Diary catch up #6: November at Windy Acre brings glowing colours but Potting Shed Disaster!

I returned from Cornwall to savour the delights of autumn progressing quickly in my own garden.

The leaves of the copper beech were nearly all off.   Right! I thought, let's get the big mower out and start the grand old tidy up.  The Plan - two birds with one stone - the last trim of the year on the lawn, nicely mixed up with the chopped up leaves, into the leaf bins and voila!

Oh dear.  The engineer brought the ride on mower round into the garden...and then quickly turned it off.  A brief inspection later resulted in a Total Ban on using the mower. Argghhhhhhh....Apparently it had 'felt odd': the cause being the fact that there is only one bolt left holding the engine to the mower...Grandma's legendary maintenance regime strikes again.  The engineer felt that it could be dangerous and possibly disastrous to drive it round the garden picking up the leaves, the only course of action would be to book it in for an early service and check over and then to bed for the winter.

Great!

That left me looking at most of November hand raking the mountainous quantity of leaves shed by our lovely (but numerous) mature trees...Good for the soul, maybe, but definitely no fun for the back.

Fallen beech leaves - beautiful.  Until I realised I was going to have to collect them all by hand!

So through the weeks as I paced myself carefully gathering the falling leaves, I tried to take pleasure in the small beauties of autumn, to keep myself going and not have a major toddler tantrum....

Last lingering bloom on the yellow rose.  Gaura still looking fab in the background

The fuchsia is just getting into it's stride 

Last Gertrude Jekyll of the season, brought inside to be enjoyed.  But the chickens are showing no signs of lightening their offerings

But then - tragedy struck!

I opened the kitchen blind one Thursday morning ready to make breakfast for the masses before school, to be greeted by the following sight:

 ...a collapse of fairly extensive proportions in the side wall of my precious escape, my bolt-hole, my potting shed! And to add insult to injury, the stone had all landed on top of the loveliest rosy in the garden - the pretty pretty creamy cluster flowered shrub/rambler Malvern Hills.

Panic and gloom descended.

Will it carry on collapsing? Will my potting shed have to be evacuated and completely rebuilt? Not the best time of year to contemplate that - and the Engineer is less than confident in his stone work skills (so it would get put repeatedly to the bottom of the priority list, which is long enough already).

I will have to cut the rose right down to the ground, and hope it survives the experience.  Meanwhile I took lots of hardwood cuttings and hedged my bets for success - half in the veg patch in classic technique, half in pots to be left outside but round the sheltered side of the greenhouse.

I cleared the stones away from the rose as best as I could, sorting them roughly in to sized piles in optimism that at some point they would be need for the rebuilding.  The wall seems stable still (although dry stone construction, it is still 2 foot thick, and the inner skin seems to be ok for now.  The roof looks ok too, although I think a wise course of action may be to take the whole roof of, repair the rotting rafters and front porch supports, and rebuild the wall pointing it in properly in the better weather of spring and summer next year.  As long as it keeps standing for the winter.

But why has this happened?  It has stood for 40 years without a problem.  Was the felling of the big Monterey Cypress too much for it - perhaps the crash started to dislodge a few stones and it has just taken a few months to show it.

What is certain is that normal outdoor garden work is becoming patchier as the winter advances upon us. The 'season' is over.  Time to start hunkering down inside, with occasions forays out when its not too nasty.

Windy Acre Bonfire Night fun

Boy and Cat enjoying the best spot in the house

While outside, the harsh beauty of the frosty sunrise casts a less forgiving light on the as yet un-renovated facades of the cottage.  It looks careworn and battered, waiting for it's turn to have the Cinderella magic...

Just in time - the ground is frozen and asleep, but the ladies are safely tucked up inside their new winter home