back at the shack

we've been back at the shack for a couple of days and although it usually takes a week to unpack everything from storage and put it in place after cleaning up the mouseshit, we have now decided to do some more moving around of enormous quantities of stuff, from the one little house to the other and sorting through it all. This is major, but I suppose if one makes oneself sort through everything every year, then one will naturally whittle things down a bit.........?.......

The sun is blazing amazing. There are crocuses, snowdrops and a christmas rose and the daffs are budding a month early. I am told that this is the warmest spring noted here since spring noting began sometime in the middle of the 1800's. The first morning here after we came back, there was only one degree or so above freezing inside and condensation was running down the window panes. I froze and we couldn't light a fire because a vital piece had fallen off the wood stove and needed fixing. Got it going later though. The place is gradually drying out.

Today, a person was spotted in the garden. It doesn't happen very often and this time it was a redheaded cousin who normally lives in Copenhagen. We had a casserole with ecobeef in red wne and coconut milk, with some ginger, garlic, celeriac and carrots, all served on basmati rice. It was quite ok. Cousin E is allergic to gluten and dairy so that worked out ok too.

Birds are going a bit mad, nuthatches, blackbirds, thrushes, robins, great tits, blue tits, coal tits, magpies, an array of woodpeckers, all building like maniacs everywhere around us. At night owls are heard, the more owls the less voles we think hopefully. I love the song of the thrush. Its melancholy evening tootle, always by the edge of the forest and always saying everything twice. I love its slender shape, the most elegant of birds. They leave snails shells on our granite doorstep, where they have come at dawn to crack open the shells. I wish they ate the big slugs too, but hardly anyone eats them.