bucking cows

 I don't want to harp on about the weather and all the rain we are still having so I've posted up another picture of hyacinths as they seem so cheering. The two on the outside with Miss Saigon in the middle. are called Woodstock. And with Woodstock in mind- and all the rain - as Beezle and Bob Dylan would say

Come gather round people
wherever you roam
Admit that the waters
Around you have grown.
Accept it that soon
you'll be drenched to the bone.

 My seed packets have arrived for the annual display. I'm going to try planting up a pink meadow for a client, using these Cosmos double click Cranberry flowers and some lovely pale pink dahlias. I should really get going and start sowing the seeds but it's so grim outside that if I were a seed I'd rather remain in the packet - even if I were going to be put on a heated bench in a cold greenhouse.
It's raining in the house now too as there's a leak in the glass roof.

I jet skied down the road the other day in my car to encounter a pair of laughing cows who had escaped from a neighbouring field. They looked so funny, just like a pair of naughty school girls. A wearied looking youth in large waders was trying to get them back in the field but they would have none of it and they snorted and bucked together as if joined at the hip. I was tempted to get out and wave my red cloak that I keep on the back seat but fortunately a car came the other way and they were sandwiched between the two of us. They were returned to their field, their heads lowered with remorse, looking as if they'd just been caught having a quick fag behind the bike sheds.
This gives rise to my proverb of the week.
"He's all hat and no cattle."

 Prince Pocket trying out his superiority on an Ugg boot in his newly proclaimed principality.

 Nancy hoping Prince Pocket will think she's a film star and later propose to her.

You can tell not much has happened in the Ark this week.

A New Year post.

The first of the hyacinths are beginning to open to wish us all a Happy New Year

Hyacinth Miss Saigon

 And the amaryllis(Papillio below) is still holding on with its late Christmas cheer. It sends up two magnificent shoots and then that's it. However you try and care for it it'll only return next year with a lot of strapping leaves and no flower shoots. I guess if you're that beautiful you can get away with it.

 The white one below- Everest- is aptly named. It towers skywards, sending out several flower shoots at the same time - will repeat the whole thing and with luck - will climb again the following year.

 We had a Christmas visitor this year - Sam - who insisted on wearing his new Christmas jumper all the time. He generously let Beezle have a go because sometimes Beezle looks like a shivering sort of dog - but it was too tight under the armpits and made Beezle look a little like Noel Coward trying to walk without slipping.

 The weird thing was that Sam became obsessed with the picture of the Black Cat in the kitchen and stood in front of it for hours barking loudly and wagging his tail. He ignored the real black cat we have (Nancy) and kept returning to the tin sign.

 Pixie thought he was daft.

 Along with most of the south of England we have had rains and high winds for weeks now. Though we live on a hill and therefore unlikely to ever be flooded apart from by a burst pipe, we have become a little island. At the bottom of the roads on both sides lie enormous lakes of water, so for a while we were marooned. At one time both of these had cars floating in them. Pocket has declared it a Principality and I might build an Ark. After all we have two of most things - two horses, two dogs, two cats, two children, ......

Pocket (quarter Bengal) thinks he'll be safer in a basket should the water rise.

The river in the valley normally runs at the bottom of the field the horses are in  but now it has burst its banks and is over the top of the fence posts. The water is now flowing fast half way up their field and the swans are back again swimming around their hooves.  Fortunately the field goes uphill and they still have plenty to EAT.

With the floating fields in mind here is a small extract from Dylan Thomas's A Winter's Tale in Deaths and Entrances.

In the far ago land the door of his death glided wide,

And the bird descended.
On a bread white hill over the cupped farm
And the lakes and floating fields and the river wended
Vales where he prayed to come to the last harm
And the home of prayers and fires,  the tale ended.