St David's Day

Daffodils for St David's day. This clump is in our local wildlife area, it's a mystery how they came there, but  we're happy to let them be.

Landscapers M and O  arrived this morning  to start work  on replacing some rotten wooden retainers /sleepers  in our back garden, and to create a secure enclosure for the family tortoise who will be moving from my mother's home to live here with me. There's an urgency to this work as his new enclosure needs to be completed before he awakes from hibernation, which is likely to be in two or three  weeks' time ! 

This evening we attended the local  RSPB  group meeting for a talk about Franchises Lodge, an estate in the New Forest recently acquired  by the  RSPB, The estate  includes Cameron's Cottage which was a derelict cottage now restored by the The Cameron Bespolka Trust to provide an off-grid, but accessible, residential facility for small groups of young people (mostly from towns and cities) to experience exploring  the natural world, possibly for the first time. It sounds a really great initiative. Meanwhile RSPB is working to clear invasive rhododendron and  some coniferous  trees, plus culling some of the many fallow deer,  to create more heathland habitat.