Jack Frost Moves In

If the poem is right and you're "nearer God's heart in a garden than anywhere else on earth" then parts of mine are nearer Satan's backside. I think couch grass is a devilish invention designed to drive gardeners round the bend. When I first moved here it had grown to three feet high in places out the front but gradually I've been digging it out with the occasional assistance of Rose who now admits couch is her most hated weed.

Last week I sidelined gardening to concentrate on helping organise the Otane Painter's exhibition. On the third day I was there on duty watching the sky darken outside the old schoolhouse's windows as the day wore on. Glenys and I left soon after 4pm and by the time we neared Tikokino the temperature had fallen to 1oC. By the time I got out of the car it was snowing.

All that evening I kept opening the dining room curtains and turning on the outside light so that I could watch the snow falling. The next morning it was still lying on the grass outside and across the Argyll hills to the east. Since then we've had some killer frosts which have frozen the chooks' water dishes, killed part of my money plant by the front door and made the cats burrow under the bedclothes at night. I just wish it would kill the couch grass.