January - fagash sky
muddy grass and rain seeping.
Too far from summer,
too long till spring.
Mired deep down in the slimy
grip of a wet winter.

But even as you sigh
and wipe the rain from your face
and shiver at the bus stop,
there is the odd green shoot
stealthily appearing.

The echo of a shadow
of a hint of a turn in the season.

Winter seems to go on much longer thatn is strictly necessary - I mean I like a bit of a chill and the odd snowfall, but it just goes on and on and on. Never actually light during the day, an excess of various malign precipitations, wind, and short dreary days. I think that having a longer spring and autumn would be much better - can't someone "make it so" in the Picardian sense. Perhaps global warming is just a huge plot by people who hate cold, rain and snow to ensure that all this winter business is brought to an end.

I spent an hour or so paddling around in the sodden garden removing dog poo and then doing a little hacking back of a few over-large shrubs. I have no idea when you are supposed to do these things but doing something in the garden seemed in order and clearly all the other familiar tasks of the green-fingered were out of the question - mowing ( would need to attach some sort of outboard motor), planting ( plants would have to be of a seaweed-y nature), weeding ( everything looks pretty dead). So lopping it was - very satisfying too with the telescopic loppers got as a christmas present. They are black and satinised chrome and make you feel like a cross between Alan Titchmarsh and The Jackal.

I had a middle-class anxiety moment this afternoon when I scanned the secondary school league tables and found that the school my children are attending is merely above average. My sister-in-law's kids attend a local school which is better (by several whole points) than ours. What to do - move house? Move schools? Re-mortgage the house to pay for private education? Luckily I came to my senses and realised that I have two bright and accomplished children who are happy at their 'average' school. I suspect that league tables are a plot developed by the owners of private and so-called 'Public' schools to keep middle class parents worried enough to sacrifice large sums of money on the alter of Education.