Welcome home

 

Village bonfire event

Back home after a couple of weeks away.  It’s definitely November; the Halloween / Bonfire weekend stayed dry, but this week the weather is mild, foggy and damp.  Anyone who had planned to set off their fireworks on the traditional 5^th wouldn’t have been able to see much.

Whether it’s the weather or just the winter closing in, the birdlife in the garden is noticeably more active and more diverse than when we left.  Some, like us, have come home for the winter: the Scandi-avians – fieldfares and redwings – have arrived, of course, and the number of blackbirds around makes me suspect that several of them are migrants too.  The woodpigeons seem to be flocking rather than fighting for territory as they were doing during the autumn breeding season, and the finches (including a male greenfinch and male bullfinch) are hanging out together as well.  There are the usual sparrows, dunnocks, robins and tits, and a goldcrest was checking out the patio area today; and less desirably, there are magpies, starlings and woodpeckers (great-spots, although a green woodpecker had been in the garden before we left).  We didn’t manage to pick all the eating apples before we went away, and the blackbirds have been feasting on the remains, as well as on the cooking apples left on the table under the dining room window.  There are very few holly berries left on the tree, and I suspect that the redwings have been having a party.

In the vegetable garden, the summer broccoli has done well but has now flowered; I need to protect the purple sprouting plants from the pigeons for the winter, as they’ve grown tall and pushed away the netting that had been covering them.  My ploy of coating the broad bean seeds in chilli to deter the rodents seems to have worked, as it looks as though at least some have germinated, but of course the chilli didn’t protect the new shoots, which have been broken off (by mice or birds, I’m not sure).  No signs of life from the peas, and I haven’t checked the garlic yet.

In the greenhouse, most of the tomatoes have belatedly ripened or are on the way to ripening, and the big ‘Alicante’ tomatoes, which I picked before we left and put in the kitchen to ripen, are mostly looking good.  No green tomato chutney after all.