Up and down

April is delivering its usual up-and-down weather (mostly down so far).  A week or so ago I managed a lunch outside on the bench, but we're back in chilly and showery mode and I'm not even feeling much like working outside, let alone eating.  Yesterday we had snow, sleet and hail in the showers; I had been putting the sweet peas outside to harden off for a few hours each day, but yesterday I left them tucked up in the cold frame.  Today they're outside again; they will have to learn to get on with this weather sometime!  At least the east wind has turned so it's less chilly, though rather wet.

The garden is in its yellow phase - daffodils, cowslips, doronicums, celandines, epimediums - with a little blue and purple (grape hyacinths, brunnera just starting, anemone blanda, the first of the honesty, a few pansies from the winter bedding).  The first tulip to open was also yellow; this was one of the ones by the dining room window which I thought I had dug up, but three of them obviously escaped (need to decide what to do about them).  The little red tulips in the front garden are just beginning to open, and some of the ones in pots are well into bud.

The greenhouse is getting into spring mode; the bubblewrap has been removed, dahlias and freesia bulbs potted up and the propagator is on.  The gazanias, salpiglossis and ipomoea have germinated in the propagator and are now on the new greenhouse shelving; some of the tomatoes have sprouted too and will be removed soon.  Strangely, the old 'Gardeners' Delight' seed has germinated more quickly than the new 'Sungold' seed; why? 

The nuthatches are persisting with the nestbox, despite the woodpecker still showing occasional interest and one of the neighbourhood cats pawing the box from the summerhouse roof and knocking it askew (we carefully straightened it up again).  Ratty is also still about; it seems to have a hideout under the shrubs at the side of the patio where there's thick ivy as well as much (unintended) undergrowth, so a clearout there is planned when the weather permits.  However we've had a couple of welcome visitors: a brief appearance from a small warbler (willow warbler?), and a longer visit from a male blackcap.  I think we've only seen a blackcap in this garden once in the twenty-odd years we've been here.  He was probably on migration (as I expect the warbler was too), making a pitstop while on his way elsewhere; from Friday to Sunday morning he was a regular at the suet feeder and the blackbirds' apple (he loved the apple), then disappeared, presumably refreshed and refuelled for the next stage of his journey.  I hope he calls in again on his way back south in the autumn.

The song thrush is also still about (to the blackbirds' annoyance), probably nesting, and the bullfinches too.  The long-tailed tits must also be nesting somewhere near; they're also still coming to the suet feeder.  The robins love the suet but one of them isn't confident about hanging on the feeder; today, delightfully, it sat on the pole holding up the feeder while its mate passed it bits of suet as a present.