Snowy morning

We had a light fall of snow overnight, but it was so warm this morning that it melted very quickly. I did manage to find a few spots that were still icy when I went out with the macro at around 10am, but by lunch time only a few very shaded pockets of the garden were still dusted.

This afternoon R and I did some more gardening, cutting back a huge thicket of dogwood that had completely overrun an apple tree in the wild garden. It was hard work, and I'm very tired now, but you can certainly see where we've been. I'm actually slightly anxious about it, because (for reasons I've never understood, since it only flowers sparsely), invertebrates seem to love this shrub - but I just have to have faith that it will survive the experience. Now that we've reduced the dogwood to manageable proportions, we need a period of a few days when there's no frost forecast, and we can start the process of renovating the apple tree.

This evening we seared some cod for dinner, and ate it with a cannellini bean purée, and asparagus on the side. The recipe, which comes from Ruth Watson's Really Helpful Cookbook, is one that I used to make quite often, but which somehow fell out of my repertoire a few years ago. Earlier this week R and I had a conversation that tweaked my memory, and I dug it out again - and I'm glad that I did, because it's simple and delicious: just the sort of cooking to do after a zorsting afternoon in the garden.