There is an ash tree here, at the end of the garden, behind the shed.  It sowed itself there a few years ago and Mum and Dad allowed it to grow.  Probably Dad.  Mum would have called it a weed.  It is big enough now to make a good few logs, if someone was to cut it down.  Logs conjured out of the earth.  Ash logs can be burnt green, like birch logs.

I am still in Shropshire, at my Dad’s house, and it is still cold.  This morning I went walking with the dog.  Some of the trees were encased in ice.  I saw tiny catkins on a hazel in the hedgerow wrapped in wombs of ice.  Transparent worlds.  Thin twigs had glass shadows.  Whole trees glistened in the morning sun.  A scruffy weed at the edge of a field became a thing of beauty with its icy clothes.

Gardening is about looking at plants.  It is also about choosing them, planting them, caring for them, of course, but it starts with looking.  Looking carefully.

I’m in another room of the house today, the kitchen.  I can still see the bird feeder on the rose bush, and the other side of the euonymous.  Under it is a small leaved periwinkle, Vinca minor.  These are two good plants to leave to their own devices.  Protruding through them are the old seed heads of a santolina, the silver leaved one Santolina chamaecyparissus.  I know that from memory not evidence.  The plant is dead, smothered by more successful combatants.  This is an occasion where gardening is necessary.  I like this santolina, I particularly like its name and the fact that I can remember it and say it, but also the foliage which is a good silver, and the spicy scent of it.  I do not particularly like its flowers which are yellow buttons, but it can be clipped to a shape of the gardeners choosing, and the flowers discouraged.  If I want this plant in my garden I will have to look after it, and discourage its more vigorous competitors.

Another plant the remnants of which lie across the euonymous, the periwinkle and many of the other low growing plants in the garden is goosegrass.  Also known as cleavers and sticky willy, this is an attentive annual invader.  It has powerful antiseptic qualities when used as a fresh poultice.  It has the unfortunate characteristic of turning the wound green, which make its use disturbing to doctors and nurses, but it does work.  It spreads from garden to garden because its seeds and shoots are sticky and are unwittingly carried by foxes, birds, cats, mice maybe, and definitely gardeners.

The woodpecker is on the nuts again.  I can never quite believe its scorching rump.

I’m going home tomorrow, and looking forward to casting these refreshed eyes about the place, and making plans.  Dad is home from hospital after six nights.  I was leaving the ward to find a wheelchair to transport him to the car and I heard an unfamiliar sound from the corner where he sat.  I turned to see that he was singing quietly.