Introducing our correspondent
Until the age of nine I lived in Eccles, Manchester, where my father taught me how to plant broad beans using a dibber and I picked weigela flowers to put in egg-cups on the kitchen table.
Since then I have lived in North Wales, Chester, Aberdeenshire and Mid Wales, and I am now retired after 30-odd years in computing and living in Ayrshire, near the small town of Cumnock, where I am trying to knock the garden into shape.
My husband, an ex-lorry-driver, has bad knees and walks with the aid of two sticks, so the garden is mainly my domain.
We have two grown-up children and five grand-children, some of whom like to help in the garden when they come to stay for holidays. My six-year-old grandson from Aberdeen helped me to plant lots of pansies last summer and my daughter’s three children, all under eight, enjoy working/playing in their mother’s allotment in Wolverhampton.
My other main hobby is walking - my only claim to fame is that seven years ago, at the age of 56, I walked (alone) from Land’s End to John O’Groats and subsequently wrote a book about the experience, Keep Right on to the End of the Road. Kath Jones, 2011
Kath writes:
At the beginning of December we went to South Wales for a week’s holiday – in Laugharne, the home of Dylan Thomas.
The weather was variable but it was a good break, and I walked part of the Pembrokeshire Coast Path (that was hard work; it’s all up and down). While we were there we visited Aberglasney, a medieval house and gardens, which have been restored after many years of neglect. It was fascinating and well worth a visit, even at this time of year. It must be lovely in the summer.
I bought some shrubs there – they seem to be holding their own in my garden despite the frost, snow, rain, hail and gale force winds we have had all month. In the middle of the month we had about four inches of snow which lasted nearly a week, then when it started to thaw the hill between us and the main road became a treacherous sheet of ice. We are extremely low priority for the gritters, being a dead-end rural road with very few houses.
The broad beans that I planted last month are suffering as you can see – I don’t suppose they’ll survive. There are some more in pots in the poly-tunnel but I don’t think they’re faring much better. The root vegetables have done okay, I’m digging up carrots and parsnips when I need them, and I’ve got more swedes than I’m ever going to use. Some of the carrots have got worm in, but they’re not a bad size (the carrots, not the worms). The parsnips are delicious roasted with maple syrup (a taste we acquired when we visited Canada). So, there’s not been much happening in the garden in December. Here’s hoping that 2012 will bring some better gardening weather to Ayrshire.
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