Elbow Grease

Oh, but it's been cold these last few days. The wind has sliced sharply through the thickest clothes and tortured the very bones. On Sunday and Monday I spent a few hours clearing up the hedge droppings and wheeling the unwanted bits of twigs, brambles and dead intertwining creepers to the space at the bottom of the garden where I can still have bonfires. In the end the piercing south-westerly drove me indoors, but today I was out again, trying to pretend that there was warmth in the sunshine and that I couldn't feel the chill inside my padded jacket and trousers and "care in the community" hat. In the event I sawed down two elders which had grown leggy and scrappy and needed harsh treatment to rejuvenate them. Between the first and second tree I was again forced to seek the comfort of the warm kitchen as a sudden flurry of snow got the better of me. But it cleared as quickly as it arrived, and I continued with my work. It nearly ended in catastrophe but I'll gloss over that. All I need now is for Did to come with his chainsaw and make logs for me, then I can set the fire and turn the remains to ash.

It's funny how I can spend ages on really hard work like this but turn to jelly when trying to put elbow grease into cleaning the inside of the windows. There are so many delicious jobs waiting outdoors, but doing them is not much fun when it's this cold. I can wait though. The daffodils are poking through, potted tulips are peeping out as well, and there are buds on everything. Can there be anything more thrilling than the unmistakeable evidence that spring is truly on its way?