Picture Post

I'm a bit lost for words at present. Every once in a while you need to get down to sorting out the dross of life, and I'm doing quite a lot of that at present, so I've not been feeling very communicative or creative.

Our telephone line upped and died last week and we had to get the telecoms man out to fix it. It turned out to be the line coming into the house from a pole three gardens away, and the whole lot had to be replaced. The guy wasn't sure if the line had been accidentally snipped by the neighbour's tree surgeon or whether it was just fair wear and tear.

Then the boiler decided to play up, which it does most years when the mercury suddenly dips, and we woke up to no heating or hot water, and I had to hang around waiting for next repair man.

In between I've been to Glasgow to help my MIL unpack some more things from storage. She is upset because it looks like the auction house which sold some of her furniture has gone belly up in the recession, without paying her for some of the things they sold for her. She's finding it all very upsetting, and that isn't helping her dementia. We're just trying to be sanguine about it, on the basis that we would have had to pay for storage had it not gone for auction, and that it would have cost a fortune to truck it somewhere else to be sold.

On the upside the TV company gave me a small cheque for the pond project, so I've bought a new wheelbarrow, which is light and well balanced, so I should be able to push it around more easily than the old one, which had a flat tyre and was about as old and clapped out as me! And I've been planting some hardy perennial seeds, grasses and verbena bonariensis, to over-winter in the greenhouse and plant out next year. I'm also going to get a ton of beach gravel delivered to top up paths - a job for my son, but I haven't told him yet so shhhh.....

I also did a really good workshop with Janet Paisley down in Hawick on Saturday, as part of the Eildon Tree 10 year birthday celebrations. She was funny and warm and gave us a couple of excellent exercise to do. And the drive down, through the autumn Borders countryside, was wonderful.

These are two photographs I took yesterday, when I just grabbed the camera and headed for the hills -as I just needed some fresh air and space to clear my head. I really love black and white, and this time of year seems to suit it. The sky was really wild up there, and the light was going, but I quite like the moody darkness.