Turn the dial to "Grey", Igor

[puddleshark]

A morning walk through the forest and by the marshes on another grey day. A fine drizzle in the air with ambitions to become rain. No wind stirring the reedbeds. Elderly doggies and their owners taking their morning constitutionals along the damp gravel tracks.

***

I am missing the Old Girl. I don't miss her so much in summer. Summer is all hard ground and horseflies. But this time of year, to be out on horseback is heaven. Trotting along the November lanes with the leaves falling, and the ponies in their woolly winter coats all full of snortiness and naughtiness...

***

Have nearly finished planting the narcissus and tulip bulbs in their containers. Only one more container to go. (One pot has white bacopa and nemesia which are still stubbornly flowering, and I haven't the heart to evict them). Then I must wait and hope for a Glorious Spring.

***

Things that make the osteoarthritis in my left thumb worse: gardening, photography, banjo practice, wet weather. All my favourite things then. Osteoarthritis would have me leading a puritanical existence, in a dry country. Oh, stuff that. Luckily for me, ibuprofen gel is my ally in wanton frivolity.