Love is.....having someone who will go out and plant hundreds of bulbs, various anemones, cyclamen, bluebells and small woodland plants in general, which arrived on what has been the coldest day of autumn/winter so far. The temperature struggled to about five degrees, in the cold northerly gales it was even colder, even being in the comparative shelter under the holly trees and laburnum didn't do much to stop the fingers freezing. But these days my bones are too cream-crackered to be able to cope with bending for more than a few minutes... I well remember Simon, my very sexy GP at the time, telling me on my fiftieth birthday back at the start of the millenium, that I had the bones of a woman 10 to 15 years older than me. You can go right off some people! So this is my wonderful, gorgeous husband doing the planting for me.. such a star you are ... xx

It started with a kiss... the gentlest, smallest pecks from tiny white flakes of snow. This is Ceres, otherwise known in our household as Mrs Cornflake, standing in her little arbour of Spirea 'Bridal Wreath', now bereft of foliage of course, getting kissed with the first fall of snow on Sunday.

But before too long it turned into a full-blown snog, with horizontal snow, the churchgoers crawling home along the road in their cars, each with a bemused expression on their faces as it hadn't even been the gentle kissing bit when they entered the church. Others more intent on getting their Sunday supplements than a Sunday sermon, slithered and gingerly stepped along the pavements, turning into monochrome images, their front half covered in snow, the back almost free of it. And Mrs Cornflake, though still visible, was up to her ankles in the white stuff... the buddha looked as if he were wearing a coat and hat, just his cheery cherubic face visible... plants became weighed down with snow and there was three to four inches of it. In the distance could be heard the shrieks and screams of happy children playing on the only accessible, modestly hilly bit in these parts, at the entrance to our village, and topped with a seat for those who want to look out over the Bog and nature reserve. Yesterday it was an adventure playground, sleds taken out of garages and lofts and being made full use of for the first time in ages, until the snow all but melted by teatime.