Garden saga

The hot weather last week seemed to bring out the camp followers in abundance. For several days the indoor writer became a surrogate mum to a fledgling blackbird. BB (baby blackbird - original huh?) must have fledged a bit too early and quickly relied on indoor writer for food and chatter. It followed her all around the garden, even when she was mowing the lawn, and was waiting every morning on the patio step. At first we thought he couldn't fly, but after a few flaps he did manage to get up on to the trellis or one of the boundary trees. He sat and watched us trotting about our business, wheezing slightly. Handsome hubby remarked on the glazed look in BB's eye that the bird looked several twigs short of a full nest (bit unkind I thought). BB would perch on the kitchen doorstep and even sneaked in for a house tour. Indoor writer returned from lunch with a friend to find handsome hubby reading in the lounge and BB patiently perched, like an expectant diner, on the breakfast bar in the kitchen. Seems he'd been shut indoors for over an hour and had sweetly left several little presents - one on top of the piano stool (nice). Then after a family day out on Sunday we returned home and there was no sign of BB. Days later and still no sign. She's hopeful that he's just moved onto pastures new, but life is tough for fledglings and few survive to adulthood. Trotters crossed that one day BB will return in full ebony plumage.

While basking in the evening sun and supping Berlin beer we watched Fat Mouse (right) scuttle back and forth feasting on seeds dropped from the bird feeders. As you can see this has to be the fattest mouse in Sussex. We couldn't decide if the poor creature was simply obese, pregnant or perhaps even sick. When it then settled down for a mouse nap in the middle of the patio, eyes closed and head nodding, we leant more towards the latter. Unfortunately we haven't see Fat Mouse since - maybe she's happily sleeping off the seed binge with a nest of babies?