Thoughts from an Oldie

Thoughts from an Oldie Written by Hilary Finch

Routines, the glue of every day. My morning routine starts with getting up, breakfast, my pills, tea and cigarette, listening to BBC Radio 4 and watching nature through my kitchen window. Then I feed the fish in the pond, fill up the fat ball feeder for the birds and top up the nuts and seeds on the main feeder table – a mini shed on legs.

Despite living in the Inner City, I have the constant sounds of sparrows, dunnocks, doves, blue tits, magpies and wood pigeons coming to feed and rummage in the back garden. Then there are the robins, the handsome jays and blackbirds and occasionally greenfinches. Feeding them all does cost, but it is so worth it. I buy a sack full of peanuts that last for a good while. I have given up on the hanging seed feeders as the sparrows make such a mess and I have seen a rat cleaning up after them. But this is solved by nuts and seeds being put in the main feeding station – the shed on legs. The birds all take their turns and a squirrel does too!

I feel very fortunate to have these creatures visit and the bees that love my lavender, hotlips, heucheras, masses of nasturtium and so many of the other flowers I grow for them. This year I had an enormous echium about 15 foot tall that the bees loved and it was flowering before the lavenders. Cats come at night. That's good, the balance of nature, cats versus rats and mice. I ban them during the day and the local ones know this though occasionally they try to sneak in. There is one large very furry grey cat that has had three of the wood pigeons away what ever I do, but hopefully even he has learned that I am not happy with him. I hiss, clap my hands and make myself visible to the stalker and which ever one it is runs off jumping onto the back wall and disappearing.

Despite my floral offerings, butterflies are in short supply. I have the same 3 or 4 cabbage whites drifting about most days and occasionally spot something new that is gone before I get a photo or am able to recognise it.

But I did get a photo of a comma, a new one to me. Thankfully someone on Facebook recognised it from my photo and educated me. So, there we go, a little news from my inner city garden that I love to see people enjoying. It has been a boon during the lockdowns and enjoyed by quite a few friends.