The wind howled through the Haberdashery department

Happy New Year to all. May your 2007 be warmed by the hot flush of happiness.

Christmas was undramatic – including assorted bugs and viruses that always seem to catch up as soon as one pauses the normal bustle of life – and delightful. Today I must tidy my office, hoover stuff from the carpet and generally return things to normal.

There has been a lot of rain which is irritating: we had just pumped all the last load of rain from the half dug shell of a lake in time to get the concrete base for a waterfall installed before Christmas. We stood in the freezing fog for ages waiting for a concrete lorry.

And waited and waited and waited until they finally admitted that they were not coming so we all toddled off home.Now the whole process has to begin all over again.

Still tis gloriously sunny now;I am listening to somebody reading from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance on Radio 4. Not a book I ever read being not quite hippyish enough at the time (1974). In fact, I am prepared to confess, I was going through a very weird patch at the time (I was about 15) where I listened to an awful lot of brass and military band music with a smattering of Gilbert and Sullivan. I returned to relative normality quite soon after that.

The picture is of Rosa rugosa Snowdon in the fog.