Usually I am rushing around in May keeping the weeds down, clearing the duck weed from the pond, scraping in between the slabs on the patio, front garden and back garden, sowing seeds, taking cuttings and photographing the changing scenes in the garden as spring turns to summer.  However, this May I was laid low with pain.  My whole back, shoulders, upper arms, neck and head were all far too painful (despite painkillers)  to do much of anything.  I saw an NHS physio and followed their instructions which didn’t help AT ALL.  Just the other day I saw a private physio who released some of the very tense muscles and gave me different exercises to follow so I am hopeful that I can soon be as pain free as I can to carry on gardening.  So in the mean time here are a few quick snaps of some of the wildlife I found when I did get into the garden. I still haven’t seen the newts so Harry took the newt photo in the evening.

The ladybird was sitting in the little notch of an indoor cyclamen leaf.

I found a few of these tiny pea clams (fingernail clams) Sphaerium corneum in the pond and that is the first time I have seen these.  The photo is just taken quickly when I put it on a towel on my knee before I returned it to the pond.

I know this is a very poor photo but I just quickly snapped this holly blue butterfly while I was watering the patio plants.  I have seen a few of these this year flitting around the holly bush.  I think this one is a female.