LAST BLOG IN ROSSIDE FOR 2014

It is a glorious cold winter day, early frost and blue skies, a day for gardening, for weeding and manuring, for picking up sticks and general tidying.

But here at The Nook it is much like the World Cup - Germany v Brazil - Manflu 7 - Gardening 1 (actually more like minus 1. Writing this blog, a bit at a time, is about my limit as I cough and wheeze, plough through endless handkerchiefs and, in true manly fashion, feel thoroughly sorry for myself.

Even the visiting heron caught sight of me at the upstairs window and flapped off across the field like a ragged sheet of newspaper.

Instead of a-digging and a-weeding I sit and read.

Actually a fabulous book of poetry called 'A Lift of Wings' published by Indigo Dreams in the UK (by Kerry my sister-in-law) - no bias at all - they are really good (much better than mine).

R has just said that the heron is back at the pond. I will let it be.

To the left is an example of boggy sog that needs draining, to the right the hardly glamorous dead leaves of the alchemilla. The garden is looking decidedly drab and almost dead despite the sunshine.

 
Nasturtiums, not yet cleared away, are tangles of memory - there is so much to do and no stamina, in fact no nothing at all.
I shall be glad to have a go at a new year.

Gotcha - heron in pond then R shouted her car will not start - she took mine, her battery flat. With Christmas and illness the car has not been used.

Then heron gone so only one pic.

Panic! Last year great trouble with mower as its battery flat when they came to collect it for service. The trouble is the engine will only run if I am sitting on the seat - a safety device I know, but sometimes annoying. So shot out to shed - it started first time and chunnered happily for a few minutes.

My cousin A. in Nelson, NZ has a blog at - 

http://www.sustainablegardener.org/latest-post/

Great advice on gardening the organic way. He does it seriously rather than fiddling about like myself.

So, to end, here is a weary winter garden on a dismal day waiting for someone to do something. 

Perhaps I will chop a log, a whole one.
Perhaps not, perhaps a cup of tea.
Manflu the new diet! Just got lower than my younger son, weight wise. Mind you I have given him the bug so my success will be short lived. 
I must encourage him to 'feed a cold'.