Our intention was to start on the back garden project today, taking advantage of a dry spell. The first point of action is to be what we call the quince archology, outside the smaller kitchen window. It’s a small bed containing a quince tree, and a hideous tangle of a thing that could be a mock orange but isn’t. What it is throughout the growing season is a heaving mass of blackfly. We intend to cut out and remove everything but the quince, give that a trim, and top dress the bed with some good rotted compost as a weed-suppressing mulch.
Graham elected as his first step to go out to the garage and assemble our as yet unused garden shredder, leaving me to murgle in the warm.
He finished the task, so I’m told, and came staggering back into the house, all blue with cold, to lean against the radiator in the hall, trying to warm up.
“It’s so cold out there today,” he chattered.
“Right. Leave it at that. These nor’easterlies are deadly.”
He needed no more encouragement than that and, once he’d warmed through, spend the day puttering at a new wired phone network, aimed at putting phones in the living room and the main bedroom, with a distribution socket in his (upstairs) study. Just the right kind of job for an indoor day.
The sun poured into my study window and I dozed the morning away until it was time for lunch. Sesame bagels. Then I dozed the afternoon away until now, at 19:45, first glass of wine by my side, I’m about to pluck up courage and go peel potatoes ready for dinner. Pork loin chops, sweet corn and mash, with a dollop of tomato chutney for colour and extra zing.
Then, no doubt, I shall doze the rest of the evening away until it’s time to go to bed.
Not an eventful day, and very light on photo opportunities, but when there’s a bitter wind beating at the door it’s best to stay quietly at home in the warm.
