Ravendale House

I heard on the lunchtime news a few days ago that the average age of the first time home buyer in the UK is now 37 years. By teatime, on the same channel, this figure had mysteriously risen to ‘approaching 43 years’.  A 6 year increase in as many hours. Blimey I didn’t think things were deteriorating that quickly!!

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The first week in November has come and gone, and still the garden birds have not appeared in great numbers.

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I seem to have been doing a lot of remembering just recently, a situation that probably comes with age, and the recent Remembrance Day celebrations, (if ‘celebration’ is the right word) have sent me back down memory lane.

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I wrote some time ago about the pub at the end of the garden, and how since February 2009 it had been in sad decline. I left the story at the beginning of 2011 with things looking up under the ‘new management’.

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I wrote some time ago about the old tree at the bottom of the garden and later how we were pleased when it was finally cut down. I think I would have been less eager to see it go if it had looked like this.

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This gardening year will mostly be remembered for it’s weather. We were snowed in for 2 weeks before last Xmas, we’ve had no snow whatsoever this year (so far),  it hasn’t been particularly warm but it has been pretty dry and we’ve had lots and lots of wind.

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I think we all know how spectacular flowering cherry trees are in Spring, ours are a mass of pure white flowers. But what I often forget is how equally spectacular they are in Autumn.

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So there I was, enjoying a glorious Autumn day in the garden, busily pruning my hardy fuchsias with my 24p secateurs, and thinking to myself what an excellent purchase they’d been. In short, I was feeling smug. Then disaster struck.

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For thousands of years mankind has been growing plants, for food, medicine and pleasure. Packets of seeds, potted up plants, pricked out seedlings are  commonplace and familiar to all of us. Yesterday I came upon something I’ve never seen before.

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Today I cut the grass with the big mower for what I hope will be the last time this year.  My last ‘cut’ in 2010 was 25th October and in 2009 27th October, so I’m there or there abouts.

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