Lush

This was supposed to have been a no-gardening day - partly because I'm already bored to tears with it, the novelty of (relative) tidiness having worn off before it's even been fully achieved, but mainly because I've been pushing myself too hard, and I knew I needed a rest day. But. "I'll just run the hedge trimmer over the dogwood in the wild garden," I said to R. "It'll only take fifteen minutes."

Sigh.

The dogwood, unpruned now for several years, is huge, with thick, woody stems, and it laughed in the face of the hedge trimmer. So out came the power secateurs, and two hours later I'd pruned the larger of the two clumps, and opened up the space between them to uncover a half-forgotten apple tree (an eater, I seem to think, should it ever fruit again). I also removed several barrow loads of bloody bramble - though unsurprisingly I wound up bloodier than the bramble did. Still, it wasn't me that ended up on the burn pile, mwahaha.

By the time I'd finished and put away all the tools I was totally trashed, but fifteen minutes sitting in the shady arbour with a large mug of tea, listening to the bird song all around me, restored me in spirit if not in body. Bird of the day was the first chiffchaff I've seen here this year, though sadly it was way up in one of the cherry plums, and a macro lens wasn't enough to secure a usable photo.

For a long time the insect of the day seemed likely to be the Brimstone I managed to sneak up on while he was taking a few moments of personal time on the shrubby honeysuckle. I was pleased to have got as close to him as I did, and I'd have made it nearer still if a second male hadn't bounced him from his perch and initiated a butterfly battle. In the end though, the Brimstone was relegated to second spot by this 7-spot Ladybird, sunbathing on the variegated spurge. It's the simplest and least challenging image I took all day, but I love the richness of the colours.