Friday was a total washout, solid rain all day so we all stayed home!
The forecast for Monday was similar, wet all day, but Flee and Tracey could only stay Sunday night so to get some work done I went up for a few hours on Saturday. It was just me and I fed the birds, reorganised the log store to get the green wood in a distinct pile, and chopped some rohdies near the car park. It was dry, surprisingly dry underfoot considering the rain the day before, but still cold and although the trees are budding the leaves are not starting to come on yet and the only sign of new life really is the primroses which are flowering now and the bluebells leaves coming through in loads of places.
Spring has definitely not arrived! I did see that the doves are well established in the owl box and there seem to be a lot of squirrels around all of a sudden, maybe there is just less cover for them so I can see them more easily.
When I arrived I looked at the hard standing parking and wondered if Ant would be coming today. As I didn't know I parked on the bank as usual which was fine until I tried to leave, then I got properly stuck. The wheels had sunk into dip in the ground and the car was going nowhere! As Ant had of course not turned up I eventually had to get Helen to come from home and pull me out with the z4!!
On Sunday we were all planing to be there so I tried a different parking spot, in the hope of not getting stuck! I arrived about 10, Ant shortly after that and Flee and Tracey shortly after him. Ant had sent Tracey an Aprils fools text saying the pylon had fallen down! and he didn't know what to do, which she didn't read until she was in the yardarm (obviously having walked past the still standing Rais) and she still fell for it!
After a cuppa Ant carried on digging stumps by the top shed with his newly welded fork (don't ask!), and Tracey and I cleared rohdies by the car park while Flee managed the fire. We made good progress, nearly all the rohdie is cleared to the eastern boundary and the stream is cleared too.
Ant left about 5 and the rest of us stayed for Tracey's chilli and homemade bread, which was lovely as usual, and we had a nice chilled (in the sense we were both relaxed and a bit cold!) evening round the fire pit. The rain started about 10pm and was not forecast to stop until Tuesday! so we went to bed about 11.
I slept pretty well despite the rain and got up about 9.30, The rain was still coming down so there was no real prospect of doing any work., We had breakfast, and a couple of cups of tea while watching the birds, the woodpeckers were out and the usual crowd on the feeders were busy and joined by a blackbird and (I think) a chaffinch with a gammy leg. A Great Tit was starting to show interest in the nest box nearest the tool boxes but he is a really tight fit to get through the hole! he tried to enlarge it a bit but the metal plate caused him some problem! After breakfast we packed up (and I nearly went flying!) and left about midday. I got stuck again leaving, it's definitely time to get some hard standing down and that's going to be my next project after the rohdie chopping stops for the season, which is going to be very soon.