Old Lady Things...

Not long until the winter solstice, and mornings are finally colder, almost frosty. And when I get up in the cottage in the mornings, part of me (the old lady part) doesn't want to. My walk over to the house will be as cold as! Brr...

 A rose with darker bronze foliage.
Flowering Now - Matawhero Magic

I love the wood-burner!

Arriving in the house I sit in a huddle on the dog couch and wait for the wood-burner to get going. Yeay for the wood-burner, all the pine cones I've collected for kindling, and the barrowful of logs I've stashed just outside the back door. I think about having a maid who gets the fire going, ready for my arrival. Non-Gardening Partner, perhaps?

I've been doing some great garden work lately. But actual photographs of the garden are full (empty?) of pre-winter nothingness. So before I go outside for the first gardening session I indulge myself, checking out old summer pictures of the same garden. Warm pink roses! Clean light greens! And nothing that looks remotely damp. Even the raindrops look warm and inviting. This all makes me feel a bit sad.

I'm not sure I want a winter this year. Aargh! Another old lady thing? Time to book a cruise around the South Pacific, ending in Singapore - or a beach-side apartment on the Gold Coast, Australia, with all the other golden gardeners?

Time to toughen up!

No. Time to toughen up, stop being an old lady softie, put on an extra layer of merino and give thanks that the property provides firewood. Give a heart-warming welcome to winter, since it's only three weeks until the shortest day. Make sure there are enough pine cones for tomorrow morning. Winter? Not a problem! Be tough, stay strong, work hard, and enjoy. Brr...

 That is their name.
Flowering Now - English Garden Roses

Later...

All I did today was burn my bonfire mess. Proper winter weather is forecast for tomorrow (it will NOT be snow) and I needed to get rid of the apple tree pieces etc. that I'd piled up on the back lawn. I had to scoop up gum tree bark and leaves from the Hen House Gardens to help with combustion. Non-Gardening Partner even remembered to clear out leaves from the gutters on Pond Cottage, and that mess is burnt as well.

Now it's dark, and the wood burner in the house is going. I'd love to have a wood burner in the cottage, but there's really no room for it. Yeay for the electric blanket, I say, and my cottage cat Minimus, who keeps my legs warm.

Sunday 27th May

So this morning I put on my merino long-johns underneath my gardening shorts, and went out to brace the elements at 9am. What elements? Nothing nasty at all - just five degrees Celsius, no frost, little wind. So I dug out heaps of annoying Euphorbias from the edge of the little Elm Tree Garden, replanted Bergenias in their place, and shifted two roses out into better air space. Reine Des Violettes was squashed underneath a Hydrangea, and the unknown pink David Austin (either a girlie, e.g. Claire, or a character from Chaucer, e.g. The Countryman) was shaded by an ever increasing Phormium. I loaded in horse manure, and that was that.

 Yeay!
Horse Manure on the Garden

Meanwhile the bonfire kept on gurgling as I burnt dead Phormium leaves and more mess from the boundary fence in the Hen House Garden.

Late roses...

Flowering now - a rose which I'm sure is Matawhero Magic and another which I'm sure is the David Austin 'English Garden'. Glowering now - the sky, dark grey, angry looking. I've finished for the day, and it has been a great day, though my pace was rather pedestrian. Which is the silliest phrase, because I work on foot anyway. Old lady racer? I don't think so!