GARDEN GLIMPSES 12

As you can see, the Camellia bush was flowering abundantly as December continued its wet and windy way towards the close of the year. I was waiting on 2-3 days in a row that there was neither wind nor rain - unsuccessfully. Therefore, my composting, digging, tidying up etc activities had not yet occurred by the third week of December. However, there was still some brightness in the yard. Apart from the Camellia, the front yard rose decided to offer a late season display.

The Camellia continued to flower all through December and beyond the frosts of Christmas time into January. In the back yard, little happened. I still had 4 mooli and 2 garlic in living condition, amongst a pile of stuff needing to be trimmed or dug out. The strawberries in the front of the plot are spreading well - but have not yet produced fruit. I was given 2 plants by my son from where he used to work as a volunteer - these became 3 over winter last year and have since become a mass - they did begin to fruit - but alas the weather stopped that idea in 2014.

What is that? Snow readers, SNOW! Yes, after three snow-filled years, then a year and a half with none, we finally had a small fall on the final day of January 2015. By lunchtime, it had more or less melted away but this beautiful sight greeted me in the early morning.

Well, no point thinking about gardening today, methinks. The Camellia, it flowers onwards...

WINTER WONDERS 24

My sole Christmas decoration for 2014 was a free spring of mistletoe given with my organic fruit and vegetable delivery. As usual, I played around with it before locating it in a just-right spot. I finally added a strig of holly from the yard - no berries this year - and placed it on the phone table, until it died off. It then became compost material, while the holly sprig stayed in situ.

As you can see I also altered my candle holder from the glass one - which is now in the coffee lounge - to my stoneware OM one.

New year 2015 dawned and I was somewhat lazy. My excuse being that I had just finished a week of cat-sitting for a friend and was starting into a new PT cleaning job and was out of routine. My first major chore of the year was my favorite - re-ordering the pantry!

On the bottom shelf are my grains, flours, nuts, seeds, beans, etc and on the shelf above are the foods that require eating during 2015 at the back. The next shelf up contains foods with a best before date of 2016 or beyond and the top rim has my drinks - coffee, jahe wangi, tea for guests, rice milk, cocoa etc on the left. I wonder how long before I fancy turning out the pantry again, though...