Only 48 more days . .

. . . until the nights start getting lighter! One could make a chart and cross them off, like someone in a prison cell. It makes it seem not SO bad. Well, I did make a chart, but it wouldn't paste in, as it is full of cells in a Word Doc. Here it is, scanned:



Today I got out at 3.00pm. This is a steady improvement, but yet the darkness moves on us inexorably. The hour before that got used up sorting out a load of smelly old gardening gloves and rubber gloves and liners, and I pegged them in pairs on a line in the potting shed. It's not a potting shed. It's a rubbish shed, right up to its ceiling. The day might come when it will get sorted out.

The gardening thought for today is a decision that fleece is the way forward. It's not cheap, when you think of how many vegetables you could buy for a roll of it, but I'm sick of losing stuff over the years to slugs, cats, pigeons and caterpillars. Anything else? Drought, flooding, burning sun. It sounds like the Old Testament.

So, a lovely row of shallots went in and then the red onions that I've had waiting for a month. It feels nice to be in here knowing that they are out there (with yesterday's garlic), cosy under their fleece, and that they're not going to be tossed about by blackbirds looking for worms beneath them. For fifteen years I've done them all with sticks and black threads and still have had to go out days later to find some of them missing and most of them lying all over the place. And the rains and frosts and things haven't helped. I look forward to reporting on the progress of this lot. I've known about fleece for decades but have never got round to using it. That's all it is. I had to get Electric onions, as there were no Red Barons to be had. Let's see how they go, too.

Perseverance

How wretched it was to have to work hard at my desk all morning, and so there I was again, swinging into crazy action and full of energy at 4.00. I wondered how many other people have that strange biorhythm. They might not abuse caffeine the way I do, of course.

Here is a lovely picture of the psychomachia of Babar's demons:

Blurry picture. I am going to try and get a better one. I love the good qualities here. They're not things like being nice or kind or any of that.

What a dream he had -- after a day in which everything had gone wrong.

"It is I, Misfortune, with some of my companions, come to pay you a visit." Babar looked out of the window and saw a frightful old woman surrounded by flabby, ugly beasts. He opened his mouth to shout: "Ugh! Faugh! Go way quickly." But he stopped to listen to a faint noise -- frr! frr! frr! -- as of birds flying in a flock, and he saw coming toward him . . .

. . . graceful winged elephants who chased Misfortune away from Celesteville and brough back Happiness. At this point he awoke and felt ever so much better.

The bad qualities are Misfortune, Anger, Stupidity, Sickness, Discouragement, Indolence, Despair, Fear, Ignorance, Cowardice and Laziness (I like this last. Jung said it was the main trouble with humans).

The good ones are Goodness, Intelligence, Hope, Work, Patience, Courage, Perseverance, Love, Health, Learning, Joy and Happiness.

Perseverance is the one with the shield. My perseverance was, on one of the most dismal days of the year, in cutting grass for hours and making great heaps of it on soil that I want to enrich and conserve. One of these will be my runner bean patch next year. It is extremely satisfying to hoover up the fallen leaves with the grass so that they'll heat up in a way that leaf mould won't. My petrol mower was going well tonight. I am going to go and buy an old quilt or blanket and cosset it this winter. It's too precious to allow to seize up, as I do most years.

The determination strengthens to grow all my own vegetables in 2009 what with the zeitgeist and all, and not be lazy about it or let anything get in the way of it. This year was a nightmare. I was kept indoors for hours and days at a time. I've got nearly nothing -- just a ton of apples from six trees, mulberries, quinces and walnuts (it sounds like Afghanistan). Tonight I went out and bought the first potatoes I've bought in years. Any day now I'll have to buy the first onions since I came here sixteen years ago. How crap is that for someone who has an acre of land.

It was that old darkling scene again, dank under the leaden sky, as I finally got my old soot out of one of Swindon's vile orange recycling boxes (classy Oxford has dark green) and forked it in, made a string line and raced indoors to find some huge bulbs of garlic that are opening out into massive cloves and nearly sprouting. So in they went. The day was redeemed. Shallots tomorrow I hope, and then some fleece and I'm going to plant out some massive, flapping red cabbage seedlings that look like cabbage roses in the greenhouse.