A living Christmas card

Looking back across the lawn to the house

And so the winter approaches.............no I'm only joking it has been exceptional weather this year in the UK never more so than here in the usually balmy Cornwall. We had a tantalising glimpse of "normal" weather here this weekend and shed the woolly hats and gloves before waking up to our very own, now familiar Christmas card. So come with me now on a visit to the gardens you may have enjoyed in the heat of the summer and explore again the corners now alive with the birds and rabbits that the sheltering hedges embrace.



The formal parterre dusted with frost that is the heart of the courtyard



No takers for that sun lounger this morning I'm afraid



One of our woollier paths that lead back to the more formal areas - the rabbits are on duty here to trim the grass



That serpentine bank again built with the last (Well nearly) of the heaps of stone from our barn renovation twenty years ago - I think we have managed to recycle most of the house now!



I loved the light on our very own standing stone/discarded gate post with Perranuthnoe village and the sea beyond the spring bulbs will come up here very soon now

The raised seat in the Italian garden usually a few degrees warmer in here but today well........

Whilst the Olive trees are already surrounded by newly emerging Irises behind that garden

Back towards the house and the little formal garden below the courtyard of the Apricot room - just seen tucked in the top corner

Our poor date palms teh other side of teh "home" courtyard - can frost really be that thick???




and left in the camera from November but such a beautiful morning looking out across Mounts Bay from our front door that i didn't want to waste it. So today, this is Ednovean Farm, a living Christmas card and we even have a great Robin who has won picking rights in the stables from the other birds and fills the old barn with his sweet song as we work. At least not for us the bustle of the shops, the icy pavements, the traffic jams as we beattle about with our wheelbarrows and take extra hay out to the fields before breaking the ice on the water troughs..........mind you they have central heating in shops!!