Monday 14 February

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How is it possible to feel romantic on a Monday? I don’t manage oysters and champagne (I don’t like oysters anyway) but there is ragu, a log fire and an old episode of Endeavour. And slate hellebores on the table.

New vase from Kneeboneware. Isn't it lovely?

Tuesday 15 February

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There are glimpses of loveliness wherever I look. Some of which, uncharacteristically for me, are in blue. The darker Muscari neglectum are giving way to the paler blue self-sown ones in the cobbles by the front door. They are joined by the first pulmonaria. My Instagram feed is full of iris reticulata, one of the first things I ever grew when I brought bulbs home from the Hampton in Arden garden centre where I worked my first Saturday job. I don’t grow them any more but the fact that I feel like I am missing out, and that I have just ordered a sack of tweedia seed, suggest my anti-blue stance is finally softening. (They will be complementary accents only in a mostly brown palette obviously, but all the same…)

Wednesday 16 February

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I should have ordered more firewood. I am having to scrabble under a drift of leaves for the last logs and hail is forecast. I am always overly optimistic about the arrival of spring, and I am always complaining if it is cold.

Thursday 17 February

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Pantry staples are running low too. I soak and cook my last bonne bouche beans, an heirloom variety. I got them from Beans and Herbs, whose business model is, unusually, to become obsolete by encouraging their customers to save their own seed and not come back to them for more. I remember this only as I tip the last ones from their glass jar into a saucepan.

I soak them, simmer them with bay leaves, and then tip them into a tray of roasting chicken.

Friday 18 February

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The storm comes up the Bristol Channel and sweeps over Somerset. The trees around the cottage whip and swirl but thankfully, as I write, stay standing. Some glass has gone from the greenhouse and the rose detached from the studio. There is more wind to come though, and I do not feel entirely confident that we will escape entirely unscathed.

Saturday 19 February

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I am at odds with the weather. The gale may have passed but the wind whips through. But I cannot resist the siren call of the spring clean. I fill the truck with cardboard go for recycling. Even my compost bays cannot absorb all of it; I have received a lot of copies of Grow & Gather recently. I keep trying to spring clean my seed tin, but all that means is I keep findings more things that I need to find space for.

Sunday 20 February

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Every time we step out of the back door, we are swept away. Using the excuse of safety, Hugo and I spend the day in the sofa under a blanket catching up on admin and looking at beautiful places to stay in Italy. If you commented on my post this afternoon with recommendations and suggestions, thank you so much, I feel deeply reassured. Now I just need to get over the emotional hurdle that is leaving my dogs…