The change in the clocks is biting. I woke up this morning at six by the alarm clock, which was still seven by the body clock, but how long will that last? By three this afternoon the chickens were looking as though they expected to be let out, which curtailed operations in the back garden, and by twenty to five it was too dark to see what I was doing as I weeded, and I had to come in. It is still seven weeks to the shortest day, meaning fourteen weeks until the light is going to be any more useful than it is now (roughly speaking. I know that the shift in sunset is assymetric around the solstice).
I'd be greatly in favour of the clocks shifting to get more light to the end of the day. It doesn't make so much difference to me now, as I have the option to get up at six and get out into the garden by half past seven if I want to, but I remember the days when I worked in an office. Coming home on the train in spring and autumn, it was possible to believe as far as Chelmsford that there might still be some light to get something done outside, only to have to face up to the truth by the time I got home that it was basically dark. People who would have liked a game of tennis, or to go for a run or take their dog for a walk not in the dark, presumably felt as frustrated as I did. I don't see why we have to go with what the Scots want. If they can devolve their education and health systems they can devolve what time it is. Russia copes with eleven time zones, so I'm sure the UK could manage with two.
The BBC, meanwhile, believes that nobody is interested in gardening in November, and has finished its season of Gardeners' World, replacing it with Mastermind. I can't work out from the programme's website when it will be back. Lucky we still have all those episodes of The Sopranos to get through. My leaf mould, even after two years, doesn't look as crumbly and nice as Monty's. Maybe I should water the heap sometimes. It rains more in Herefordshire than coastal Essex, and I think Monty did mention keeping it damp even in the relative dankness of the Welsh borders.
I was going to do a systematic survey of what is still flowering, but didn't get round to it before it was time to release the chickens, and now it's dark. The Gaura lindheimeri are still blooming madly, as are the ones in the border at work, demonstrating what good value, hard working plants they are. There are some red and pink flowered ones in a bed on the verge that I pass on the way to the dump, which are doing equally well. I have read that they are not reliably perennial, but the pink ones are so pretty I think I might give them a try next year. The somewhat tender sub-shrubby Salvia are still flowering, though not making such big plants as they should, and they obviously need masses more feeding and mulching next year to persuade them to give of their best. The quilled yellow petals of Rudbeckia subtomentosa 'Henry Eilers' remain pristine, and the Japanese anemones are still more or less blooming. This last is a nuisance, in that I want to plant some allium bulbs among them, and if they would have the decency to go over then I wouldn't feel bad about cutting them down.
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