"Rusty_Hinge" wrote after ...
Sacha wrote

Because we 'lost' an hour this morning, I woke at 5am, of course!

Never mind, they've tacked it on to the evening.

Slowly
the day dawned crisp and cold but with an achingly brilliant blue sky.
Now,
at just after 10am, the sky is gleaming overhead and a heat haze is
rising
from the vents in the roof of the biggest greenhouse. Let's hope it
lasts!

We were supposed to have had a hard frost last night. No sign of any,
first thing. A lot of moving things inside, lighting of hurricane lamp
all for nothing - probably.

Yes, I brought all our citrus trees back into the garage last evening yet
when I got up to watch the F1 there was no sign of frost. Perhaps they meant
tonight?


We've planted up a lot of the pots dotted around the garden and where
some
Euryops died in the frosts, we've planted lilies, underplanted with a
dear
little mat-forming Veronica - might be V. liwanensis but I'll have to
check
that. It's a charming little plant. Elsewhere, the shuttlecock ferns
are
slowly unfolding, the tree ferns seem to be okay and are forming their
croziers in secret and Camellias and Magnolias are bursting with life.
Our
'wedding cake tree' which had closed buds furled up tightly just waiting
for
some warmth, has sprung into full glory and almost without my noticing, a
living willow fence is almost in full leaf. And the snowdrops have
disappeared for another year. Everything seems to be moving so fast now!

I've decided not to replace anything yet, will wait 'till I'm certain they
are dead and just pop in some of my Pel "Doris Moore" to fill the hole until
I find something better. No hurry, our garden isn't open to the public.
The strange thing is we have noticed some things growing that, one, we
certainly never planted (Muscari), two, that we thought we had lost a couple
of years ago (Nerine) and three, that have spread around much more this year
(Cyclamen sp, Chionadoxa sp, Scilla sp). The first two into our grass as
well as the border where they are very welcome.


Including that &*#!$$% idiot in a very noisy car which regularly passes
so fast (in a 30 mph limit) that by the time I've got to the gate from
the front door, it's gone - and to do that, it has to do around 400
yards and negotiate a crossroads.

I only have to open the door and take ten paces up the path...

I think we all have our share of those fools, don't give anyone, including
themselves, time to react so they must eventually have a crash. That's if
they don't just hit something stationary like a wall or a telegraph pole
driving too fast for car/conditions/themselves. One near here recently, in
the middle of the day, did two walls on either side of the wide road, a
telegraph pole turned into matchwood, and smashed a few other vehicles and
walked away (40mph limit) hopefully in handcuffs.

Talking of which a couple of our local police arrested a young chap for
allegedly steeling a van one morning this week and on their way back to the
police station with him in the back of their Focus stopped to buy lunch at
our local bakers. They forgot to shut all the windows and despite being
handcuffed he got away through a window. We had so many police around the
area, and the helicopter overhead, it was amazing. How much did that cost
us?
They did recapture him BTW.

--
Regards
Bob Hobden