Mid Winter I

December 15th, and we haven’t even got to the shortest day.  The screen of summer has gone, and the planks of the fence are revealed, dull and bare.  The leaves on the ground are no longer crisp and russet but brown slimy sheets barely distinguishable from the dog’s hard turds which I flick into the flower beds, full of stems felled by the massacre of winter.  The green man looks miserable – stifled by ivy he can scarcely breathe.  My fingers in  stout gloves are so cold they can do nothing.   It’s going to be like this for months.  The garden writers talk about flowers and veg and fruit, never the interminable winter of winter’s present moment.   

Yesterday I went outside and the layers of ice in the butt looked like curdled milk.   

Then, the sun briefly shone, and the thawing trees and bushes dripped, as though they were raining in sunshine.