Wednesday, November 04, 2009

The wild weather of the past few days has made the season feel, well, seasonably and appropriately Novemberish. Looking down the dingle from my window as I type this I'm treated to a wide open space bounded by skeletal, now leafless trees - and while the sun is shining on the last vestiges of gold and green of the crinkle-crankle hornbeam hedge it's quite a pretty sight. I'm making the most of it.

I did have a thought though the other day, as the rain was lashing down, the wind was whistling round the eaves and the light levels were low, low, low - that this is it until the spring. Short dark, dank days when man and beast turn their backs to the wind.

There are still plenty of jobs to do in the garden. On one hand we are 'putting it to bed for the winter' while on the other, getting into gear for next year's crops. Spreading and digging muck in, mulching, tidying, burning and staking (sounds positively medieval does it not?). That's gardening and gardeners - what optimists we are. There's always the next season - whatever happened this year, whatever was blighted, slugged, snailed or failed, well, next year will be different. This year I did manage melons bigger than tennis balls - next I feel I will have ambitions in the swede department....

This week, and perhaps a tad late, I have planted the onions and garlic; that's about 100 sets of Sturon and a similar amount of garlic Germidor. I have also planted 3 nifty little whirligig windmills in an attempt to scare off the birds (damned pheasants) which delight in unplanting newly planted onions.

No gardening today though. Some serious housework is necessary. The WI is meeting here this evening as we are currently 'between' village halls - the old one has been demolished and carted away and the new one is not quite ready for use. I'm not going to get away with my usual laisez faire approach - so neatly summed up by this little button:


So just why am I sitting here touring the internets?.....

14 comments:

Annie said...

Sounds like my idea of housework. I will say I have been very busy sewing this morning and am just here while grabbing a quick coffee :-) A x

muddyboots said...

yes, l am very much in the school of 'think about housework'.

Pondside said...

Me too - think about housework and then dismiss the idea!
I love the idea of looking down a dingle. There's a neighbourhood outside of town called Dingley Dell - I always wonder where the name came from.

rachel said...

Housework is much better just thought about - unless you pay someone else to do it for you, of course, and then you only have to have a superficial tidy up beforehand! But if the WI were to visit my house, you can bet it would be cleaned within an inch of its life beforehand!

When I get those moments of long dark evenings despair, I just count myself lucky not to be living in the north of Norway or some such...

rachel said...

Oops, 'beforehand' twice. A limited vocabulary indeed.

Twiglet said...

Melons like tennis balls - I don't know why but that made me giggle!! Hope you are all spick and span and ready for the WI to descend. Thank goodness they don't have to visit me - you should see the cobwebs I found today - the tiny bit of sunshine we had illuminated long strands of dusty webs wafting from the kitchen light - how do spiders do that!!!

Fennie said...

Very Novemberish here too. I admire your organised approach to the garden. Despite the` fact that we have no more than a cabbage patch I don't suppose much will get done until the Spring. Meanwhile we shall start preparing for Christmas. Having Theo around means an excuse for all sorts of splurging.

SmitoniusAndSonata said...

Housework is vastly overrated . I'm of the Quentin Crisp school of thought usually . The trouble is , once you start , the bit you've cleaned makes the bit next to it even worse ....so you do a bit more ....and more .
Much better not to start .

her at home said...

A tidy house is the sign of a wasted youth!Life is to shor fro dusting.

Elizabeth Musgrave said...

Sometimes you write a post I feel I could have written myself and this is one of them - the dark, the garden, the housework. Are you my long lost twin, separated at birth and, when found again forty years later, married to a man with the same name and wearing the same style glasses?

Tattieweasle said...

Oh oh we're going for Swede too. Dera Charlie had NEVER had it until recently now he's a convert. Jyst got to work out which will do best in the garden now...

Frances said...

Perhaps today will be the day I drag the vacuum cleaner (hoover) from its hiding place in the closet. Perhaps not.

So many other more interesting things to do....

xo

bodran... said...

I'm far far to busy for housework, i mean i could be sandpapering my eyes or something! xx it was great to see you and thank you for the coffee and cake. xx

joco said...

I hope you didn't forget to dab a bit of furniture polish behind your (mountain)ear :-)