Snips and Whips

Monday July 9

The - supposedly - miniature fruit trees looked horrendous, a mass of whippy new growth much longer than is usual. No fruit either this year, not a single Vic plum. I spent some time trying to shape them, creating a lot of waste to be disposed of - and the brown bin is full. The council are not always good about collecting the stuff.

Indoors for lunch, at 4 p.m., I read my Emails finding one from James. There's a Quail singing locally. Pam had been pricking out seedlings most of the afternoon, we were both weary but........not THAT bad.

We parked and walked the footpath to a barley field. No sound at all. We lingered hopefully, no luck.

The church looked interesting, I walked in with no real belief that the door would be open. It wasn't, too much theft from rural churches. I find gravestones interesting, especially the very old ones. We found a raised tomb dating back to the 18C but couldn't read the inscription, moss and wear. Must find out about it. The following web pages are interesting.

http://www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/witton/witton.htm

As I walked through the gate at 6.00 p.m., the Quail called its wit wit-wit ( I don't think it says whip whip-whip like the books say) from THE barley field. Great, thank you James. I don't expect to see the bird, I've never had a good view in the UK, only a short flying view on Dunwich Heath when one arrived in spring. I do not walk into fields where they are calling. 

We had good views of a family of Quail in Austria, in a field being harvested  and, another of a poor devil attempting to reach land in southern Cyprus. It was very distressing watching it being repeatedly knocked into the sea by a Great Black-backed Gull and then, drowned and carried off.

I unveiled my hypertufa'd Alpine sinks this morning, from under the tarpaulin which had protected them from the rain for the 2-3 days required for the mixture to go 'off'. I made some 'rocks' from the remaining mixture, everything looks good. Will post some pics when I've filled and planted one, the other is for the friend who gave me the sinks. We're hoping she doesn't want it ! It's very heavy too and would be better in situ .........will she be convinced?