THE WEATHER -

A bitterly cold start to the month with night-time temperature dropping to minus 8°C for the first few days, with daytime temperatures staying below freezing all day. By the second week of the month. however, the weather had warmed up considerably, and we had a very mild spell of weather for the time of year. So mild, in fact, that Toby (the dog!) found a frog hopping across the patio on January 14th! No self-respecting frog would be out and about in normal January temperatures! The warm weather continued until the end of the month. Not much rain this month until the 25th, when driving rain continued all day, causing the lawn to turn into a mudbath! Very windy for the last week, with severe gales on the 28th, which knocked over several heavy pots, and flattened 3 obelisks! No permanent damage done, though, fortunately. Maximum temperature 11°C (52°F), minimum temperature minus 8°C (18°F).

Although the weather was very cold at the beginning of the month, there are beautiful effects to be seen in the garden. One of these is the patterns the frost makes on leaves, and this is Hydrangea quercifolia.

This chap looks jolly cold - he even has a snow moustache! This terracotta head is nestled amongst the foliage on the steep rockery slope which falls from level 2 to level 4 of the garden, and is on one side of the pond. He has weathered nicely over the past few years, and I think he is very attractive (in a terracotta-y sort of way!).

It may seem hard to believe, but until now, I have never had a bird table in the garden. Following the death of my dear Mother in December 2001, I took over her bird table, which she had always loved. I now have it on the patio, where I can see it from the kitchen door. Mom used to spend hours watching the antics of the birds in her garden, and she had a wide variety of avian visitors. It took a few days for word to go round in my garden that free grub was available - but now I too have a succession of visitors to the bird table - not all of them welcome though, as you can see from this picture of one of the local squirrel population helping himself! Since this picture was taken, he has knawed a big hole in the orange plastic peanut feeder - so I shall have to replace that with a metal one! Since having this bird table, I have seen birds in the garden that I have never seen before, such as Long-tailed Tits, Coal Tits and Blackcaps. I had to look these up in order to identify them, as I'm not very well up on birds (yet!)

Still on the subject of the bird table - here's another couple of pictures of some visitors enjoying a feast! They are a Robin, a group of Long-Tailed Tits and a Blue Tit. All together now - Aaaaah!

The weather is usually too cold/wet/windy/snowy to do much gardening in January, so I like to have plants in the conservatory which flower at this time of the year. In full flower at the moment is Jasminum polyanthum, a vigorous twining climber which bears an abundance of beautifully scented clusters of white flowers. The scent is so strong that when I leave the conservatory door open, the smell permeates the entire ground floor of the house!

My Hamamelis mollis is now quite big - around 2 metres tall. At the moment, it is a mass of beautiful bright yellow flowers which are strongly scented, and the smell wafts all over the garden. Heavenly when you're doing a spot of weeding!

Blackbird, Blackcap, Blue Tit, Bullfinch, Chaffinch, Coal Tit, Collared Dove, Crow, Goldfinch, Great Tit, House Sparrow, Long-tailed Tit, Magpie, Robin, Rook, Seagull, Starling, Thrush, Tree Sparrow, Wood Pigeon, Wren.