Smile - on Saturday!

There must be some advantages to living on a dusty building site!
It's a beautiful, sunny day here and the swallows are out making the most of it.
As I was mopping - yes MOPPING the dust from my windows, I could hear lots of swallow chatter.

One of the houses opposite has scaffolding up and I stood watching the swallows playing "Tick off pole".
About 20 of them were circling the house and landing on the tops of each pole.
I am guessing many were fledglings building up their skills.
They spent about 10 minutes playing then all of them flew off.

My little video won't do the moment justice but it really was a pleasure to enjoy these beautiful little birds at play.
They will be gone from us all too soon but today they are here and loving it!

Just a smile for any bird lovers out there!

For more smiles - just pop over to Annie's "A stitch in time" blog and see what's making her smile today!

Have a great weekend

x Jo

Sneaky peek and a walk in the forest.

Just a tiny part of my WOYWW 2 year anniversary celebration Pass it Forward item.
I have frosted it up so that you can't really tell what it is - what a tease!!!
I thought I should get going on it as we only have a few weeks to go.

Also I thought I would post a couple of snaps from our forest walk. It was a lovely day and really great to spend time with old friends.

A big pool used for private fishing - strangely, a shoal of large golden carp (goldfish) were swimming near the edge.

Bluebells in a clearing and lots of different sorts of conifer trees in this part of the forest.

And, believe it or not, this is the Poultry House.

It was built in 1861 as a Victorian aviary with nesting boxes and coops for all kinds of fowl including a swimming pool for the ducks and geese.


Collecting fowl was the fashion of the time, favoured by Queen Victoria, and John Naylor gave this Poultry House to his talented fourth daughter Georgina to keep her collection in.

In the 1989 The Landmark Trust purchased the Poultry House and fully restored it, along with the adjoining cottage now used by the Landmark Trust as a holiday let.

Here is one of MY favourite little birds.

A little swallow - she was trying to choose a mate from several of the males trying to attract her attention under the eaves of Coed-y-Dinas garden centre.

A splash of colour!

What an amazing weekend of glorious weather!

I just had to share the splash of colour in my garden at the moment.

Above is the Clivia with the view of Roundton behind it.

Next are the anemones - another gorgeous colour that makes the heart sing!

This is what Mum used to call Japonica but really it is Chaenomeles.

And lastly the vivid yellow Mahonia.

I love this time of year - don't you?!!

Oh and by the way - I saw a pair of swallows on a wire as I was ambling around the car boot sale today!



Creamy floral display

My garden is full of creamy, floral gorgeousness at the moment so I have taken a few pics to celebrate this lovely time of year. We have lots of birthdays and wedding anniversaries in April so its always a special time.
AND - the swallows are back - I saw one on the wire yesterday - April 17th!


These are the flowers M bought me for Easter and they are still lovely and so fragrant.

Last but not least - more flowers

but "dumfed" ones this time......




Have a lovely day - enjoy the hazy sunshine!