THE TURNING OF THE WHEEL

 So we end the year with frost, good for breaking up the clods of earth.

The rose bed is tidied and manured, albeit belatedly. I call it the rose bed but really it is a bed with some roses in.

On the morning of the 31st there has been a light dusting of snow overnight but by mid morning there is soft misty rain falling though the temperature is only just above freezing. And it is very still, the garden holding its breath, all sensible creatures snuggled somewhere warm. I will go and light the wood burner and make a cup of coffee. Yesterday I came down with a cold but, I hope, not the Covid.

We have been round the year and are back to the beginning, a year to forget - but we cannot.

The new year begins with another sunrise over the bay, a hard frost and black ice outside the back door. The salt and grit are down by the gate a hundred yards away. I get out the spade and tweak my back. Welcome to another turn of the wheel.

Daffodils are pushing through in the garden, the paperwhites I and A gave us are in full flower and pumping out scent.

There is other hope, buds on the skimmia, flourishing parsley and even the horseradish is sprouting.

The trees are stark especially the old ash, ivy clad against a blue sky. I wonder if the dieback will get it this year. Should I cut back the ivy which might be a burden on it but then there is so much life in the tangled shoots, bird nests etc - I do not know so do nothing.

Afternoon light filters through the white birches at the far end of the garden and I debate as to whether a further lifting of the canopy would be a good idea. Again I do nothing, yet.

We have a spattering of snow settling on roofs and paths.

The plastic heron that is now a great white egret, down by the pond, is no deterrent to the real thing.

So not a lot of gardening to be done but cutting back and manuring, earth too hard and anyway it is cold!

We walk up the back field - it is safer than on hard icy surfaces though boots and wellies go through the frozen crust where it is wet. 

Looking back the sun is starting to go down behind our small copse, silhouetting the branches and twigs. 

The 2020 wheel has turned, now for the 2021 wheel and pray we do not get a puncture.

NOOK AROUND CHRISTMAS

 What is it about 4 pm at this time of year? Sunday 20th and I have avoided gardening as it is cold outside and every so often there is a heavy shower. Then comes 4 pm, a gust of wind and it is hailing as well as raining heavily. I return to sitting by the wood burner and read from my ancient iPad.

Next day we have a dramatic sunrise over Morecambe Bay, this taken from outside the kitchen doors.

It is wintry weather, occasional hail, showers, rain, sun and then Storm Bella crosses the country to the south.

There is plenty of foliage colour - 

 

The liquidambar is finally turning.

As is usual I make a small vase of flowers from the garden for lunch on the big day. We have survivors still - 

Erigeron and Borage, a yellow rose, Viburnum bodnantense.

There are other things too - the dead head of a sunflower, fruit on the Hypericum and coloured leaves on 

the cotoneaster.

But, despite the virus we have had a good Christmas, far too much food, also too rich, (it will be good to get back to boiled egg or soup and toast for lunch) and excellent company. I have received lots of books which will shut me up for a few weeks.

So now, as it hails outside, we stay away from the lower soggy garden and hope the New Year will be a better on for all. (Well, it could not be a lot worse could it?)

AWASH

Noah! thou shouldst be living at this hour:

England hath need of thee: she is a fen

Of stagnant waters . . .

It rains and rains...

On dark afternoons 

the garden is almost 

monochrome, wood conjures 

strange shapes in the half 

light at the shortest day of 

the year, when dusk comes 

before I've had my tea and 

biscuit, still replete from 

lunch. In the spring, lockdown 

was bearable for the sun 

shone. Now it is but a surprise 

glimmer through the grey 

clouds.

    Anyway, Sam the gardener has been, finished scraping the path and strimmed the banking above the pond again. I spend my time looking out of the drizzled windows at the rain and unwelcoming skies.

    There are some hopeful moments, seeing bulbs coming up, that the quince has decided to flower, that the Gardners' World Magazine has sent me seeds - chillies and rocket. Will sow the second, the first I tend to avoid (dire consequences).

