Snow Sales and Spring Flowers

The snow has been falling off and on here now for three days. The garden has a four inch covering of snow and the village I am posting this from was cut off from the rest of Ayrshire earlier today when the roads in and out of the village were closed by the police.

People up here generally cope fairly well with driving in the snow because we are more familiar with it than folk further south; but even here it has now got to the point where few people are venturing out in their cars. The temperature tonight in parts of Scotland is forecast to be as low as -15c so we are in for a very chilly night. It also seems that there may be no end to these conditions for at least another few days.

The snow makes the garden and the landscape here look really wonderful and I plan on getting my camera out tomorrow and posting some pictures. The kids in the village are of course having a great time out on sledges and having snowball fights. Snow is a magical thing for the children and they will stay out until they are soaked through and chilled to the bone if they are allowed to. There's a small quirky Snowman in the garden here at my partners house - he has hands made of pink plastic spatulas!

Christmas hasn't even got into full swing yet and already our emails are being bombarded with information about Shopping sales that are starting - with some such as Dorothy Perkins offering 50 % off in their sales. The shops seem really determined to keep us spending.

While we were stuck in today we started thinking about the Spring and some gardening improvements. We are thinking about putting in some window box planters this year and getting some more outdoor planters for the garden. The site I have linked to has some nice planters. My favourite style is a terracotta planter rather than some of the fancier ones. My partner has a real eye for gardening and often finds ways of using unusual things to make garden planters rather than buying shop made items.

Last year she bordered part of the garden with old tyres which she painted white and then planted up. I was a bit sceptical I must admit but as the spring and summer developed I had to hand it to her that the "tyre border" looked really unusual and really attractive - and hadn't cost a penny. Mind you this is the same woman who will buy clothes from the charity shops and whose friends often marvel at the top range clothes she manages to find there.

We have also been looking through some of the seed and plant catalogues to see what flowers and plants we will be ordering for the garden this year. It's been nice to be inside thinking of Spring flowers while the blizzards rage outside.