They say it's Blue Monday, the most miserable Monday of the year which I would dispute - most Mondays are met with disgust or ire. As an outdoorsy soul I have to say that even though I mentally label the months from the middle of October to mid March as the terrible ones where we live under the dark cloud of winter, the interminable time when I'm trapped indoors for months on end. But this is strictly not true. Things keep growing regardless (weeds for starters!) the rose in the garden has incredibly slow-opening buds, the violas in the doorstep pots would still be blooming had they not been eaten. Even the spring flowers have shoots appearing everywhere. There's still much to potter with outside, it does just look bleak. The harvest of parsnips and leeks goes on.
Due to the respite in demand on my time we have been able to nip out for walks or trips to town, there are more photographs taken than at most other times of year.
As for interminable, I'm mindful to place orders for seeds, bulbs and tubers before I miss the boat and we've already plotted out the 2020 vegetable patch layout. So things are racing on towards spring. Where did those long winter evenings go after all? I've no idea. I didn't spend much of them reading or ahem sewing but I did enjoy watching programs which I wanted to watch and hardly anything just to fill time. There was a little bit of blogging too.



Some walks have yielded precious little of interest, it's been dire.


As for the weather, the winter is far from finished with us yet. The alarmingly wet period drags on, I'm still seeing waterlogged fields everywhere at the moment. I wouldn't bet against anything over the coming few months, though I'm keeping everything crossed there's no late frosts again as last year these were devastating to the fruit trees and hedges.

Have a good week, take care,
Sophie