rain, snow and seaweed

So this is winter.  There's still a trace of lushness in the land but the beetroot leaves are, alas, just a memory now since deer got into the garden.  The fence is now rotten in too many places to patch properly.  If the deer sneeze next to the posts they'll fall down.  Hopefully we'll get a new fence in the spring and a stack of deer (who aren't supposed to be in this part of the estate anyway) will get culled this coming week.  Just to complicate matters there's been a breakout by the estate cattle who're kept up behind the house.  I'm not sure where the enclosure is so I'm hoping to walk out and check.

The winter weather of snow and ice hasn't made it to our valley yet although there are traces on the hill sufficient to prevent my lame fiat panda making it over the hill.  On the track here there are bits of seaweed from the Thursday storm and the boat has been shifted a metre or so but everything (track, house, boat) seems to be in one piece which is the crucial thing.  I'm still feeling a bit overwhelmed by the tidying up involved.  I've got a stack of clean laundry to be tidied away which is easy enough but when that's done I've got the hallway to mop then moving onto the really difficult stuff.  At some point last month the fank door was left open.  It might have been C or it might have been a passing walker (I offered a bed in the fank to a lad who's walking round the British coast, he didn't reply to the offer but he might have stuck his head in to check what was available).  The end result is the entry of the pine marten who shat all over the bathroom floor and had great fun with the bags of artisan flour left lying around.  All this mess is lying around C's half-installed CCTV system.

This probably explains why I'm sitting in my pyjamas at midday for the second day running, waiting for inspiration or enthusiasm to strike.  Fortitude, fine coffee and a decent fire should get me going.