Winter blues

Spindle turns blood red before the leaves drop off

I don't know about the rest of you but this weather is really starting to depress me.Sure it's pretty outside with all the leaves turning and even I must admit that the colours this year seem to be more spectacular than I have seen in a long time too, maybe because of that lovely sunny week in early September.But day after day of grey skies, dark mornings and fast falling nights are fuelling thoughts of hibernation. Even the start of bath season in November, (when you have the heating on every day and enough spare hot water to spend some serious quality time in the bath) is hardly enough to coax me from pulling the douvet over my head and refusing to come out again until the end of March.Why didn't I go to India with Dace for a month? I wouldn't be in this fecking state.

Michelmas daisies light up the eastern garden

Not everyone sees it that way. I called in to see Tom just before lunch time. He had that look of work about him, wellies on, wheelbarrow out and the rake in his hand.I stood up talking to him and admiring his flower borders still spilling out clouds of white asslysum and blue lobelia with red salvias and pretty snap dragons in the background (we both agreed it was odd this year how late the snapdragons came).

I admired his window boxes too,still in great condition with the ever generous begonias blooming in profusion. He hadn't realised he could keep them from year to year, so he was delighted with the information that by cutting off the stalks after the first frosts and storing the tubers they would live to grow next year. Frost is on the horizon -as early as tomorrow night. Minus 2 is what we have been promised and Tom's not looking forward to it. "I hate the cold" he said, "give me wind and rain any day, and days like this when it's a crime to be indoors when it's so perfect for working outside". I looked up at the grey sky. The same grey sky that has been overhead for days.  That is depressing me beyond belief. That I would swap in the morning for clear sunshine and biting cold but never for wind or rain.I said what I was thinking; "I hope we never get stuck on an island together Tom". He laughed(and I finished the sentence in my own head" because you'll be the first one to die!").

Aren't some people mad? I'm glad I'm not one of them.