the dreadful wind and rain

We have got off lightly here compared to the West country, where they seem to be suffering from positively biblical storms and floods, but even so conditions outside are not conducive to getting anything done.  There were hailstones on the front doorstep when I went to let the chickens into their run, the wind blew wildly all morning, and at lunchtime it started to rain again, heavily.  I looked through the kitchen window at all the jobs that needed doing in the front garden, the old stems and weeds in the herb bed that ought to be cut down and pulled up, the dead Malus to be removed from the long bed, the yards of bare earth needing a thick layer of mushroom compost, and the large multi stemmed Acer campestre in the hedge that fell apart several gales ago and needs cutting down, and knew that for yet another day none of those things were going to happen.

In the back garden the David Austin and hybrid tea roses need pruning, and the worst struggling HTs removing so that their space can be given to a Buddleia fallowiana var. alba which might appreciate it more.  In the greenhouse a perfectly hardy climbing honeysuckle is waiting to be planted out.  In every border bulb foliage is emerging before I can spread Strulch on the beds, or have even bought the Strulch.  None of these things are going to be done either, nor is the gean going to be pruned, or the overhanging hazel, or the Henchman dismantled and put away, until it stops pouring with rain and blowing a gale.

I occupied myself going through old gardening magazines and musing on future plans, and arranged with a friend to go to a couple of concerts, so the day was not wasted, but it was not the most productive either.  People I know who are going around the career merry-go-round one more time ask me whether I don't get bored stuck at home, to which the truthful answer is No, I am generally extremely busy and certainly not bored, but after what seems like a hundred days and nights of rain, boredom is starting to look like a realistic option.  There's no point in making more bread, because we still have some, and the prospect of sorting out books in the spare room doesn't quite hack it.

The forecast (ha!) suggests that there could be a lull tomorrow morning, in which case it will be my chance to muck out the chickens' roosting board and check if the bees need feeding.  Then from noon tomorrow there are yellow warnings for rain in force until Saturday night, along with the prospect of fifty mile an hour gusts on Saturday afternoon.  Looks like I'll have plenty of time to do the cleaning and the beekeepers' accounts without the tempting distraction of gardening.