Mad dogs, Englishmen and the odd duck

well having said that I was going to the lottie this weekend come hail, rain or sunshine, I did indeed get all three weather elements and a few others thrown in too.

I had good intentions of being up early, but having not got back from dancing until 3am it was more of a mid-morning start.

What was left of the morning started promisingly with sunshine. I started by potting up the vegetable seedlings that I bought last weekend at Hunmanby ... Nick next door says its cheating, so I told him to shut up. I got some Musselbrough Leeks, Red Drumhead Cabbage, Kohl Rabi and Snowball Cauliflowers. I potted them up inside the glass greenhouse which sounded like it was going to blow over at any second as it has so many missing panes of glass. I've got some spare pieces - they are not quite the same size, but will do, but it was too windy to tackle the roof, so maybe next weekend I'll have another try. Supposedly we are due to have frost tonight - hope my seedlings are OK.

Nick next door had his shed broken into yesterday - they have kicked in the bottom of the door and tried to smash the lock. It looks like all they have taken is an old whiskey bottle that is filled with some sort of vinegar ... hopefully it made them ill !! They had a look in my brick greenhouse too, but don't appear to have taken anything or done any damage.

Next job was to pot up two more blueberry bushes. They are now happily sat in some rather fetching black pots from Wilkinsons ...however, I'm almost positive on reflection that the compost I found in the brick greenhouse wasn't eracious, but for acquatic plants ... doh ! I blame the wind & rain - its very distracting when its driving into your face.

My fruit twigs look to be springing into life and I also stumbled across what I think is a blackcurrant bush that was planted and forgotten about some time last year. My crab apple tree looks as though it is developing blossom and the brambly apple tree looks none the worse for being transplanted. The raspberries are greening up rapidly and my rhubarb is slowly growing.

No sign of the sweetpeas yet, but the daffodils are in full flower and were bobbing happily in the gale. Looks as though the cowslips will be in flower next week. There are lots of baby violas in the Jerusalem Artichoke bed that I need to transplant somewhere.

The pond has frogspawn, not as much as last year though, wonder if I'll get anymore. No sign of any frogs - last weekend we went by a pond that we used to visit as children, it was teaming with frogs. I'm sure when we were children the pond used to have lots of newts but I didn't see any.

Bracing the rain, I was determined to plant my early potatoes (Arron Pilots). They have chitted really well and I decided to give them some space in the brick bed which has very rich soil. After a few minutes the rain turned to hail ... very hard and cold hail !!! I managed to get them all tucked up but then decided enough was enough, called it a day and went home to have a shower and thaw out.

photos later