Wednesday, January 25, 2017

January blues.. greys.. whites

Another grey day. 
It’s not raining but it’s so foggy that the air is dripping with moisture and beyond a few metres the world is a blank canvas.

It feels consoling to hunch indoors and distract myself with seed ordering but there are rewards to be reaped beyond the back door. 

Amid the quiet stillness, seasonal treasures are heightened. A woodpecker’s drumming is reverberating through the poplars and I spot a few gleaming aconite buds as I plod up to the veg patch to find parsnips for soup. 


Hundreds of fieldfares scatter noisily in acknowledgement of my rude interruption, white bellies melting quickly into the mist above my head.

At my feet are dozens of molehills, soil fresh, dark and crumbly. Maestro of labyrinthine activity, his stealth has not been dampened by the weather. 

All I need now is for the cats to prise themselves away from the radiator and earn their keep with some mole trapping!

Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Happy New Year

I’ve just walked round the garden in the dwindling daylight.
The last fruits of winter have released their grip, making way for the buds of spring.
Bowed heads, sapped of energy, snared by the frost and gloom.
Yet in each shriveled pod and faded petal a shred of beauty lingers.