STORM AND SNOW

The storm clouds were gathering for a few days then gusts of over 80 mph and bye bye to two of our mature trees.

Before the storm we were trundling along liking the colour of autumn ferns, planning the new veg beds where we still have parsley and kale, the odd carrot (mostly very odd), parsnip and broccoli.

The pond has been strimmed and I noticed hips on the climbing rose above the shed. Plans were going ahead to revitalise part of the bed by the back wall and the weather forecasts were for some windy weather to affect north east Britain.

Then we had a night of noise, wind roaring through the trees, benches turned over and pots capsized.  The trellis over covered area to the left of the big shed has collapsed, the barrow blown over. Well, things could be worse I thought - and it was.

We have two mature ash trees down, one over the far wall and one bringing a mature limb off another tree.

This has left a gap at the top of the wood and decisions to be made. Do we remove all the timber or, perhaps leave some of the fallen trees as a wild life habitat (or is that just plain lazy?) 

So there we were on Sunday, still windy and cold, trees blocking roads - both bigger ways out of our village were blocked and yesterday we had to scrape our way down a narrow lane to escape.

Now it has started to snow after a hard frost last night and a frozen pond, a few hardy euphorbias are trying to lend some cold colour to the garden. The cosmos and nasturtiums, petunias and nicotianas are dead.

So November is almost no more and winter has come, clearing up to be done.

Woodburner lit, a burst of sun, the bird feeders filled so out with the camera. It is interesting to watch the different ways birds feed. Pheasants, dunnock, some chaffinches on the ground hoping for falling seed, then the tits and some finches dash in, grab a seed then fly to a safe bush to eat. The goldfinches just sit there stuffing themselves. Have not seen the bully boys today - green and bullfinches.

Two cock pheasants face off on the banking and suddenly there are a pair of stoats running across the far lawn.

And there is evidence in the snow of other visitors, left rabbit, right pheasant.

There were also some deer tracks up the back field.