Some more things I'd been meaning to blog, but didn't

Firstly some photos taken in the garden since October

The Rowan that was a 60th birthday present to John from Jude and Stan has grown big and strong and has some gorgeous white berries in the Autumn.

You can even see the berries from a distance in this general view taken from an upstairs window.

I love the Autumn colours in the garden.  Even though there are few flowers there is such a variety of colour in the foliage and berries.

Here is John planting new strawberry plants, as the old ones had stopped producing good crops.

Moving on to winter views, here are a couple of photos taken on 8th Jan (my Mum's birthday).

 I realised that, apart from when it has snowed,  I don't usually take photos of the garden in the winter.  I thought I'd rectify this.

In November there was a visit to Incredible Edible Farm by people involved, or wanting to be involved in WWoofing.  Here is Nik showing them around.  WWOOF used to stand for Working Weekends on Organic Farms, but I believe it is now known as World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms.

 Here's a picture of The Antigallican taken when we were staying at Abbey Wood campsite in November.  Kathy was driving us to my hospital appointment at Denmark Hill  (via lunch and picture viewing at the Dulwich Picture Gallery) when I saw this pub I remembered from childhood.  My Aunt Kit, Uncle Mick and cousin Pat lived not far from here, in Charlton, and I really do remember on at least one visit sitting outside, with my brother and cousin, with a bottle of lemonade, complete with straw, and of course a packet of crisps with the blue twist of salt.  Did I feel deprived, neglected, unloved, excluded?  No, I loved it.

We still go for walks along the canal most Sunday mornings, and I still take out my camera or iPhone to snap the view.  This one was taken on 1st Dec.  I was probably impressed by the leaves still being on the trees.

We don't to the cinema often but we have been twice lately to The Hebden Bridge Picture House to see Philomena, and The Butler.  On one of those occasions when we were queuing before the doors opened  I noticed the little old ticket office that is outside in the cold (as we were).  Nowadays, and for as long as I've been going there, you buy your tickets in the foyer where you can also buy the usual chocolates and popcorn, and the less usual mug of tea or coffee to take into the stalls.

At Stubbing House West we had a 'Dog Room'.  This was one of the two living rooms that ended up with that name because the previous owner's dogs had been allowed / kept there but banned from the other living room.  When we moved to Church Walk we had another room-naming problem.  Upstairs, next to the kitchen we have an all purpose living / dining room.  Downstairs, converted by the previous owners from an integral garage, we have another living room where most of the books and the piano are kept.  We spent the first few years here not knowing what to call it.  The previous owners, or rather their estate agent, called it The Garden Room.  We didn't like that and eventually settled on The Study as we have a small room upstairs with the household admin stuff which we call The Office, and The Music Room or The Library seemed far too pretentious.

Well, now The Study has become 'The Cat Room'.  Some will already have been worn down by our cat saga so I'll try to be brief.  Our fourteen year old cats, Potzo and Lily, have happily come and gone when they want through the cat flaps in the upstairs kitchen and porch.   Two years ago our dog owning neighbours moved and were replaced by cat owners.  Next door's cats are younger, bigger and fitter than our two and would barge their way in, terrorise them and eat their food.  Sometime early last year we reluctantly placed the food as far away as possible i.e. in the downstairs study.

This was bad enough but by about September we discovered pools of cat pee on the downstairs wooden floors and rugs.  Lily was the culprit but the vet diagnosed 'behavioural problems'.  It seems cats feel particularly vulnerable when they're peeing so although Lily was clearly still going out each day she chose to pee indoors. We were advised to provide a litter tray, and by a gradual process Lily was encouraged to use it.  It too lives in The Study, next to the piano.

When we came back after our November trip the friend who'd fed the cats said that next door's cat had been seen sitting at the top of our stairs and trapping Potzo upstairs and Lily downstairs.  We needed a drastic solution so, back to the vets to get the cats chipped and we installed a new chip operated cat flap.  Next doors cats excluded, our cats happy?  No!   Potzo has taken against the new cat flap and won't use it.  He takes full advantage of the litter tray and has become an indoor cat.  He does range about the house a bit, particularly in the evenings when he might find a lap to sit on, but mostly he, along with the food tray and litter tray have taken over the downstairs room and I've given up thinking of it as The Study.