Clearing out the dead things whilst sticking to the paths

Wet.  That's the only word which describes the squelchy state underfoot in my garden.

But yesterday the sun shone and although fearing I might be sucked into the bog that passes for a lawn, I nonetheless ventured out to remove all the brown floppy things that are slowly sliming into nothingness in the borders. Secateurs in hand I snipped.  Out went the black mouldering leaves on the lungworts, off came the rotten necks of gladioli and into the compost they went, along with the strawlike wisps clinging to the newly reshooting clumps of aquilegias. Luckily I have some solid paths to work from, so my compressing feet didn't have too spend long in contact with sodden soil or lawn and hopefully I've managed to do more good than harm in the garden by giving in to the urge to clear and prepare for spring's arrival.

All in all, things are looking tidier and closer to being ready for action come March, but I still have stretches of self-sown forget-me-nots to tame and small battle groups of creeping buttercup to repel from their new footholds in the borders.

Every time I look out of the window at my raised bed, my tulips seemed to have poked their noses a little higher through their covering mulch of compost and the snowdrops under the apple tree are readying their pearly globules, without daring yet to open.

Today heralded a trip to the garden centre (imagine my delight at getting two replacement springs for my secateurs for a quid!) and a couple of nets of seed potatoes for the allotment.  I hardly dare think how wet it will be in my plot at the bottom of the hill and just how rampant the buttercups will be after all this rain and my prolonged absence.  At the allotment however, I can't garden from solid paths and slithering around in the mud on towering platforms of clayey clods will benefit neither me nor the plot, so it will have to wait for drier times. Whenever they may be…..