The weather has been glorious so I have spent 4 days clearing brambles in the garden and laying a bit of hedge . Muscles I had forgotten about are aching after all the sawing, lopping and raking.

The garden covers about an acre .There is an area near the house which I try to keep tidy (ish) and a much bigger area on which we have grown a lot of trees (mainly from seed)

The rest is a long bank which, if I manage to keep it clear, produces successive carpets of colour through the year. First the white wood anemones, then the yellow celandines,bluebells, forget-me-nots,red campion and fogloves. In the autumn all the coloured fungus appear too. The bank hasn't been cleared properly for a couple of years so it is hard work.

If the weather stays dry we will have a bonfire to get rid of the briars.

I am always careful clearing this area I know that sometimes the hedgehogs hibernate up there. Yesterday I came across this one. I carefully piled a mound of dry leaves over him so that I don't disturb him again.

You can just see his prickles in the picture.