AXE AND IT WILL BE GIVEN TO YOU

I managed to delay my return to this country until the grip of winter had loosened.  Last week, while it hovered around freezing point in UK, I was sunbathing in perfect Mediterranean sun.  Not gloating or anything; just saying.  So it was nice to have warm sun and a fresh, cool wind blowing when I emerged from the aircraft at Gatwick, instead of the bone-numbing chill I remembered from a couple of weeks (plus half a year) earlier.

Never the less, it hasn't exactly become spring yet.  This is the copse next to my house


Apart from a bit of flourishing ivy and some splendid lichen, not a speck of green in sight.  It is in fact raining again at this minute, despite my hope that I might at last get out and do something about the lawn (recently renamed as the Slough of Despond and currently awaiting EU recognition as an important breeding ground for Ciconiiformes).  Still, the shrubbery looks green.


Actually, we have just had the tree surgeons in to look at the state of our trees and discover that four of them have died.  Who knows what caused their death?  Trench foot?  Death by drowning?  Rampant fungus?  Or maybe they just gave up in all the rain and snow and Arctic winds?
Counting our blessings though, we will have a nice pile of logs for next winter, which apparently will begin shortly.