constant fine drizzle. I think it will last all day....and I stay at my desk doing endless admin tasks.

By the time I set out for my walk it has started to clear up...

I pass by this thatcher...

repairing an old farmhouse  roof...such a skilled job....

and my heart is stilled with sadness to find this sweet robin by the side of the road...I lay him on dry leaves under the hedge...I can't see his wound but his little soft body is still warm.

I can see that this will become my nearest and favourite walk in all seasons...so different from the one I used to do in the University Parks...in that other life I used to inhabit....only 6 short weeks ago.