It was such a beautiful day first thing. I had a walk into town for some bewilderment at Christmas shopping options. I didn’t come back with presents, but I did find a huge japonica quince down by the river loaded with fruit that nobody seems to want. And if they don’t, I do! So a very big bag of them came home with me. Their smell is lovely. Very spicy and peppery and not like the big quinces at all, now I know what those are like. More quince jelly on the way. Mostly for Mum, who I suspect thinks the other is too sweet.

I put off putting up the second water butt so I could have Fun with a Mattock.  It is so much easier to dig out the tree roots, but by crikey is it heavy work! Progress has been made, though not as much as I thought I would. The ground’s a bit too slippy for going hell for leather and I really didn’t want to find myself making a mud angel…

At home I saw the gardeners blowing leaves about in the back garden so sprinted down the stairs to catch them before they packed everything up.

I now have a builders’ bag of leaves in my garage and, looking at the trees around the block, potentially at least one more if I can catch them next time they visit. *smug face*

I’m just not looking forward to carting it all up to the plot. I may have to see if I can come to some sort of arrangement with them, seeing as they have a very handy van!