July already!!

This year is flying past, June went in a flurry of gardening and looking after my grandson but now hopefully it's time to sit back and enjoy watching everything grow. Across the road from where we live used to be allotments years ago but sadly neglected over the years. Last year someone bought the land and turned it into a smallholding with pigs and chickens and geese but the downside was that he chopped most of the trees down which left a lot of the birds homeless. Luckily for us the birds have nested in our very large hedge this spring so we've had lots of visitors that we've not notice before but along with the pretty birds came a pair of magpies which seem to think that our garden is theirs and theirs alone.

picture courtesy of www

 They are terrorising my three cats and that takes some doing and even the pigeons have been chased away which means that the veg plot has been left to flourish this year if it hadn't been for the abnormal amount of slugs and snails this year.

The fruit garden is doing well, although the rhubarb is almost over we are picking blackcurrants and raspberries by the bowl full, it's lovely to have so much fresh fruit and the blackberries are laden with fruit so much so that I think I may have to switch on my extra freezer to cope with it all.

Stitching took a back seat last month though I did manage to get a few stitches in. July 1st was opening day for the Gift of Friendship exchange. This is what I sent to Gail (no blog)

and this is what I received from RoseMary,

CCN Count your Blessings is finished,

and LHN Blueberries is almost done.

I've also put a few more stitches into Celtic Noel and made a new start on something else but they can wait until next time. One last thing to show, I received this mandala from Chris the other morning and it really brightened my day.

Isn't it pretty!