January - first month of the gregorian calender

At last a fine day. Beautiful in fact. Blue skies and sunshine. Had intended swimming some lengths at St Ives Leisure Centre, only 15 minutes away, a lovely pool, with the most fantastic view of the town and harbour and the ocean beyond, but I had other priorities. Gardening. Tried hard to garden yesterday, but it was hard going in the wet. Today would be different. So onward with the transplanting of some shrubs, hypericum, hebe and hydrangea, phormiums, yucca and a cortaderia richardii.

For all those horrified by my resolve at this time of year, I would say in my defence that, so far this winter, we have had no frost in our perfect piece of cornwall, the gorse is already in flower, daffodils are already showing, so I figured that transplanting now might actually work. Time will tell whether my judgement is misplaced.

Last year I tried hard to turn our campsite boundary fence with the the waterboard into a feature, by utilising it for washing lines with ditsy pegs for campers and pretty solar lights along the top edge. I resisted the urge to plant along its margin, because at the end of the day, when it is not a campsite, the paddock is grazing for the horses and knowing how my horses love to investigate alternatives in their herbaceous diet, I figured ornamental planting may not last long. However, I have reneged and decided to try some to compliment the washing-lines and lights. And, when the horses are in the paddock, try some electric fencing to keep them off the plants! 

Hard to believe we are already almost halfway through the first month of the year. January, first month of the gregorian calender, derived from the roman god Ianuarius, who presided over the gate to the new year. Often symbolized by an image of a face that looks forwards and backwards at the same time, time to reflect on the previous year and perhaps redress or make improvements or new resolves for the year to come. How perfect a month for Ashfarm campsite, time to review last year, reflect on what worked and what could be improved or developed for the ensuing year.  

Our second improvement for this year then, is to move the campfire, which, through trial and error I have decided was too near the entry gate into the campsite paddock. Naturally this meant that it was necessary to have a small but inaugural 2014 campfire to try out the new placement!. Beautiful night for it, stars were out in splendour.