Clematis flowers in December

I am becoming obsessed with temperature readings. Today the outdoor thermometer is showing 14 degrees. Browsing around the garden on an unseasonably mild winter morning I noticed that more flowers were blooming and there were three blooms on the clematis Montana that usually at this time of year is bereft of leaves and doesn't flower until May. The last of the raspberries have been eaten and the roses have withered but daffodils have begun to shoot up although not yet in flower and the wall flowers look bright and co!ourful.

The good thing about blipping is it makes me record things rather than push them to the back of my mind. I now have a daily journal, and so enjoy communicating with others of the blip community. I shall be devastated if it doesn't continue.

I no longer complain about the mud in our chicken field and on our lane. When I see the news reports of the floods in Cumbria and Yorkshire it puts everything into perspective. What an appalling time those poor people are having - people whose lives have been turned upside down by torrential rain.