And so it goes on, the path flooded, skeletal trees and the stream that dries up in the spring breaking the silence of the garden with its roar. Here and there a euphorbia casts a lighter shade and our plastic heron by the pond has lost its paint and is now a great white egret.

    So what to do? I go inside (or do not go out) and sit by the wood burner and read, sit in the chair where I was nursed as a baby. (Seems unlikely doesn't it!) 

    There is some hope - sent to take clear-out items to Age UK I came around the back of the building to be presented with this over the Sir John Barrow Monument on Hoad Hill.

Sunshine but, of course, rain also.

And there are still some colours - calendula, early quince flowers and the euphorbias heavy with raindrops.

    And when we do have a short burst of sunlight especially if it is back light, the garden glows.

Then, within a few minutes, it all changes. The wind rises, it becomes unnaturally dark and there is water cascading over the gutters.

    So I stay in most of the time, use the excuse that to trample the sodden garden would to do more damage and good and pen the odd poem -

BETWEEN

And in the daytime - I doze, inertia

grasping me after every meal, my eyes close.

The kitchen is a duvet of warm air

generated by our amber Aga.

I sit on the Marks and Spencer sofa - 

so troublesome when I seek to rise - 

my old joints and muscles complain, creak.

And a deep lethargy infuses me.

Each sinew relaxes, tension tapers.

I settle into the soft cushions, sigh, 

half here, half some other place,

some other plane. I almost dream,

peace, contentment just out of reach,

my breathing slows but I am still awake.

And I am in a silent interlude,

a vital space where nothing happens, 

a pause between the chiming of a clock,

a held breath, when the conversation dries,

what is written between the lines of prose,

verse, the practised pause in a comedian’s

delivery, the timing of the joke.

And all but peripheral perception 

is suspended. It is often now that 

lines of yet unwritten poetry come, 

but I am too somnolent to sit up,

take my pen and paper, write down the words

before I forget and they slip away, 

verse that might have been is lost - 

between.  

WAITING FOR 2021

Why start with a sundial?

Well it is a change from rain, sleet and a smattering of snow. The autumn fruiting raspberries have arrived and have been put in next to the rhubarb bed. R has made our Christmas wreath and it is hanging by the outside door. The path down the garden is dangerous being hoggin covered in moss - needs a good scrape - which our gardener has done today.

The garden is in winter clothes, low light, cool damp air and wet grass. Mornings are sometimes foggy and the air is still (when it is not raining.) I must get out of the habit of paddling about in the muddy grass in my ordinary shoes, put on my wellies.

The mallard drake is back on the pond but no sign of a duck yet.

Down on the town canal the mute swans have been dying of avian flu, a real tragedy. It even made the national news.

Small things light up the garden especially the white honesty seed heads - in fact they have self seeded into the horse paddock next door.

Whilst the gardener was scoping the path I applied Ariel biological washing powder to the moss on the tarmac - it seems to do the trick.

There are still odd flowers around, roses and fatsia, a few creeping campanulas, nasturtiums and calendulas but not a lot.

Buds are fattening in preparation for next year - the magnolia stellata, azaleas and camellias particularly obvious.

I have started on the big bed, pruned the roses and removed some of the forgetmenots - they have been replanted to edge the paving outside the extension. Then manure and compost has been barrowed and spread.

This blog is a bit late what with short days, some sort of virus around, Brexit, not to mentions recovering from a colonoscopy (had a bit of a bum time!).

R is making mince pies and feeding the Christmas cake with booze.

Friday afternoon and it has rained all morning. Now it has paused. I 

walk down to the gate with the rubbish and the air is still, but filled with the sound of rushing water, in the beck, in our stream. The sheep are ghosts in the back field, long ago having given up avoiding the rain. Anyway their fleeces, though wet on the outside, keep them dry inside. Not a bird call cracks the silence, even the rooks are gone somewhere else.

Everywhere the daffodils are through, some standing eight inches tall though no buds are yet evident.

2021? Well it cannot be as bad as 2020 - can it?