A bit chilly

The whole country has been stuck with sub-zero temperatures for a while now; no point in writing about that when so much has been written and said already (Google News returns over 5,500 articles on 'cold Britain') - the British obsession of talking about the weather knows no bounds when a couple of snowflakes arrive. I can stand the cold by wrapping up warm, and it can be a very pretty time of year, but it's the lack of daylight that really gets me.

As I haven't ventured out much lately, the kitchen scraps for the compost heap have been building  up at home, so I was forced to venture to the plot to empty the overflowing caddy. It was five degrees below zero on my car's thermometer so I didn't stop long.

Everything was covered in a thick frost except for the pile stable manure that the council have dumped near the entrance, which was gently steaming and adding to the mist. I did take a couple of barrows of the stuff but it is mainly straw and wood shavings - the latter I have been warned not to use as soil improver as they actually decrease the nutrients available to plants while they rot.

I took the opportunity to retreive some more parsnips. Being so large I have only used a couple of them so far this winter, leaving plenty left for Christmas dinner. I expected the ground to be frozen like concrete but was pleasantly surprised to find there was just a thin frozen crust. Underneath it was, well, just soil. I turned a couple of spades over so the local robin red breast could have a go at finding some worms, then made my way home to defrost with a cup of cocoa.