A fortnight ago we moved to our converted barn in the corner of the field at our nursery. The move happened fairly nonchalantly. We had already brought quite a lot of stuff here in the previous few weeks which made it easier. I was hoping to be able to see some good sunrises and sunsets (we lived in a dip before) and I haven’t been disappointed. Since we took over this piece of land and made a garden the number and variety of birds has increased considerably so it’s good to see them flitting about in the hawthorn hedge close to the barn. I intend to get some bird feeders to hang from the branches but hadn’t realised that we have squirrels here too so will need some seriously reinforced feeders to foil the greedy creatures.

Living here has forced me to see that there are far more rabbits than I’d thought there were. They graze and frolic quite close to us but hopefully not for long, I’ve been in touch with the local control person. There’s also at least on muntjac deer which I’m not happy about.

I’m not in a rush to do any planting around the barn. I do after all have plenty of other parts to manage but we might need some medium height shrubs to give a bit of a wind break for the few times when we may sit outside. I have ordered a lot of narcissus to plant alongside the drive.

So far, George the cat hasn’t twigged that we’re living here. He has only ever come up here if I encouraged him to follow me and was never very pleased to be inside the barn. I plan on keeping it that way because cats are notorious for always wanting to be on the other side of a door and we’re not putting a cat-flap in the nice new front door. He’s used to being either in the shed or the tunnel and has several different sleeping places including, most recently, a seed tray which he’s really too big for. The last couple of winters when I took him back to the centrally heated house he got sick so it didn’t suit him.

Walking to work is quite novel. Just wish we could have lived here years ago.