Hoping!

It was much easier today to not go to the allotment! Yesterdays experience of doing nothing and yet feeling restless, meant today I just relaxed and enjoyed my time at home. In fact I was not entirely idle! There are two  small narrow beds by the wall outside in the lane at the back of my yard. One has crocosmia growing in it, and I noticed the other day the mass of its dead foliage. Today I decided to remove it all! This meant first oiling the bolt on my back door so I could get out into the lane! It was very satisfying grabbing handfuls of the foliage and just pulling them out! Not so satisfying was the two splinters I managed to acquire! I had taken my gloves off to untie and tighten the rope that keeps the foliage from drooping into the lane and annoying certain people as they drive past. One year one of these people hacked my two beds down and I put a note on my back gate chastising them for trespassing on my property and causing damage! I also discovered the fuschia in my other bed was dead - it had a sturdy trunk and was over 6 foot tall. When I pulled it,it easily came away and I wondered if it had fallen victim to an enraged driver at some point or had just naturally rotted at the base. I am sad to lose it as it had delicate pink flowers and I associate it with my dearly departed neighbour who would often prune it for me! I broke it up into pieces and will burn it on my indoor fire. 
My next task was covering the few plants too large to bring inside, that would suffer from the cold weather due to engulf us. My Agapanthus, calla lilies and a huge bay tree. The bay tree was shaped into a standard by my dad so is very precious to me - and is now very old and large! I had to get a step to stand on and throw the fleece over its top, and still it was much taller than me! 
I was amazed to find all this took me two hours! Before I knew it it was time to head to the allotment! I threw on more layers for as the sun dropped so too would the temperature on the allotment! The hens were really not inclined to go to bed, it was 6.30 before Gerta finally went in! However it gave me time to dispose of the dead foliage into the compost bin and line the coop and their outdoor covered area with straw. I was pleased to see all my cold proofing of friday was still intact! 
I rather liked this photo of the blackthorn blossom - it's very busy with the background bokeh, but I like to think of it as the snow that we may hopefully get next week!