** To begin with we slept in late, oh I love my sleep ;) Then we had breakfast, made coffee and started our hour of birdwatching for the RSPB Birdwatch Weekend. This year we really did have a good time which sounds so geeky but I swear it was glorious so see the crazy amount of feathered friends that come to feed in our garden. We had seeds, peanuts and fat balls and all stations were busy.
** After that we visited Ballylagan organic farm, farm shop and tea room that (to our surprise) is just up behind Carrickfergus; embarrassingly it's been open since 1999 but we only heard about it earlier this week. Yep, it was the ever knowledgeable Mamma G that pointed us in the right direction. It's fabulous and for purely academic reasons we had to have cake and coffee = thumbs up.
** Then the best bit - we went to the Lottie. It was my first time there this year to actually work and not just to glance round it and go home. I had my lucky favourite socks on, many layers and my farmers' hat (or flat cap, that I bought in the farmers' shop). For only being there an hour, when the sun went down, we managed surprisingly a lot, well I did, Andrew did a lot of chatting to a friend ;) In his defence though he is the head gardener and has been there a few times already this year.
** His other, earlier visits have seen the apples cut back and training started, the autumn raspberries cut down and the whole back of 24a mulched. 14b also has lots of new Blackthorn hedglings planted and a windbreaker all a long the left side. It's becoming annoying to my brain that that plot is spilt in a different way than our other one.
![]() |
| First before and after photo of the year :) |
Home to a steaming bowl of tomato and chilli soup, a shower and a wee whisky..
hugs,
Carrie
xx



