Joys of Winter

Best wishes and ((hugs)) to you Butter. Hope all goes well.

Lots of love, Butter xxxxxxx

Sorry you're having a rough time Butternut. I hope it all works out well. My sister has had some reconstructive surgery with the maxillofacial unit for similar reasons and we are all pleasantly surprised at the lack of signs of invasion and the way the surgeon has used her facial contours to choose where incisions are made - very impressive.

Snow has melted and given us back the colour green!
Let's have a round of applause for parsley please. It can get covered in snow and assaulted by hard frost and then just defrost itself and carry on parsleying.
I picked a big bunch through the snow and incorporated it into lasgne.

I love parsley - such an accommodating herb!

And so tasty. I have a recipe somewhere for parsley soup.

You can never have too much parsley in the back yard.
A tip form gardener's question time - it grows much better from fresh seed from a plant than from packet seed. Just let it set seed and scatter them about.

That's handy to know Jess. I love parsley. I've had a look for survivors in my herb garden today, and I've got chives, rosemary, lavender, parsley, sage and the remnants of some lemon thyme.

tough bunch in the main.
basil worth growing on windowsill in summer.

Strange bird in my garden when I got up this morning. I consulted the expert (the concierge for my work building) turns out it was a field fare. Never seen one before.

We get fieldfares whenever it snows and are always amazed. We've got very short memories.

My surviving herbs are lavendar, parsley, two thymes, rosemary, chives and the tarragon is looking fairly healthy.

All the best Butternut

And, I picked a few beautiful hellebores this morning and have them in a tiny cut=glass vase by the sink.

I've had lots of redwings and fieldfares together in my garden over the last week.

"Parsley
Is gharsley" Ogden Nash

And I agree - ugh!

Gosh, never met anyone who didn't like parsley - were you force fed lumpy parsley sauce at an early age?

DD2 got sick of fieldfares when she lived in Sweden. She says they are very noisy and rather like feral pigeons over there!!

I'll be having my last winter's walk this morning, for a bit. Not being able to get out into the countryside is going to make me very crabby, so I shall look to the J. of W. to cheer me.

I will look for some inspritation, specially for you, butty. Good luck with the tiresome stuff!

Yeah, in-sprit-ation should do it!

Well I hope you have a lovely walk and that the next one will be a spring walk.
Hope not too long indoors. Just the time it takes to get over anaesthetic. Try to drink plenty to flush it out of your system.

I am in the west mids this weekend. Very mild weather. Trotted past some suburban gardens in Solihull yesterday (we don't really do those in mk) and saw lovely snowdrops, loads of those tender washed-purple crocuses , some bright yellow aconite and a lovely lovely witchhazel in bloom. Hamamelis mollis. Lovely golden fuzz. Going into Walsall today to visit the gallery.

Enjoy your walk today Butter, and good luck

It'll soon be behind you butternut and you'll be enjoying your walks again x

The steep hill on which my house stands
Required a chunk to be cut from it
And built into a flat terrace –
Flattish, at any rate; the cellar
Has a stepped and sloping floor.
The front terrace, they tell us,
Used to be cinder and gravel,
But now it is green with moss and winter grass
Growing in decades of compacted wormcasts.
I always think of Darwin's discovery
Of how worms increase the soil
When I go out there.
The dry stone wall along the terrace edge,
Preventing tumbles down the hill,
Has little 'doorways' all along its base –
Very visible at this time of year of slow growth –
Bank vole and wood mouse
Entrances and exits
From their little wall and terrace
Domain.
And on the other side
Where the steep bank falls away downhill,
The snowdrops are opening,
Crocuses peeping through,
And daffodil leaves are shooting up,
Gathering their strength
For flowering.

jessmgive Walsall my love. I used to live in park rd off the greatbarr rd!

Butter lots of love and every good wish coming your way from a misty-calm Kintyre. ((hugs))