I am not sure who was more surprised, me or the gold-crest. It came to on a small branch in the yew tree about 18 inches from the tip of my nose. We looked at each other briefly and then it was off again to another branch higher up in the tree, it was only there for a couple of seconds and then it was gone.

For lunch we had a bowl of tomato soup with goats cheese. The tomatoes came from the green-grocer – a split blue plastic tray of cherry tomatoes all for £3.99.

I sweated a couple of roughly chopped onions on a high heat in olive oil and then stirred in a chopped red pepper and aubergine. I should have added some garlic at that stage but I forgot. For seasoning I threw in some sage leaves and roughly ground coriander seeds. As the onions started to catch I tipped in the tomatoes. I didn’t bother to cut them up knowing they would split soon enough over the heat.

I kept them on a moderate heat until most of the tomatoes had split and the ones that hadn’t were floating in a thick sauce.

That sauce then went through a mouli and then a fine sieve. For serving I place a couple of slices of soft goats cheese in the middle of each plate. We ate it with bread the sun blazing through a blue sky outside.

After lunch I planted eight salad seedlings in the veg plot and took in the smell of the garlic growing there.