Home • This month’s blog • Latest mystery • Mary's dogs • Quirky Places to Eat • Time for tea • Crafters
Mary's latest novel – the 11th in the Rossington series – was published on 4 November 2025. Look out for Don’t Tell Tales! Visit your local bookshop or friendly crime specialist for a copy – or order it from our stockist 
Bodies In The Bookshop, Cambridge.
February 2026 ||January 2026 | December 2025 | November 2025 | October 2025 | September 2025
May 2026
Tuesday 19 May 2026
A flake of soft clear blue drifted over the front garden, the first holly blue butterfly of this year, inspecting the flowers. Swifts appeared over the garden a few days ago, their distinctive sickle shapes flying high above. There aren’t many of them, but their screaming calls are audible, albeit faintly, from the heights they prefer during the day. Swallows are nesting in a nearby barn, and house martins have come back to build their mud cups in the usual eaves.
The bluebells at Holwell Lawn have been exceptionally good this year as the bracken has been cut back. They create a sea of indigo and if the day is sunny their scent drifts across the air. The thick drifts of orchids that sometimes flower on certain roadside verges have only produced a scattering of flowers this year. But white cuckoo flowers have been prolific on the corner verge at the entrance into the village. Their flowering usually coincides with the arrival of cuckoos, the males calling out with their distinctive cry, trying to attract a nearby female. The flowers are sometimes pink, and whichever colour they are, another name for them is Lady’s Smock. There are many stories attached to the name, but the one I like best conjures up the image of village washing days when the clean wet linen was spread across bushes to dry.
Thursday 21 May 2026
A greater spotted woodpecker has been paying regular visits to the garden, instantly noticeable because of his larger size as he perches briefly on the mixed seed feeder, where his red patches stand out distinctively. He comes from further up the hill, where a wooded garden blends into a wooded slope. He usually returns there after feeding, but sometimes heads over the lane towards the tree-fringed meadows beside the brook.