I picked the right day to go yesterday. After a lot of dark wet days, it was frosty, crisp and sunny and the woods looked stunning in the low angled light. There are two plots still unsold in the wider woods and I decided to have a mooch around and see what was in them. Both plots are interesting with lots of large hazel stools ready for coppicing. One plot has the remains of a small quarry and in periods of heavy rain, becomes a small pond. If I was thirty years younger with pots of money, I’d buy that one as well.

The frozen conditions must make it hard for the birds to find food, so I stocked up the peanut feeder and broke up a fatball and spread it on a stump so they could enjoy an easy and calorific breakfast (our equivalent would be an English breakfast at Wetherpoons). The birds seem to know what I’m doing because within seconds, they are tucking in.

I advertised on our local Freecycle group for spare wood to make birdboxes and somebody kindly donated a brand new one, so I next job was to put it up ready for spring. One of the main tasks of the day, was to take the photos needed for my Woodland Trust volunteer project – fixed point photography. Lighting was very low making for interesting images but hard to avoid lens glare. There are six different locations. It was really enjoyable to walk about and see how things have changed since last year and it filled the rest of the morning nicely.

I am very keen to start clearing up the felled trees, so the afternoon was spent chainsawing some of them into manageable sizes and stacking them. I can process them at leisure later on but spring is not far away and I don’t want them hindering the growth of bluebells and wood anemones. The blubells are already a few inches high. Here’s about a fifth of work done, I probably moved at least a ton of timber by hand. Apart from some slightly achy muscles I feel pretty good and that was one heck of a workout. Lots more still to do though.

Finally I just sat and watched the birds again as they silently flitted about. It never fails to bring a warm glow to my soul, especially when a robin comes to seek you out and see what you are up to.