I am so sorry that there have been no posts for such a long time! I had planned the 12 Days of Christmas series to take me nicely through my alpine holiday and thought I could use some of my holiday time to prepare this week’s posts. What do they say about the best laid plans? On day two of my holiday the only wifi in the resort went down and I was unable to post what I had prepared or work on anything new. It was very frustrating, but diid result in an unplanned holiday from technology.

Whilst I write I hope you will enjoy a few of my camera photos from our week in Morillon and Sameon.

Snow In The Forest

As Twelfth Night has long since passed, I feel the time has come to move on and abandon the Christmas series. January is upon us and there are lots of new things to talk about.

French Clementines

The weather in the UK sounded terrible whilst we were away, but it has been mild and sunny since our return a couple of days ago.  The springlike temperatures have prompted me to start making lists of jobs to be done and I have even managed a few hours weeding and tidying in the borders.

French Chocolate Shop

I have also been clearing out the greenhouse in preparation for the new sowing season. I have my notebooks out ready to plan my Cutting Garden for 2014 and I am finalising plans for this years sweet peas – more about that next week.

French Charcuterie

I love this time of the year – January feels so peaceful after the hectic pace of the Christmas holidays and I relish the opportunity to take time to make plans for the rest of the gardening year.

I will be back next week to fill you in on how I am getting on – as well as sowing sweet peas and ordering seeds there are roses, dahlias and chrysanthemums to plan and some new peonies and perennials to be ordered.

And in the midst of the flurry of plans and border preparations there is an exciting season of winter blooms to photograph with my new lens (a Canon 50mm f/1.4 for any other shutterbugs – a much desired Christmas present from my lovely husband).

I am very glad to be back and hope to have your company for a new year in the garden!