A DAMP SQUIB

A wet coming we have of it. 

Will it ever stop raining?

But there are things in the hedgerows yet - Old Man's Beard, Clematis vitalba, and elderberries that the birds have not yet eaten though the redwings and fieldfares are back.

We have colour in the garden, if the sun shines which is rarely at the moment - liquidambar, sedum spectabile and rosehips.

 

Yet the wind is stripping the trees, one last leaf or two here on a sycamore in the back hedge. The hogweed seeds still cling to the dried stems on the lower banking, we had expected the gardener to come and trim this but no sign despite a reminder so look for another? And the fleabane still flowers.

As usual the fatsia is coming into bud at the wrong end of the year. Why it does this I do not know but it does. I should be out in the garden but it is so wet that I would damage the lawn. I checked the paving but it is not slippery at the moment. Still bulbs to plant and tender plants to pot up and bring in. I heard George Monbiot on the radio describing how some of his internet posts had been taken down. I have absolutely no faith that the powers that be will do anything but tinker with global warming. This is so sad for our children and grandchildren etc but whether it is a capitalist economy or a dictatorship self interest rules.

Covid has failed the earth - it should have got rid of three quarters of us, at least.

I have had a radical idea to cut the workload in then garden - do nothing for 20 years and document its return to the wild. The only snag is that I will be 96 by the end of the project, or more likely scattered as ashes up in the wood.

At the moment I feel a bit like the rhubarb so watch this space.

 We watch the clouds build up across the bay in the brief bright spells but mostly it is overcast, wet and dreary. And dark - how do we get through the winter?