Above is a photo of the winter pansies and ivy which I planted before Christmas, in the hope of having some cheery colour in the garden during the winter.

But it wasn’t to be, the pansies hardly flowered at all until we got a wee bit of heat and quite a lot of sunshine recently. This always happens with me and winter pansies, they seem to be a misnomer in my neck of the woods anyway, perhaps our winters are too cold and dark.

What is more annoying though is the state of the jute liner of the wrought iron basket which has been nicked by blackbirds as nesting material. I’ve been looking at other people’s jute basket liners and they seem to be intact. I must just have particularly badly behaved birds in my garden.