At any time of the day, except for the darkest of nights, if you take a walk down to the bottom of our garden you'll find an abundance of birds and their songs. They reverberate all over the garden, from the alarm calls of an intruder from the blackbirds, to the sweetest song of the robin or the dunnock. Within the tangled branches of the hawthorn they watch me, as I sat on my perch, watching them. My finger hovering, ready to catch them in action.

Today feeling rather fragile from a headache, I took the only medicine I know - fresh air, and sat out in the garden. I sat on an old bag of compost and took my camera with me. Today was spectacularly mild, although cooler than yesterday, the sun made up for this. I was taking photos of blue tits, blackbirds, sage, brambles and then, two birds, very quickly made their way to the feeders, lo and behold, it was long-tailed tits!

You don't see those every day, and I hadn't seen them since living here, although from their chittery calls I had suspected they might be around. They allowed me to take some beautiful photos, and in the original photos you can see every little detail. And as The Be Good Tanya's sing "the littlest birds sing the prettiest songs".

I couldn't resist pictures of some of the herbs, they are all beautiful with their silvery foliage. Especially the sage (click the link ~ sage is an amazing healing plant!) and lavender.

The bramble is a majestic, if a slightly pesky plant. It never fails to scratch me whenever I go near it, but the fruit it bears in Autumn are so yummy I can't remove it from my garden even if I wanted to.

I also made a loaf which came out perfectly (modest!). Oh how I am enjoying bread making, it is not a chore when you have a recipe that works wonderfully every single time! Perfection.