It’s April and the apple trees in the orchard are in full flower with the most exquisite pink tinged blossom that it is impossible not to try to capture on film.

But it has not rained here in East Kent for two months – maybe a bit of minor splatting but nothing that would contribute towards watering a plant. Or a newly planted bare rooted tree ..and we have 193 of these along the cliff line – some of which are 300 metres from the nearest tap.

We were gambling on there being a wet Spring because we didn’t know how we could keep this number watered properly. But it was a gamble that we have lost and last weekend was the second time I gave in and watered them.  On both occasions it has taken about four hours, or maybe it was shorter and just felt like four hours but it certainly is a huge deal. I strung seven hose pipes together which is a lot of junctions that have the possibility of exploding apart once the water is running and, yes, that happened a lot. And even then I was 50 metres short of the two new pine trees planted at the extreme edge of the second meadow involving a last section of hauling watering cans.

But the two May Bank Holiday weekends are coming up, so we must be due some rain! It cannot come soon enough for us although admittedly everyone might not hold that view.

A suggestion I read on a blog for watering newly planted but inaccessible trees was to change the state of the water to make it easier to transport – wheelbarrow down a load on ice and lie it around the roots. Might try that if there has to be a next time.

While I am at it, I wanted to post picture of two lovely butterflies that were around in the meadows this weekend