Nearly 30 years...
Silly me. Have just asked Non-Gardening Partner the following question : 'How many years have we lived in this garden?' 'Garden?' he queried. Oops. Of course I meant 'house'. Or did I? I'd been thinking about all our cats.
cat gallery
The answer : thirty years this October. So we've 'gone through' three generations of cats (we arrived with seniors). Three cat iterations, hee hee. The above photograph shows all the cats that I've shared my garden with except the very earliest (Ginger Puss), the very latest (the two Freds), and the wildest (my stray cat Speckles).
It's two degrees Celsius outside. Brr... Too cold to do any gardening. So we are going out for morning coffee, and when I get home I will work, work, work.
Much later...
Another great day's work. I planted a large pot with daffodils and Polyanthus, then dug out some Agapanthus and replanted them in the Allotment Garden. Weeded out lots of little annual grasses. Then moved onto the side of the Frisbee Lawn and dug out the dry grass clumps from the edge. Loaded all my mess onto the bonfire, added three barrow loads from behind the cottage. NGP arrived with yet another trailer load full. Whoosh! Flames, a bit of smoke, and lots of spitting from dead Phormium leaves. All burnt.
Miscanthus Zebrinus
And the nicest thing about a good gardening day at this time of the year? Coming inside, getting the log-burner going, showering and putting on clean clothes and warm woolly socks, while the light outside fades from grey to black. The sun sets at 5pm, pretty much as early as it gets.