One's Garden's Strange Things

Two new items have appeared in the garden since Thursday night. I have a shrewd idea that they were neither blown in (like much of the cellophane degenerating - but not fast enough - in the flowerbed) or brought by the foxes (like that turquoise soft-toy dinosaur that progressed round the lawn a couple of years ago). They are two clapped out speakers of an ancient model: one with flapping black gauze, the other with frontage intact.

They follow an old-fashioned stereo system which lasted about three weeks and a large monitor and CPU that lay against the gate to the back garden in such a way that I was worried it had been dropped by burglars. (I have something similar somewhere in the house.) No, it was another almost-antique electrical present.

I'd think someone was dumping in my garden were it not for the fact that eventually they go away again. And, again, I don't think the wind or the foxes can be liable for their removal even though both also often take away what they have brought in.

This traffic through my garden is fascinating, of course. But the single most arresting movement of matter is currently in the hands of a small but exquisite wren. I've seen a wren in early Spring for three years now. It arrived the year my Dad died and I am of the opinion that his soul inhabits the little thing. That aside, this year the wren is building a nest in the ivy. I hardly dare breathe for fear of startling it. It sits about a yard away from the kitchen window while it assesses whether it is safe to approach its construction site. Then it takes its mouthful of fluff, flies off and comes back without it.

Ah, Spring, with all its many gifts...