Tainted Tree takes an early bath?

We’ve had more torrential rain this week; my trip to Sainsbury’s, yesterday, took me through mini rivers and my car, given a clean up during its service last week, is once again muddied up. This weather and the floods which have occurred in different parts of the country, notably, Cumbria, certainly do not seem typical of November weather and give me uncomfortable reminders of one of the ‘end of the world’ films I saw many years ago – possibly The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Flowers too, don’t seem to know whether it’s summer or winter. We still have the last vestiges of summer flowers – a yellow bloom on the hypericum, which started flowering in August; a few faded geraniums and - until the frost of a few days ago, some blossoms on the fuchsias. To counter that, we have some early polyanthus and a mahonia also sporting yellow flowers.

Guildford is making its own contribution to saving the planet. I will not mock; our small endeavours may well be beneficial when carried out by many people. We now have a giant wheelie bin for our non-recyclable rubbish; a purple bag each week for tins/bottles and paper – to be recycled. (Others in more accessible houses have two separate containers, but the big recycling vehicles don’t like coming down our lane, so we’re on another system.) We also have a kitchen caddy for left-over cooked and raw food and peelings, etc. and an outside food waste bin, to be collected and composted. The new system started at the beginning of November, but there have been teething problems and ours have only just been solved.

This week has been quiet and I’ve been able to do some catching up. Next week will be very busy, not least because Irene and I will be at the Guildford Institute, selling our books, on Thursday and Friday, as well as going to the opera on Monday. December brought a copy of Family Tree Magazine with my article on Tainted Tree in it, as well as the latest edition of Writers News, also featuring a piece on my writing. But bad news at the library – one of my books has completely disappeared from the Surrey Library system, and the librarian at Godalming was unable to tell me where it had gone. If someone had dropped it in the bath, she told me, it would be removed from the system. Let's hope a similar fate doesn't await my other copies.