GOING ON GROWING ON (AND RAIIIIIIIIN!)

And floods - Wednesday/Thursday - garden awash, roads and schools closed, main west coast rail line shut, even golf course closed!

I am in my room as the living room is stinky with tar - the woodburner, left in with a log overnight, has gooed up and the air is fumey. Hands up - all my fault - should have known better as it has happened before - burn off the tar then clean the glass with wet newspaper and wood ash.

Before the rain we have had a period of big morning skies over Morecambe Bay - well the sky is always the same size, it just feels bigger.

The daffodils are confused! On the banking and under the magnolia they are pushing up their stems - and it is November.

Autumn colours are still lingering here and there - on the great white cherry, on the beech hedge and the liquidambar.
 

But golden leaves are not the only things lighting up the garden - this is the euphorbia R bought at Abi and Tom's nursery at Halecat.

But rain, rain, rain was here for the first few days of the week - nothing new then. It has poured again and we have yet another new spring - this time coming up in the path to the wood. Unable to walk on the grass as my feet sink in three or four inches - waterlogged. I have never known such a wet autumn. If this is global warming you can keep it.

So - reading Neil Gaiman's book on Norse Mythology and listening, at this instant, to The Beatles, Think For Yourself - no it has changed - Marty Wilde and Bad Boy!!

Colour still, in small amounts - the blue salvia Sue gave us before she died, a red rose ( birthday present to R) and R's favourite - Erysimum Bowles Mauve still flowering.

In the kitchen the white streptocarpus is in fine flower.

So what did we do today, avoiding rain? R is still clearing away whilst I repotted the herbs and moved the Euphorbia characias wulfenii.

R tells me the moorhen is back regularly and the heron was by the pond again.

The music moves on - Spem in Alium . . . , Jeremy Summerly: Oxford Camerata. In the kitchen the painter is listening to Radio 2, the moorhen is stretching in the pond outlet, there is another squirrel on the bird feeders, friends are sunning it on Bequia in the WI poor things. All the weather fun is here. Rain/sun and probably frost tonight.

SWEET AND SOUR

Finally no rain, just a biting north wind yet sunshine - very welcome - need a month of this now - some chance! About as much chance as Brexit ceasing to be the chaotic mess the Tory Party has dug us into.

So what to do when the back is bad (apart from hoping R will go out and clear away some of the dead and dying plant material.)

A walk around with the blower clearing leaves off the paths and a bit of labour in the kitchen - notably making Redcurrant and Orange Jam and bottling the apple vinegar.

Whoops, the top label is wonky - will have to correct that (?OCD?)

Recipe - Redcurrant and Orange Jam - 
2 Kg redcurrants, 2Kg sugar, 4 oranges, pinch of cinnamon. (2Kg is about 4 pounds)
Put redcurrants, grated orange rind, cinnamon and orange juice into pan. Cook till currants soft. Warm sugar and add, stir till dissolved, bring to fast boil, test often as sets quickly, put in hot pots. Spread on warm toast, eat.

Looking out of my window the other day I watched the predatory cat from next door stalking a grey squirrel under the watchful eye of Doc.
 

The squirrel completely unconcerned eating fallen peanuts (the tits scatter them around) knowing it can shimmy up the shed if necessary.

Now to a question of courgettes that get out of hand - no, not mine, my daughter's. Looks like an awful lot of courgette (marrow) and mint soup going in the freezer?

And when there is not much colour in the garden the sunrise comes up with this -

Time to do a bit of the tidy stuff so elder cut back and I chucked the stuff on the bonfire heap but the stems shoved into the ground will root easily. Earlier I had vigorously dead headed some of the buddleia and they have come again with attractive grey new growth.

The chard is still thriving - in fact doing better now we have colder weather and the slugs and snails have gone. A memo to grow more next year (definitely not slugs and snails) and try the red stemmed variety as well as the white one.

Winter and leaf fall reveal surprising things like this bird's nest up a maple. We, and many others, walked right past without realising it as there - probably chaffinch?

IT IS NOVEMBER BUT . . .

There are a lot of flowers in the garden despite the weather and time of year.

Some things just do not flower, should not flower now but . . 

 . . . here we have a quince on the left and the fatsia on the right.

And then there is the question of the camellia - what is it up to?

There are many roses, by the shed, on the back banking, in the rose bed.

Grouse, a vicious ground cover rose to the left and one I cannot remember the name of to the right given to us by P and A.

The one below is in the rose bed and I think Emma Hamilton but a bit thin as it is late in the year.

   

 Then there is red one on the left and the last of the Rhapsody in Blue flowers on the right.

Naturally there are other plants - the nasturtiums have not been frosted yet and things like feverfew plod on as do the calendulas.

Some annuals plod on like the cosmos and the ammi.

Erysimum to the left, osteospermum to the right. 

And the delicate schizostylis or hesperantha, the Kaffir Lily. 

So, just when I need to dig and things I bend down and twang my back!😟

Went away for a few days admiring grandchildren and the garden camera took many videos - all of grey squirrels and the whizzing woodmice shown here. A night video so look for the eyes.

The dark days are creeping upon us and there is a lot to do - so I hope the twangy back is better soon.

😟 3 grey squirrels on the feeders - will no one rid me of these meddlesome beasts?

THE TROUBLE WITH OUR IVY

First the good news, the moorhen is back on the pond, alas this means winter approaches.

Ivy up a tree is a wonderful habitat for wildlife if it does not bring the tree down with its weight. I do not mind it on a couple of trees but it tries to climb them all - just a small tendril first, then a leader up the trunk and away it goes.
 

We have a window of drier but colder weather. R has been cutting back stuff and I dug up a load of alchemilla outside the kitchen which has got a bit past it.
Then R put in three Chinese lanterns, Physalis, and I took the alchemillas to the wood and dumped them - they might grow. Then I transplanted a geranium and comfrey and put in a variegated euphorbia. I also divided a rose root and put that at the edge with some snowdrop bulbs.
The campanula and dahlia R bought have also been put in, the latter deeply - it might survive. I have not put it in the shed to over winter as when I have done this before they snuffed it.

It was a very brief window, got up to a dank dark dismal morning. This was a summer and autumn to forget.

But still, if we are blessed with a burst of sun and the autumn leaves light up, especially the Acer sango kaku, its golden colours are splendid. It was given to us by my sister when we moved almost eleven years ago.

Of the three azaleas only this one still has its autumn leaves.

And finally a quiet day with little sun, no wind, no rain. Even so some things are strangely beautiful. This is the dead head of a wild angelica silhouetted against a cloudy dusk sky. Its delicacy is delightful.

R has been shearing dead stuff and taking it to the compost heap. I have been out with the scythe in the wood, cutting, picking up fallen sticks etc, Then I went down to the pond and raked out rubbish plus a flowering rush and a white water lily that is too large. I have offered them to P and his giant pond (lake).

The chives are dying back so, as we use them in
stead of onions, a strategy must be conceived - perhaps freezing some.

Pity we cannot eat ivy.
(Not a good idea!)