Winter Arrives In Sunny Derbyshire

It's due to turn bitterly cold tomorrow with snow forecast by the end of the week.  I couldn't be happier.  For the first time in what seems like decades, I feel as if I've caught up with myself this year in the garden.  The paths are done; the steps too.  All the borders in the kitchen garden (which figures almost exclusively in this blog) and in the rest of my gardens are deeply manured, full with this season's spring bulbs.  Last week I finished pruning back this season's growth, taking off all the monstrous Buddleia growth down to stumps; cleared a few stray bits of mock orange for no other reason than I liked its scent on my gloves; tidied up all the long rose growth and fairly hacked into that horrible evergreen bush that sits like an enormous malevolent toad in my hostas bed.  I only keep it there because it was brought into the garden by birds; it grows right under a spot where the blackbirds like to perch. I loathe evergreens, but I particularly loathe this one because it is a constant reminder of a question in my RHS exams that made me go completely blank.  "Describe 5 broad leaved evergreens suitable for use as domestic hedging."

I bet Helen Yemm is laughing her head off.