I’M DREAMING OF

 A dry Christmas, with no rain or snow or hail - actually no rain would be good.

So Happy Christmas to all those in more balmy (barmy?) climes from Welly boot land.

I have been rash and bought a small chainsaw for pruning and dealing with all the fallen wood after the snow. Unlike the banks we have lots of branches on the ground. So the stream is unblocked but the grass is so wet water runs across it and I have to paddle and squelch. The gardener wisely has stayed away. (It is raining again.)

The twenty first is the shortest day (hurrah!) so I can only get longer in the tooth from now on.

And then storm Pia came along and blew and soaked us all.

All around then garden are remnants of the summer that need clearing away -

But the weather is so unkind. I has planted grasses after seeing them covered in frost and looking beautiful in magazines but now they will have to be cut back and removed. And R and I have had some sort of cold - she coughed and I ached. No I do not know if it is Covid as our testing kit is out of date and why bother anyway. As it becomes gloomy outside the sky turns, not red, but a pale purplish grey like a bruise. And in then background is the roar of the wind.

So happy Christmas and New Year!

But there are signs of hope, snowdrops through, daffodils too and buds on the camellias.

And the winter flowering viburnum bodnantiense is well out.

And every day there is four o’clock again and again, and it is dark, no moon, no stars just cloud, and rain.

FOUR O’CLOCK 

It's four o'clock, whatever I say,  

it's four o'clock again,

a dark and drab December day,

and it's just begun to rain.

The sky is filled with dismal grey

we’re short of sun again.

Time is ever set at four

this year’s gone down the drain,

And its miserable outside the door,

its four o’clock again.

Winter - always four o'clock,

as the afternoon light falls,

I would go outside. unblock

the beck but can’t be arsed at all.

I shall makes some tea

For R and me, have a piece of cake,

take a break from the dreary rain,

Oh! It’s four o'clock again.

But the tree is up and decorated, we have bankrupted ourselves in the supermarket so for ten days Scrooge will have to go on the back burner and wait.

WAAAAAATER

So the snow is all but gone - because of the RAIN!

We now have floods, the stream in the garden has burst its banks and the fallen limb of the silver birch has landed in the flow causing a diversion. I suppose next we will have an ox-bow lake.

So much is flattened by the snow and the broken branches will have to just lie where they fell for now. 

The electric gate decided not to work yesterday so I leaped from the car into six inches of flowing water - wet feet. This morning, after fixing the gate, I had to retrieve one of our waste bins from under the car at the house down the road, blown there by the gale.

The pheasant is hiding under the bay and I do not blame him.

The ground is so sodden I have just to stay off it despite needing to clear up after the storm - anyway there is another coming - Fergus!

So what can I show you? More pics of destruction - some of the buddleias have been pruned early -

After that here are, in order, the magnolia grandiflora, the ash in the wood, the big damson, the silver birch I got with yogurt tops from Yeo Valley, and two of the osier.

And I have not shown you the magnolia stellata nor the grey poplar. There are smaller branches off the tall eucalyptus also and the willows in the far garden are horizontal. 

I have never known the garden to be so wet.

While all this has been going on the trail camera has been up in the wood revealing the usual suspects - rabbit, grey squirrel, wood mouse, rat. next door's cat and four hen pheasants as the snow melted.

I must go and wind the clocks. Time waits for no man.

Have a good Christmas, especially my readers in the USA.

SNOOOOOOOW!

Sorry for the delay with new blog but had no electricity nor landline, hence internet - reason below. 

Sometimes at this time of year when all is dreary and dark something happens to raise the spirits. Yesterday I looked out of our bedroom dormer and on the roof six feet away were two elegant grey wagtails and today I held a blue tit that had flown into the kitchen. Then I looked out of the window and we have snowdrops emerging from the soil.

There were thinking how mild the weather was when we had a storm and all these cherry leaves ended up on the ground. Then it rained.

Then it got really frosty,

Then it snoooooooowed.

And the snow created havoc - this is our silver birch fallen with the weight of the white stuff. Branches down in the wood, and here our

willows flattened. Several shrubs are snapped off and a big branch down from the big damson tree. Today, Tuesday, we have finally managed to get to town for milk and so on. We have, at least, a wood burner to boil a kettle. The Aga lost heat as it is electrically controlled though oil fired.

The postman finally got through today and the internet and landline have been temporarily restored.

My feet are cold.

The pond is not quite frozen over and the real heron has been but, I suspect, left hungry. There is some open water for drinking.

I have no intention of sitting on the bench outside the house.

So now we have some rain, though frost tonight, and then more rain. The garden could not get boggier. One good thing, I have not fallen over yet - yet!

NON GARDENING

 It has been a while and all I have done in the garden is blow leaves around.

We have been away to the south and whilst we were there storm Debi came visiting, flooding most of the local low lying land and cutting off the electricity for a time.

SO wet it is better to stay off the garden, the gardener did not come and now we have a nasty cold so we are very cheerful!

I sleep on my side most of the time and is very annoying to have long ear lobes - they get squashed and twisted at night - this has nothing to do with gardening but I have to talk about something and the rest of the world is a mess.

So before the storm it was about autumn leaf colour -

I know, gather them up, put them in bin bags and make leaf mould but it is raining again and anyway the storm has blown off all the leaves and it is four o'clock and getting dark.

Before we left I set up the trail camera - but forgot to switch it on. However I did get these two videos before that. The badger below is a frequent visitor as are rabbits - but brown and white? There has been some breeding like rabbits going on with a pet animal I think.

The leaves are all off the cercidiphyllum (toffee tree) but I cannot smell the leaves - perhaps need some of that elusive factor called the sun?

Autumn draws to a close too early and the dark days are with us - the house is besieged by ladybirds seeking a place to hibernate - not a bad idea with weather like this -

HUNKERING DOWN

It is a dark and dreary night, something is nasty in the woodshed and SAD looms.

Ladybirds everywhere looking for somewhere to spend the winter - inside and out, on windows and curtains, landing in my hair. So they know something about the coming winter that I do not?

So, let me get rid of the autumn colours first -

There, now that is done, for now. The cherries in fact have only just got going. The best colours used to be the third week in October but now it is into November.

There are still some flowers in the garden, enough for a small vase at least.

The rooks in the trees are restless, not looking forward to the winter though there are a lot of berries this year for other birds. I have not seen any redwings nor fieldfares yet. The crows make a lot of noise at times especially if disturbed by something - this is unlikely to be me in cold damp weather.

So with the cherries turning there is still room for shape and colours in the small shrubs.

And the odd calendula blasts out its  colour.