It was a lovely week last week. No rain and temperatures that meant sweaters were discarded and shade was sought.

The downside  – of course there always is a downide – was that we had to spend much of our time hauling watering cans around the plot. According to an app on my phone, on Sunday  I walked 2.7 km, (just over one and a half miles), whilst at the allotment and most of that was spent watering.

We put off most of our planting as we thought it was easier to look after the plants at home  but we needed to plant out our second batch of sweet corn. At least the soil wasn’t too dry to make digging a hole difficult and to give the plants the best chance of settling in, I filled the planting holes with water before planting. Th plants were also given a good water after planting and so far they have survived.

The rest of our allotment time was spent strimming the grass, yet again, and a bit of weeding. There was one lovely surprise on the allotment but I’m keeping that to myself until the end of the post.

On the hottest day – yes I did mean hottest – we spent time in the garden palnting up tubs and hanging baskets with annuals

Away from gardening activities, we spent an afternoon at Temple Newsam where a large area is now blocked off in preparation for events that are held there. It means we can’t access the large grassed area where Ruby has been playing at chasing her ball but we did manage to find an alternative spot so she was happy.

Due to having limited access, we decided to look around the walled garden. Only a few perennials were flowering but the borders should look lovely later in the year.

As a change from Nostell, we decided to take a packed lunch and venture further afield to Clumber Park which is about an hour’s journey from home.

Unlike at Temple Newsam, the rhododendrons were in full flower although the colours palette isn’t as varied as that usually provided by the rhododendrons at Temple Newsam.

At this time of year the grass at Clumber is carpeted with daisies. From a distance, at first glance, it looks to be covered by snow.

There are hundreds of geese at Clumber and they regularly browse on the grass and deposit their waste in abundance – which, incidentally, Ruby found irresistible – so I’m guessing that the closely cropped grass and fertiliser provides the conditions that daisies love.

The Clumber geese population is made up of grey lag and Canada geese. Both species had been rearing young.

The grey lag goslings were much larger than those of the Canada geese.

I don’t know whether this was generally true but it was the case for the ones that we saw.

As well as the geese there are lots of ducks and coots. There are also a huge number of swans.

As life amongst the swan population is generally laid back and harmonious, I would think that the swans are non-breeding individuals that either haven’t yet found a mate or are past breeding age. There certainly was no sign of any cygnets or nests.

After spending time on the more cultivated, formal side of the lake we headed to the opposite side which is left more natural.

You may remember that, in the previous week’s post I showed photos of the horse chestnut trees which were flowering in a nearby park and at Nostell. The flowers are more commonly white but at Clumber we spotted a red flowering variety.

Most of our indigenous trees have fairly insignificant flowers but horse chestnuts are an exception.

In a local park there is a row of lime trees. The flowers of the lime tree haven’t opened but, although the flowers are tiny and unremarkable once they have opened, they release a really strong perfume. We noticed lots of red galls on the surface of some lime leaves which indicate that the leaves are being browsed by lime tree mites, These overwinter in the tree bark and then suck sap from the leaves once spring arrives.

The beech tree is ahead of the game and has already flowered and set fruit.

Finally, the lovely surprise that I mentioned at the start of this post. Be honest, how many of you whizzed straight to the end of the post to find out what the surprise was?

We just managed to net our strawberries in time as the lovely sunshine meant that on Sunday we picked our first fruits of the season.

It may not be much of a harvest quantity wise but I think that it is special enough for me to link to Dave’s Harvest Monday post on his Our Happy Acres blog.

On that note that’s all from me for this week.Until next time as always stay safe and well.