Thursday 24 December 2009

Solstice Week

Where do you begin when you have left it so long? That uncomfortable feeling you get when you have left a promised call, email or letter in the back of your mind longer than was socially acceptable and the embarrassment/uncomfortable feeling you have which stops you from picking up the pieces and saying I’m sorry.

The blog, amongst many things has not been kept up to date for some time now. The plot is still there albeit under several centimetres of snow. Dormant, sleeping – but still providing tasty pickings of Brussels sprouts, Swede, leeks and cabbage on my weekly amble up to the patch.

For now, Nature has taken back the site; Foxes stealthily eying the fattened woodpigeons who have massed in numbers and swoop down from the bare trees to scratch out a meal on the naïve or lazy toilers un-netted brassica. Robins follow in the hope you will provide some much needed fat. Slowworms, toads and frogs take refuge in the warmer sanctuary of the composts. The low lying sun casts blue-grey shadows throughout the site, affording only hazy, almost insignificant light during the week of the winter solstice.

Spare a thought for the wildlife that reside in this place and rely on meagre pickings during these fallow months. Anything cooked and appropriate that might otherwise be binned in your household would make a welcome meal to our plots permanent residents.

With that I wish you good health and a bountiful 2010. One life, make it count!