SUE AND THE WAY TO THE WOOD

On the Sunday of the snow I stopped on my way back from town to sit with Sue M-R by her fire and chat about the old times and herself.

This Sunday Sue left us. She will be sadly missed by all. I took this photo of her wonderful garden last year. She created a glory no one who has been there will forget and in it we will remember her.

-----

One of the good things about these dark days in winter is that I cannot see it and all the jobs needed to be done.

So to talk of jobs - The buddleias have been cut back to a couple of buds on the new growth and the stuff taken to the bonfire. It is where the birds sit and queue for one of the feeders so my fleece is covered in bird droppings.
It is very mild - temperature in double figures again - but damp.
The garden birds are starting to sing - now they will continue until the summer - birdsong is one of the delights of a garden.

The first daffodil is out, picked and in a vase in the kitchen. Other plants apart from the roses have flowered all winter like this campanula. It has flowered throughout despite rain, frost and snow.

The grey squirrels are getting brazen - here is one escaping from the peanut feeder after I opened the window and talked to it. Before that it just looked at me as if to say, what are you interrupting my breakfast for?

The moss on the lower hoggin path is becoming a problem - the wet weather dos not help.
The paths up into the wood are in need of a bit of work.

But one main problems is the stream crossing in the upper wood. 

You can see the usual stream nearest to the camera but another one runs a few feet further on. What bridge I had, a few planks, has been washed away and the far stream is sourced from two new springs like this one.

It is Wednesday and every time I go out it rains. There was flooding in the Lake District for the umpteenth time this year. All I can manage is to empty the kitchen bucket on the compost heap.

On Monday had a 24hr BP machine strapped to my arm, went back yesterday and it had failed to record!! Will have to do it all again. Sometimes life's a bit of a compost heap - smouldering and full of snakes?

Today is Friday and Storm Gertrude (dirty Gerty?) is battering the house. What a winter - wet and windy and wild - a bit like some of our summers.

And in the garden things stir, sparrows and chaffinches, tits and goldfinches, bullfinches and woodpeckers.

 There are still roses, I picked these yesterday, and our first narcissus with a delicious scent.

And of course snowdrops everywhere. Last year's divide and replant when they are in the green has worked and they appear in so many places - we have forgotten where we put them.