It snowed again yesterday. For a while, white clumps hung in the trees like frosted magnolias, but it is now starting to melt. Some real winter flowers like Lonicera fragrantissima are a bit scorched and the Zantedeschia aetheopica has gone all mushy (this never happened in London!) although I expect it will all bounce back. Maybe this year I will actually get around to digging the pond and bog garden I have been planning. The Zantedeschia is in a big pot but it might be more resilient in the ground. It is pretty easy to make a garden look exciting in spring, but January is a different issue altogether. There are some performers though, I need to get a Hamamelis mollis and Daphne bholua (see picture) smells lovely, but it is also poisonous so I might wait until the children are past the chewing things stage. Or see if there is space in the front garden. A couple of jackdaws have been lurking around on the roof, looking suspiciously down the chimneys. The chimneysweep tells me that...