Categories: uncategorized
Date: 04 January 2005 11:59:26
Oops! I didn't realise it was so long since I posted. I will try and be better this year (NYR).
Christmas was very good, and apparently Royston had a white one. Unfortunately we were at C's parents in Bedfordshire, where the weather was lovely but distinctly lacking in the white stuff. It was all very sunny and relaxing though, with lots of games and good food.
By the time we got home the snow had all gone, but the weather was good, fine and dry, which has meant several forays into the wilderness have been possible. The unseasonably mild weather has caused the crocosmia to start shooting up again before I'd even cleared the old leaves, a touch of spring already. We have wrens in the front garden and coal tits coming to the feeders in the back, as well as the usual sparrows, great and blue tits, robins, etc. I love watching the birds feeding (especially when I should be working).
We have been given two apple trees for Christmas; for those of you who know (or care) about such things they are an Epicure and a Sunset, both having a Cox-like flavour and suitable for the cold and frosty North. So the major works have gone into preparing a suitable spot for them. We are going to grow them as cordons, along with some other soft fruit bushes, to have a kind of fruiting hedge in place of the awful privet. So some more privet has been removed (with great relish), posts installed, and now I just have to put wires up, remove some more grass and weeds and plant the trees. It's blowing a gale and thrashing rain outside just now, and I have an essay to finish, so it won't be today.
The kerbside recycling seems to be going okay, although our box disappeared after the first collection and I ordered another, to end up with two! They are a good size so I shall keep both, though as we are now keeping most glass jars for pickles and jam (hopefully!) we never fill one. The plastic goes in the other, though that still has to be taken away in the car.
I am still hoping to do a 'review of the year' but time is short, so it will have to wait I think. Work is busy with an emergency appeal for the tsunami area but we have conference next week, so maybe I'll have time then.