How much will you miss outdoor gardening in the next few months?

We learn from the best!

 

Commiserations … -5C in the daytime … We obviously have it easy down here at +2C.

Still, the days creep on in the right direction, but two awful months, all in all!

The only outdoor gardening I do at the moment is with my back to it, making the most of the cold conservatory which we allow to cool down so as to make attempts at producing puff pastry (if I make it in the summer, Mrs Lao only laughs; there is a positive side to that, mind you – I made her croissants for her birthday [late May] this year, and they actually imploded, so that was the perfect start for her special day):

 

Daytime if it was night time I'd be looking to have the tomatoes in the greenhouse growing away.

 

Implode? surely explode as the air expands.

 

I am certainly missing outdoor gardening today and debating whether to attempt some things. It's still icy outside but it's meant to warm up later.

The options are:

• Simply visit some garden centers. I want to add more plants with winter interest, so it makes sense to do that during the winter.
• There is a climbing rose I need to move.
• I am tempted to do some pruning of roses but I am concerned it's too early. Normally I would wait another month. The temperatures here rarely drop below - 5C so I guess they would be OK even when hard pruned, but I am still a bit hesitant.
• I have a hazel (corylus avellana) I want to pollard, but I think that's also best done later on in the season.

 

I can't say I'm missing working outside really, we need rest and that's what the winter is for, like night, it's time to wind down. Go with the flow ... spring will come around again, it always does.
I've got my art and family history to keep me busy during the winter. The time passes quite quickly and enjoyably

 

Well, no, that’s the thing, croissants are meant to rise at least double their size, but when I made them for Mrs Lao’s birthday last year, she was very amused to see that they came out of the oven at less than half their size, thus the euphemism ‘implode’. She is still laughing now. In fact, whenever I want to put her in a good mood, I remind her of it and it always does the trick. The fantastic thing about marriage is that it teaches one ‘navigation’; so, for instance, when Mrs Lao gets her wools in a twist, I DON’T laugh …

 

I would, what goes around comes around. I think Mrs LAO needs to learn that.

 

I'll tell her that on her birthday!

 

Aaah, the old troopers! They don't make them quite as relaxed, these days ...

 

Your suggestions are always welcome, but we are not going on a camel; you couldn’t get Mrs Lao ON it (she has vertigo), and you couldn’t get me OFF it (I love a joy ride! – my whole life is one, except for January and February, unless abroad).

Meanwhile, here is what Peter O’Toole had to say about them:

The Camels Were 'Impossible': Peter O'Toole Remembers 'Arabia'
On learning to ride a camel
"I loved the desert, I really did. ... I was there three months before filming started and the idea was to learn to ride a camel. [It was] impossible. What you see is a European perched uneasily on the top of this huge brute, snorting and galloping. ... I found after a while my bottom was bleeding from bouncing up and down on this snorting great dragon."

 

Are these your own photographs? Friendly and colourful!