At last, spring is in the air

I heard the first Chiffchaff singing on Tuesday, always a welcome sound in the garden at the end of winter. Every time the sun comes out now there are busy Brimstone butterflies flitting about, flying strongly but never seeming to settle to feed. My front garden is more of an early spring garden than round the back, so as I'm not outside as much as usual, I take delight in watching buzzy things through the window, and seeing the bright colours of the first daffs and the zingy green of the euphorbias.

The only gardening I've done has been of the supervisory kind, but my OH has managed to tidy up most of what I didn't get to do before my surgery. Of course what really needs doing and is not going to get done, is redefining the edges of what is flower bed or border, and what is lawn. This is mostly thanks to the chickens scratching, but at least they had fun, and the garden will have to put up with being more 'rustic' than usual this year.

Out in the wild areas, as I walk around carefully watching my feet, I see little things scuttling around in the leaf litter, which I know are wolf spiders. There are more frequent sightings of honey bees and bumble bees, and a few hoverflies buzzing around the euphorbias. I can't capture any of this, as the only photography I can do is upright and even the weight of my DSLR with a regular lens on it seems quite heavy. The macro lens will have to wait a while. So will getting down and dirty, close up or anything that I'm used to doing when taking shots. But in the spirit of keeping up my garden records, here are a few pictures I've taken.

Health report at the end.

Japonica or Flowering Quince and the ducks.

Wiggly Hazel catkins, always slower to flower than the wild Hazels.

Mirabelle plum in my woodland - we don't get fruit from them
but the early blossom is always welcome!

Celandine walk, not that they show up very well
if I can't get down at their level!

And the Goosegrass/Cleavers are growing already - these are our leaf mould bins, we have 3.
The pallet bin on the left is 2 years old and ready to use, the middle bin is 1 year old
and the other bin is last autumn's leaves.

Hoorah - because I've been slack about pruning my Photinia 'Pink Marble',
I finally have some flower buds on it!

Euphorbia characias and some daffies around the front.

Unfortunately I never got to prune back my Thyme bank after flowering last year so it's a bit
scruffy (the brown mess in the foreground). It should be looking like little green mounds by now.
Oh well.

Euphorbia myrsinitis, flowering already where it's against the wall for shelter.
The stump is the remains of our Acacia which kept getting frosted so had to be taken out. 

Forsythia! There are a few more flowers than this further down.

Oriental Hellebore still going strong after more than a month.

Now this is an oddity. This is the mound with the filter bed in it, but the grass that we sowed has
just sulked and is yellow, short and sparse over the filter bed, yet lush and green elsewhere.
The bigger clumps are self seeded paddock grass, which we didn't mind as the rest of the lawn
is hardly bowling green so it looks better this way.

Probably the worst butterfly photo I've put on my blog, but I didn't have the right camera nor
could I get down lower. But it's a Small White, and wasn't interested in laying eggs on
my brassicas at this time, but feeding on the Dead Nettle and other weeds wildflowers
in the veg patch.

Mr Great Spotted Woodpecker again.

I've been happy to see quite a few Greenfinches recently, as although they were always
common birds in previous gardens of ours, I don't see them here very often!

Healthwise, I guess I'm recovering but it's very slow so doesn't feel like I've improved much, although my OH says I'm walking much better now, which I guess I am. However no chance to moan about my apres surgery as it's straight onto Phase 3 unfortunately. I've got to have six months of chemo. Apparently there were still cancer cells in the two previously infected lymph nodes. The surgeon removed these, along with about 15 lymph nodes in total, and the rest were clear, as was the fried tumour. But to be on the safe side (and he says, because I am YOUNG, haha) they want me to have the standard after surgery chemo in case there are any cancer cells floating about somewhere. They wouldn't show up on a scan as they'd be too small.

So this afternoon I have to go and see an anaesthetist (third bloody time since Sept!), because on Monday I'll be having a quick general anaesthetic to insert a catheter/port thingy through which they'll do the chemo drips. The treatment will be on two consecutive days (about 3 hours each) at the hospital every two weeks, plus on day 2 I have to bring 'a pump thingy attached to the drip' home with me and it gets removed on day 3 by a local nurse (you can see I'm not quite up on the lingo yet). This is all going to start early April. However, much as I hate the idea of another sickly summer, the Oncologist said my survival chances without chemo are about 50-60%, with chemo about 80-90% (presumably that's if there are still cancer cells in me somewhere). So it's a no brainer. Also I need to see a urologist because my bladder is not quite right despite the antibiotics, so might be nerve damage. 

As for the bag and stoma, I've seen the stoma nurse and all is well there and probably the least of my concerns! I have to say my stoma is still a source of endless fascination. Am I weird or what?! Must be a lifetime of British toilet humour that's to blame. :-) Oh yeah, and I've tested PSB and I had no adverse effects or extreme gas, so PSB it is for dinner now. Thank god for that!