Hanging on

You can see where this sleepy bee was clinging onto the plant label with his front left toes. Do bees have toes?

It hung out with me in G’s shade house all morning while I divided and potted up a heap of alstroemerias, then put boxus and hydrangea cuttings into small pots. 

The bee didn’t move at all in two hours. I moved a lot. I jigged on the spot as I worked to keep warm, for once again I was in the teeth of a bitterly cold southwesterly wind up on the plateau. 

The extra is the view from the shade house: once again a misleadingly sunny picture. There was snow falling out of the clouds in the distance apparently. And if you look really carefully you can see the base of a rainbow just to the right of the lone pine on the crest of the green paddocks.

That hearty hot soup came into its own again, although at home out of the wind in the sunshine it was positively balmy.