I know that it’s now February, but before the month clicked over we were already in a February fill dyke situation. The ditches are either flowing well, or if not properly maintained they are brimming with gravy brown water.  Footpaths are like muddy skating rinks, and the meadows squelch and ooze under foot. The term comes from an old country saying February fill the dyke, / Be it black or be it white; / But if it be white, / It’s the better to like”. The black being rain and the white snow. I just looked at the BBC weather outlook, and it shows precipitation of some kind every day between now and Valentine’s day. The Met Office is a little less pessimistic, but sunshine is definitely at a premium. It’s no wonder that so many experience a decline in their mental health at this time of the year, the relentless gloom sucks the positivity from one, which is why sunny days like yesterday are so joyous, a temporary tease of better things to come.

It’s not all doom in the gloom, the aconites are still in bloom, as are snowdrops, and the image above was snapped in my garden yesterday of a very cheery Primrose. And there was a spectacular moonset yesterday morning just before I left to go to the market, apparently the snow moon, it looked fab.

On Monday I spent a good part of the day sawing the tree up that I told you about last week, the one that fell at the bottom of the orchard, demolishing a gate in the process. My relatively small chainsaw is not really up to dealing with the main trunk, so I will need to call on reinforcements for that, but I managed to saw anything up to a foot in diameter (30cm). I have made a decent sized pile of logs that I will get under cover in due course for use at home next winter. In the second photo you can see that the apple tree is leaning at about 40º as a consequence of a large bough landing on it. While I was down there I started on a bit of pruning in the orchard, a mammoth task that I dread every year.

I lost my shirt on the lemons last week! My heart sank when they arrived and I saw that they were mostly the size of hand grenades. I have no idea what size they will be until I unload them, and because I purchase them by weight and sell them by unit I really need them to be regular sized fruit. Some of them weighed 250g or more, meaning that there were nowhere near as many in the case as I was expecting. I have priced them this week on the assumption that they will be on the large side, if they are not I will think of something….or we’ll just call it swings and roundabouts.

There will be Tundra cabbages this week, red kale, Brussels sprouts, and for a change there is some broccoli (Calabrese), but it is from Spain. It can’t be grown in this country at this time of the year. That goes for the cherry tomatoes too – well not without ridiculously expensive artificial light and heat. The rest of the veg are the usual suspects – carrots, parsnips, leeks, beetroot etc. As for fruit, well there are Crimson Crisp apples, Seville oranges, the aforementioned lemons, and finally blood oranges from Italy. They have been a long time coming this year, and hopefully they will be worth the wait.

I’m going to give you a glimpse into my world via the medium of spoons. Yes, you read it correctly, spoons. Specifically teaspoons. I have a few little quirks (don’t we all?….don’t answer that!), and one of them is that I am very selective about which teaspoon can be used for which use. We have a right old assortment of cutlery in our drawer. To demonstrate please view the labelled image below.

The one marked A is from our ‘best’ set that rarely gets used, but I have no aversion to using it, they just don’t get wheeled out very often. B is a relatively recent addition and is of a style that I find offensive, it just doesn’t give off a traditional teaspoon vibe, and under no circumstance do I use it. C is our bog-standard everyday cutlery set, and this spoon is what I would eat yoghurt with, or use for my soft boiled egg. D covers a selection of mongrel spoons, the type that has just accumulated over the years, with nobody really knowing what their origin was. Now its these that I have to use to mash my early morning teabag with and to stir the resulting brew. I seek out these rogue spoons, ignoring all others, and as I’m being frank with you, it is the small runt of the litter, second from the left in this category that I seek out first. I give myself an extra brownie point if I can extract it from the drawer without touching another spoon. This is the only time that I will use a spoon from the group marked D. The Minnie Mouse design is my least favourite in this collection, but I will employ it if the others are out of commission. There I have laid myself bare to you, make of it what you will. I expect to hear from very many of you about some of your own idiosyncrasies – or am I just trying to convince myself that I am ‘normal’? By the way, yours don’t have to be spoon related, I realise that that is quite niche.

Next weekend sees the start of the 6 Nations Rugby competition, one of my favourite sporting events of the year. France and England are the pre tournament favourites and meet each other in the final round of matches on the 14th March, so it could be a winner takes all finale. However, the England team has not been seen as real contenders for a few seasons, so nothing can be taken for granted, and the first game is against the once mighty Welsh – beware the wounded animal!

Right, that’ll do. Keep the SAD lamp shining, the end is in sight – or at east the beginning of the end.

Phil