Winter ....

and the doldrums ....

It is absolutely bucketing down outside and I feel like I haven't seen the sun all week?!? I went up to the patch this morning to try and get a little protective hoop house over some of the young seed sown ranunculus; that rain is due to turn to snow up there this afternoon.

Everything was wet. There is mud every where, I can't keep anything clean - I've given up already. It was howling a gale and I presently ended up on the ground, in the mud with a 10meter long bundle of plastic sheeting attacking me. Every time I tried to pin it down the wind would whip it out again and blow rain in my eyes; I screamed in frustration and told the ranunculus that they could just (*&%!@#-well toughen up or die. And with that I stormed off ... trailing the raging monster of plastic behind me.

The horses watched me go, I felt like they were laughing at me - that funny, noisy two-legger and her odd antics ... Actually, I feel like they laugh at me quite often, most of the time I laugh at me too; just not today. Today I was grump-Y.

Funny thing is, this happens every winter. I become so despondent; I lose faith. It seems that those tiny (beautifully laid out) tufts of green will never produce anything so beautiful as a flower. Indeed, I feel that they will never get taller than my hand! And then I think that if they do grow, there won't be enough, they'll be too late, they won't be the colours I want, I've planted too close, not close enough, they will flower all at once, I haven't got my staggering right ....

It's completely silly but it happens every time! So I told my monkey brain to kindly shut up and decided to go and do something that would make me feel better. I went and bought myself a magazine (unheard of!) and sat down with a nice cup of green tea. Then I put these flowers together from the only few things left flowering on the patch and took some photos. I suppose things are starting to look up.