Monday 15th January 2024

It's snowed in the night, but it wasn't awful. Certainly not bad enough for the schools to close, so the boy had to stir himself and get up for the bus. The road down to the bus stop was very slippy, and the bus was a bit late, but he made it in. He had an English exam this morning. It went well, apparently. Literature paper fitted well with The Great Gatsby, and a Carol Ann Duffy poem, while close reading was about tattoos. Latin on Thursday.

I had a lot of housework and laundry to catch up on - usual Monday things. I cleaned out the fridge and it wasn't as bad a job as it usually is. I've been really quite dilligent at using up what food I have and being a bit more creative. I only had to dispose of a couple of pots of yogurt and one of cream which had been lost at the back of something else, some forgotten grapes, and a jar of bought salsa that no-one liked so went quietly out of date.

I ordered some tree saplings from a local nursery - mostly to go along the front of the croft as a windbreak, but also to create a couple of wee stands here and there. I'm excited about that. I also watched a video by Lovely Greens, where she built a dead hedge. I'm definitely going to do that over at the far corner where the big polycrub is.

I took a wander over there before lunch, and everything is a bit sluggish. It should perk up in the next couple of weeks when the light improves.

In the potting shed, though, the flower seedlings are all looking lush - especially the wallflowers. I need to get them potted on and hardened off, but possibly not this week.

Dinner was stovies made with the end of yesterday's roast. I put a couple of carrots in, because, as I said, I'm using stuff up as I go.

Not much else - tv and sock knitting. I finished the foot of the sock, so just the toe to do, then second sock to start. I did sign up for a mystery Lent knit-a-long, run by a Methodist Church in Bristol, so that's something to look forward to.