OH-OH, IT'S STARTING ALL OVER AGAIN

Well, that is that done, just the New Year now the we can get on with enjoying 2019 - Brexit, Trump, shifting manure onto the veg beds, intolerance, global warming, M6 traffic, paying for our upsizing, avoiding onions, losing weight, getting fitter, Brexit, Trump, etc etc.
Oh! Yes, and a golden wedding - has R really put up with me for all that time? (Well, some of it.) If I haven't had my other knee done we will probably be in Pembrokeshire watching the sunset over St Bride's Bay.

Most mornings are dull and drab though Christmas Eve was special - we walked in the Winster Valley in mist and sunshine -

In our downstairs WC, a foot along beyond the sink where the skirting board down not quite meet the floor, there lives a small black spider. When I come in he (though more probably she so I will call him/her it) will nip out a tiny bit to see what's up. Then as I move around it retreats almost out of site. It has been there for over three years and I have no idea what its feeds on.

The view from the house, like this from the living room is a bit depressing - a load of wet plastic, but, when there is sun, despite the building works, the garden has some highlights- a rose here, the beech hedge in full leaf colour - 

and one or two premature snowdrops showing their white flowers. In fact there are flowers on one of the wallflowers, on the odd bramble in the hedgerow and the mild weather (fingers crossed) seems to be deceiving many plants. As usual managed to pick a small vase of flowers for the table from the garden - I mean the table is not from the garden but . . . . well . . . 

New Year's Ever tomorrow and an early bed for me - to be woken by people launching rockets and such at midnight - just hope they are not North Korean nor Putin's new whizzers.

The light of the old year is fading and colour dissipating. Let us hope next year is not a monochrome year.

Here is hoping for a garden full of flowers, fruit and vegetables, body that will let me shovel horse manure and less argy-bargy in the political world. 
A happy and hopefully good New Year to everyone.

Now, where's my drink.

What do you mean the kettle's on?

(Pinched the title from Brenda Lee.)

Fed up with jargon -

NAVEL GAZING

I am liking Pam Ayres more and more

After reading the latest editions

Of Poetry and PN Review.

Good verse does not have to be obscure

And I wonder if those who profess

To understand the contortions

Of language manifest in their pages

Really know what is being said.

Modern verse takes a delight

In inaccessability, poetry-speak.

It is not surprising it is disappearing

Up its own niche, one so narrow

As to exclude so many readers.

A spade is a spade not a wrought

Implement with design for the transfer

Of materials from one place to another

Or the excavation of earthy material.

Well, it is the latter, but why not

Just say it is a spade?