MY FEET ARE DISSOLVING

We are dissolving - it never seems to stop raining. One low pressure after another, one band of rain after another - keep off the lawns.

So stay inside and get a few of the windfall apples that are still edible and bake them - core them, stuff with a mixture of chopped dates, honey and cinnamon, cut a line through the skin 2/3 of the way up, sprinkle with Demerara sugar and place in a baking dish with a little water. Bake 45' to and hour at 180C, serve with cream or custard.

Of course it helps if the Aga does not go off which it has done. It is something to do with a change in the nature of the fuel, carbons it up.

I have bought some garden fleece to try and protect the sweet peas (that did not flower) through the winter though a hard frost will probably bump them off. The broccoli, however looks fine, not too nibbled either.

Only three and a half weeks till 2019 and then all this festive palaver will be done - and only a couple of weeks to the shortest day.

One day rain, the next morning a frost followed by fog and then more rain.

These are the dark days, dismal and dreary, December until the end of the second week in January and the world is waiting.

(Just thought I would cheer you all up a bit 💦💦💧.)

I look out of the window into the gloom and all I can see i  the garden is the white beacon that are the sweet peas wrapped in horticultural fleece. R thinks I am bonkers - probably am, probably always have been. I don't think I have dome much of a job but it might scare a burglar in the night?

And I bet your rose bed looks better than ours. And there are still some surprises in the twilight like this euphorbia - and there seem to be several calendulas that have decided this is the time to flower - bonkers plants here too.

Meantime, in town the Christmas lights are on and Laurel and Hardy have a seasonal visitor. A local firm, J.F. Hornby & Co, accountants, have used the Stan and Ollie photo as their Christmas Card and I did their calendar too. They made a big donation to the local Hospice.