COLD AND A VOLE

Let me start with COLD! Now I know this has nothing on Canada and the ilk but it is 2C and a gale blowing which is enough to deaden my  fingers as I winter prune the fruit trees removing dead and damaged branches, and crossing twigs. 

I start with two very chilly morning images from our bedroom window.

The top one shows freezing fog with pylons pushing out of the mist like giant Triffids, the lower one is a longer lens shot of the moor across to Birkrigg.

Out in the garden the robin braves the winter hail showers and the heron hunches miserably by the pond trying to shelter under the hedge. I have been down - no frog spawn yet. Whilst all this is going on an enterprising bank vole, they are the source of numerous small burrows in the garden, sneaks out of a crack in the paving under the feeders and dashes off with a sunflower seed. then back again and so on - obviously not eating them but storing them away in a safe larder.

I have just brought in some snowdrops from the garden and popped them in a small vase.

We hd considered going for a walk but were devoid of sheltered ideas, we had just been to Potato Day at Greenodd Village Hall for soup, a cake and a cup of tea. We bought no potatoes but I did get three asparagus crowns to replace the ones we lost with the flooding a couple of years ago and R bought some gladioli corms - deep purple and lime green flowers.

In the house the long wait for the Peruvian Lily to flower is over and it is also pushing up side shoots in the pot - more plants to come.

The house is not devoid of flowers and there white orchid R bought for less than £6 in Ikea some years ago is putting out a splendid show again.

We are trapped a bit by the weather so perhaps I will turn to the Sarah Raven catalogue. The pics of flowers are wonderfully inviting.

R thinks we should make more of the path up the wood and improve the experience of walking around the garden. 
Thinking cap on then! (And no snoozing.)