Patience

One of my new year’s resolutions was to start a walks journal. My idea was to make a sort of scrapbook of our family walks through the year by collecting maps and leaflets, and making notes of the weather, café and loo stops, and potential detours for next time. But January has not got me off to a good start. It has been such a wet and windy beginning to the year down our way. The novelty of winter has thoroughly worn off. I have only managed to put one walk in my journal!

I am also straining at the bit to get to work on the garden and the allotment. I have been noting the bare patches and hatching plans to fill them in. I have one last foxglove plant to try in the foxglove graveyard under the Japanese maple and if that doesn’t take I will give up and plant snowdrops.

It absolutely poured on Saturday so Little Owl and I took ourselves off to our local garden centre to spend my birthday money on a tree for the garden. We selected a Flagpole Cherry which grows in a column shape so hopefully won’t overshadow the garden too much while providing beautiful blossom for the bees and us. I expressed my frustration at not being able to get digging and was given some sage advice by the staff member who helped us out to the car with the tree. “Be patient! You’ll do more harm than good by stomping around all over the earth while it’s so wet.” Oh dear. It’s back to my seed catalogues and my gardening daydreams then! Patience is not my best virtue!

Anyway, I got out on my bike early this morning, for perhaps only the third time this year so far, and there were so many birds singing! It was wonderful to hear. The days are getting lighter. We’re not out of the woods yet but hang on everyone, we’re nearly there!

Another of my drypoint prints of Wren above.