A Month Since Christmas

It’s hard to believe but it really is one twelfth of a year since Christmas day. It’s been a long month, tiring. Going back to work always takes an effort, but especially so when the mornings are still dark, and the cold nights make a warm duvet even more difficult to throw off.

It doesn’t even seem like a week since gales were sweeping the country. Yesterday brought the first of the winter’s snow for those of us in the south. I had to rush into work for an early start, but I couldn’t resist snatching a photo of our garden.



The snow works a silent magic every time.

With time seeming to speed up, now is the moment to start planning for the coming summer in our garden. The pyramid on the right in the photo is a mini greenhouse, a Growmate. A few years ago we got organised, sowing seeds and growing petunias, bizzy-lizzies, salvias, chillis, basil and tumbling tomatoes. Recently we have let things slip, and the Growmate has been more of a storage space. (Though Bernard, one of our visiting cats, was using it as an highly architectural litter tray until we discovered what he was doing.)

This year will be different. (Do we say that every year?) I have learned my lessons. After our first successful year I got over-ambitious, planting seeds too early when the days were still too short. The resulting seedlings grew spindly and fell over, or succumbed to damping-off. This year I will plan ahead, but bide my time…