Thursday 31 January 2013

Reasons to be cheerful...

...one



...two



...three



Wednesday 30 January 2013

A jade’s trick

Yesterday the weather played a trick on us. Unusually mild and fresh and bright and, although at one point a dark cloud overhead brought with it a brief rain shower, half an hour later the sun and the breeze had dried everything out. The best kind of rain. The strongly gusting wind, so usually an annoyance, merely seemed to be blowing away all memories of a sodden summer, followed by a wet winter. For the first time in months I returned to the van at the end of the day with clean tools, and all night long the hearth remained unadorned with a pair of sodden, mud caked and gently steaming gloves.

Of course, the soggy weather is back today. Still mild, still windy, but now whipping the rain into your eyes no matter which way direction you face. Fools, says the Winter. Did you think Spring had come early? I’m not done with you yet.

Wednesday 23 January 2013

The ostrich and the beaver

There are those who would seek to persuade you that there’s nothing to be done in the garden over winter. Pay them no heed. They are for the most part misguided, although several are bonkers and one in particular has that “Mwaha-HA!” laugh that tends to accompany delusions of a nature not conducive to the wellbeing of society at large. I have noticed that, whatever their peculiar motivation, they who espouse hivernal gardening abstinence fall into one of two categories, and can therefore be designated as either ostrich, or beaver.