Sunday mornings

So its a rainy Sunday morning.  I am sitting in the conservatory listening to the Archers and to the rain.  Listening to the Archers in here is a new thing, just bought a new radio/ipod dock to keep in here so that I use this room more.  I have never really made proper use of this small, leaky, freezing in the winter, stifling hot in the summer, room (can't think why?)  This year it will see more use, this year I will sit in here on days like today and actually look at my garden.

First thing I notice is the background noise of the Sunday footballers who are on the playing field behind the garden.  I am surrounded by playing field and love the shouty noises, the thud of the ball being kicked and the whistle.  For most of my life I lived within ear-shot of the City Ground in Nottingham.  Saturday afternoons in the garden were about listening to the distant noise of the game.  By the shouts and groans you could make a fair guess at the score, before going inside to keep checking what Forest were up to.  When growing up usually my father and two elder brothers were also at the game.  I rarely went, usually ended up sitting with my grandmother with other old ladies who seemed only vaguely aware of what was going on.  So football has always been with me and I still love the distant sounds.  I marvel at their commitment.  It is 'stair rods' of rain out there.  Their legs have that pinkness that goes with cold and rain.  Yet they run and shout and kick and I listen and smile.

Because sitting and looking at the garden is not a usual thing, I see things from this angle I haven't really appreciated before.  The Manx gorse is a little spark of yellow in the left side of the garden.  it is close to the winter flowering cherry, which is a young tree but flowers away each year happily.

I can also see the winter flowering honeysuckle, an untidy shrub if truth be known, it needs shaping once the flowers have gone, but it is a haze of white against the green back drop of the ivy-infested hedging.

I  am wondering about what has survived and what hasn't the harsh winter.  Worry more about the waterlogged ground than the frost really.  This is such thick heavy clay - I am certain if I need another career I could start my own pottery or brick production!  Wondering also how the pond will be this year.  I spent a lot of time last year finishing it off, making sure the edges were ok and starting planting it up.  I was rewarded by dragonflies which were just incredible.  I hope I get the same show this year.  When I looked at it first thing this morning it was a still mirror, reflecting the trees on the boundaries.  Now it is just a mass of rain-drop ripples.

Waterloo Sunset playing on the radio - brilliant song - really need to get on with the day now....