city yard | Christine Lucas

I love sharing my weekly updates with you in the form of a Sunday Sevens. Thanks to Natalie at Threads and bobbins for creating the series. 🙂

An Impromptu Day Off Work:

On Wednesday my boss called in sick, meaning I was not needed. So faced with a day off work, I made a trip to the local Costa for a coffee with mum. 🙂

Costa Coffee

Dunnock in Magnolia

snake’s head fritillary

The Yarden:

This week I have been watching a dunnock couple visit the yarden for grubs and bugs. I spied the male dunnock in the magnolia tree, so I snapped a poor picture of him before he flew away.

Also, I have one lowly snake’s head fritillary that has grown from bulb. I don’t know what happened to the other bulbs I planted!

30 Days Wild:

It’s that time of year again… time to sign up to some wonderful summertime initiatives. You can now sign up for The Wildlife Trust’s 30 Days Wild. Can you do something wild everyday this June?

30 Days Wild

The Great British Bee Count

Bee Count:

Friend’s of the Earth’s popular survey The Great British Bee Count begins on the 17th May. I love spending time with our energetic pollinators. An app for recording sightings will be released in the near future.

Book I am Reading:

Having finally finished Ben Okri’s psychedelic The Famished Road. I have now picked up Ted Hughes’ collection of poems and short stories, Wodwo. The choice was inspired by reading Mark Haddon’s short story, Wodwo in his collection, The Pier Falls.

Have you read Ted Hughes? What’s your favourite book of his?

#Walk 1000 Miles:

Among the Daffodils

We spent a good hour this Sunday walking around Sefton Park. The daffodils were out en-masse and were a lovely splash of colour on a rather drab day! My total for this week has been 38 miles walked, bringing my annual total to 540 miles.

If you are partaking in the challenge, how are you getting on?

That was my week, how was yours?

Thanks for reading,

Christine x

…the 28th – 29th March 2015.

This weekend couldn’t come quick enough for me as I had a very long week in work, aided by the fact that I was hormonal and tired.

Thankfully Friday came!

On Saturday after doing the usual shopping and cleaning, David and I went to spend the evening with family and friends. It was the third year anniversary of my Father’s passing, so we congregated at Mum’s (next door). We had a curry from our favourite restaurant Saffron and a games night. Although the games part had to be relocated to our house as Mum’s TV wouldn’t accept the PS3 on the HDMI cable! (Go figure!)

From Saffron, I had a Vegetable Karahi, David a Chicken Shahi, Mum her usual Chicken Dupiaza. My brother Stephen and his friend Paul who were not au fait with Indian cuisine had Chicken Tikka Masala and Chicken Korma respectively. The meal went down splendidly!

During part two of the night we played Blur while eating summer fruits gateaux.

Sunday was a day of relaxation. I pottered about the garden in between breaks in the rain and did a weekly check on the status of the plants.

My tulips are growing from strength to strength and I am sure all six will bloom if the wind does not knock them over!!

The Flame of the Forest has bell flowers on it again this year.

Flame of the forest ‘bells’

I took a picture between the leaves of the Bluebells that I think are growing in my garden and then got excited when I discovered that there was a bud growing! I do hope they manage to grow to fruition!

Bluebell?

On Saturday during our visit to B&M I bought a shrub for £4.99. Euonymus Japonicus Pierrolino Sense. The store had these plants in last year, but I am sure they had flowers on them. This shrub does not. I had hoped for more nectar for the visiting bees, but alas not with this plant!

euonymus japonicus pierrolino

I also noted that my Primulas were flowering, however something had been enjoying a spot of light lunch and had munched away most of the leaves. I wonder who that was???