I have a confession to make. I still haven’t finished my photography room, though in my defence the new wood has turned out to need 4 coats of paint and is annoyingly fiddly being doors, frames and skirtings. In addition, each coat has needed to dry before the next could be applied. But that’s not the real reason it is not completed. No, the real reason is because I am easily distracted.

Take this morning for example. I knew I should be putting the third coat of paint on the cupboard housing the consumer unit, but the sun started to shine and that was fatal. Instead, I found myself in my pjs out in the garden, feeding, weeding, mulching and pruning my fruit bushes which, to be fair, I’ve left a little late but as I don’t think they’ve ever been pruned in their lives desperately needed doing.

As I pottered I was kept company by the territorial melody of a song thrush sat on my shed roof and the call of Lapwings which were visible swooping in the field next door. That was far too tempting a prospect for me, so I hastily got dressed, grabbed my camera and went in search. Sadly I only saw one, which was about 50 feet away and grounded not flying, but it’s wonderful to know they’re so close by. They love stubbly fields and you can see from the second photo how well camouflaged even their crest is in amongst the cut crop – I promise you the bird is in the brown stubble somewhere! Trouble is, in a couple of weeks the farmer will be in that field ploughing and any nests they’ve built will be destroyed – then we wonder why Lapwings are a red list species 😢

I then met a couple who live down the hill from me and we chatted for a good half an hour about how I should go about building my pond. They offered me some frog spawn and told me they have dragonflies, about which I was thrilled as attracting dragonflies is one of the reasons I’m building a pond at all. I then carried on with my walk. The sound of bird song filled the air and I saw just about every common bird imaginable, from wood pigeons to starlings, sparrows to blue tits, crows to blackbirds. Lambs filled the fields, daffodils and celandines adorned the verges and the hedgerows were heaving with budding blackthorn. The recent snowfall has disappeared from the tops of the fells which, to quote Wordsworth, connected the landscape to the quiet of the sky. I had the most stunning two hours and came home with my heart so full of joy it was nearly bursting. My stomach was also rumbling and I was ready for my lunch which was eaten outside on my swing seat in the warm spring sunshine and followed by reading a chapter of my book 🌞 I can think of few more perfect ways to spend a spring morning.

This evening is my spirituality class which I’m really enjoying and then tomorrow I’m going back down to Skipton for another visit to the Wyrd Lab, which I find really interesting even though I’ve turned out to be rubbish at remote viewing 👀 So the photo room is not, I fear, going to get finished this week either. I’m currently sat waiting for someone to turn up and buy my old oil tank, hence having time to write a post. I’ve made £1450 this week selling stuff I no longer need which will go a long way to providing decking around my pond – if I ever get round to having it dug! I should probably sell my garden swing seat in all fairness, because swaying peacefully to and fro on that while taking in the view and listening to the singing of birds is distracting beyond measure and, most often, the reason I end up not getting anything done😉