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It's nearly three weeks since anyone did anything in the garden. I've had my newly sliced up foot propped up indoors for 10 days and the nursery team packed up when I turned off the water supply to the nursery for the winter. But Peter'
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The BBC announced this afternoon that Monty Don will be returning to GW next spring. Toby Buckland's contract hasn't been renewed. More surprisingly, Alys Fowler is leaving too. Monty Don returns to GW The programme was becoming dull and lightweight and something needed to change. The
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I had two major worries on the first day of my sofa confinement. The first was the risk of a numb backside from sitting down so much. Well I'm up and about on two feet if I need to be so no great problem there. The second was
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A change is as good as a rest, so I have spent today facing the other way on the sofa. It's important to keep mentally sharp when prone. This way round I get a better view of the bird table and the perpetual battle over the best branches
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I know some parts of the country have had a thaw, but it rained ice in the night, tiny hard crystals which have coated the road, the roofs and the garden in a fresh, sparkly white crust. The sun broke through the fog first thing, creating ethereal light patterns through
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I spend my days walking from one part of the nursery to another in a state of almost perpetual motion. But I'm going in for an operation on my right foot tomorrow. (I'd love to proudly claim it was a bunion brought on by years of
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To state the bleeding obvious, it's cold. How cold? Our outside thermometer dropped to -10C last night. I thought it was faulty at first until the BBC weather site confirmed some of the other lows in the area. Our high today was -2C. But brilliantly, blindingly sunny. The
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I never know quite what to reply to this question. Surely people don't expect me to say 'Of course! I've got my feet up watching daytime TV'? The reality is a continuing avalanche of projects in the nursery and garden being squeezed in before
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I've been slightly distracted by Facebook, after an invitation to a 30 year reunion which I couldn't attend and joined in 'virtually' instead. On one hand, it's much easier to quickly type in what you're up to on FB. On
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Firstly the freebies - Two small greenhouses, one wood, one aluminium. Structurally OK, but need cleaning and some new glass. We'll help dismantle and can deliver locally if need be. Pics to follow. We're clearing out the boxes of seeds collected at the nursery between 2004
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Our four remaining hens (plus 'Handsome', the cockerel) appeared to have been reduced to three a fortnight ago when one simply vanished during the day without a trace. Last week Peter attacked the chicken pen, clearing mounds of nettles and comfrey around their shed. And there under the
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If I let my memory ramble, September makes me think of roses, tupperware bowls piled with blackberries, scratched and purple-stained fingers and arms, golden sunshine, daddy-long-legs, swimming in the warm, deep sea (years later, in the dark), new school shirts, a freshly stocked pencil case, fresh, clean school books as