Trees, bees and raspberr-ees

(... and VATee and wine for mee)

This little beauty stopped by for a rest on the terracotta strawberry planter. I was just planting my kiwi tree. (KIWI TREE! Hooray! (it's very small)) and the bee buzzed around me and then stopped right next to me. Cor, I've missed the bees.

I'd been flapping bits of paper inside all morning (all crispy and tea-stained after yesterday's cup knocking over incident), and trying to come up with a VAT figure, and getting really frustrated that I couldn't get on with my other jobs. My fruit trees arrived yesterday and they'd been in transit for 6 days so I really wanted to get them in the ground. I finally got outside sometime after 2 o'clock and was rewarded with this little bee visitor.

After lots of cutting back and pulling out ivy and testing the ground with a spade, I decided on good enough positions for my pear tree and my plum tree. The neighbours' trees are spreading roots under the fence so I had to spend quite a while rearranging my plans and planting around them. Bloody good feeling to be planting fruit trees though - such a positive thing to do.

As if that wasn't exciting enough I then planted my raspberry plants. It was pretty wet and misty and getting late but I was still hearing the odd bee and enjoying the feeling that things are so much more alive now.

Somehow all that planting took me 5 hours. I wandered around afterwards, watering everything in and checking on the veg patch. The broccoli is doing really well. There were a lot of snails around this evening but so far none on the veg.
Tempting fate?
I have some what I'm calling "sacrificial veg" that I've not covered and am using them as guide - if they get eaten then I know to take action.

I don't care if I sound boring. I'm loving it :)