Pondemonium

It has been quite wet over the last few days, with the small ponds bursting their banks, or at least overflowing from their black plastic tubs, for the first time for a while.

Note the rushes in the left hand tub, cut back for the first time for a couple of years. Not cutting seems to have resulted in rot and die-back in the middle of the clump so we shall see what happens next year.

The apple tree visible top left is one of the last relics of the orchard that occupied the land before the housing estate that is there now, so quite old for an apple tree, usually dug up after fifty years or so, quite unlike pear trees in that respect. There is even an urban myth about how pigs were run beneath, hovering up the windfalls. Which reminds me that our own supply of apples and windfalls from various tree owning neighbours is starting to run low and will probably run out before our supply of blackberries. We might be reduced to purchase.

Note also how the estate agent's angle makes the garden look rather wider than it is in real life - one of the narrowest in the road, albeit of good length.