Colour in a black and white world

With yesterday's sharp frost, all the leaves fell off the trees - just in one big go. A few are clinging on in the garden, tumbling off the elder tree every time a fat sparrow lands on it. Town is knee deep in platane leaves. Our garden is now, in the morning, black and white: bare black trunks and white frost. When the sun sneaks up though, a kaleidescope of colour appears, with tiny rainbows in every speck of frost, and pinks, purples and reds spreading out with the light.

Beautiful, but cold. The earth is already like iron and I fear I will have to wait to dig over the bean bed. Next week is supposed to be less cold, perhaps the ground will defrost a bit then.

Disappointing session with the big kids at school at lunchtime in that it didn't happen. They were so underwhelmed by what I told them we were going to do (which they had chosen last week) that they decided to stay in the playground. Fair enough, but a boring half hour for me sitting around waiting to start my lesson with the little kids.

Happily enthusiasm was restored by my naughty bunch of six year olds. They were entirely charmed by my 'Monstre Ecossais' who eats children who don't know their numbers in English... They are a lot more fun, I have to say, than last year's lot and I feel a lot more relaxed about the wholel enterprise. And a slightly wild heads, shoulders, knees and toes session to finish off went down extremely well. As we were all putting our coats on at the end, the littlest girl came up to me and said "Madame B, vous etes tres gentille". I nearly scooped her up for a big cuddle. (I'll gloss over having to shout at the naughtiest boy - I think we've come to an understanding....)

Later, the glue that's holding the driver's window in the car up failed, giving me a slightly chilly afternoon driving errands. I have re-glued it but don't hold out a lot of hope that it will set in these temperatures. Regarding errands, suet will have to wait until next week - since the folk from the British shop are going to London this weekend and will get me some. And vermiculite is apparently only for professional gardeners (I don't know any) so she'll have to make do with sand. The lentils are planted (TallGirl has to pick one every two days to see how the seed develops) and we have next door's goldfish to look after while they are away on a mystery weekend.

My weekend is sadly not mysterious, and will start with another late night trip to the airport. Mr B has judged that his foot is not ready for driving, or at least not ready to try it for the first time on the motorway rather than in our driveway. I fear that means I will be driving with a trailer for the first time on Saturday since we are off to farewell our pals in Castres and steal most of their furniture.