GARDEN AN ART (OR NOT) (AT ALL)

Phew, still whacked now after 2 days of intense flu like illness but no cough, no sore throat - just a virus - bad enough, I think, to be classified as womanflu not manflu?
Anyway got me to reading as not much good for digging nd stuff and came across the story of the dig by Don Marcelino at Altamira near Santander in northern Spain. In 1879 he was digging with is men in the floor and he had taken his five year old daughter. She looked up and pointed out the ceiling to her father but he just laughed. Finally he held up his lamp and stopped laughing. The cave roof was covered in bison, horses and deer.
I was luck enough as a young man - about 14 - to be taken by my Aunt and Uncle to Lascaux Caves in France, before they were closed to the public. All I can say is Damien First and Tracey Emin eat your hearts out! They were doing it better 17,000 years ago.

So, is gardening an art - I suppose depends on your garden.
Well not when it comes to carrots, at least for me. This is the entire crop this year - I just cannot grow the things. probably the soil is wrong, I am wrong or the garden has a carrot allergy.

R and I went a-walking in Bouth Woods and saw not a soul but we did come across this, something, I hope, not to find too much on my trees. We still have occasion outbursts of Honey Fungus but so far not on a living tree since we cut the last one down.

We have now had a couple of hard frosts - ice on the pond - and that will spell the end of the nasturtiums turning them into a slimy mush.

And the wildlife is all go - something screamed twice into the dark yesterday evening - I thin a rabbit, perhaps caught by Megatron the black cat from down the road. And the grey squirrels are back. And the rat. And the rain.

AND (it is Wednesday morning) as Nellie the Elephant said, "Here we go, Trumpety, trump, trump, trump."

 It is coming on mid November and so much is still free in the garden - the big sycamore is starting to turn but most of the leaves have not.

The wild elder, often the first to come, the first to go is very green as is the cut leaved one.

The big cherries by the path are so different - the one on the left turned and almost bare, the great white on the right still well clad.

 The ash, however are naked against a cold autumn sky, leaves blown into drifts and runnels, scattered on the grass.

When I walk in the garden the scent of wood smoke from the wood burner comes to me - the ash we cut down and logged early in the year. It is 4 pm and there is no denying the year is passing - reluctantly.