The rose from last month had peaked when I shared it here, but even as it declined in January’s wet, cold and windy weather it did so elegantly, or I think so at least.

The brown and now shrivelled rose complete with dew and raindrops

We did manage a brief spell of loosely labelled gardening activity - we needed to remove the ‘creative Christmas tree’ - which I delegated to MOH, and I wanted to wrap up the new olive’s pot. I should have done it before now I know, but I hadn’t and I was lucky with the weather, and my timing as it turned out.

the new olive in the new pot, now bubble wrapped, in the sun with a blue sky

While MOH circled the creative Christmas tree unwinding the lights, I set about covering the pot with bubble wrap and enough tape to ensure I wouldn’t be chasing the covering around the garden! I was rather pleased with my effort (above), and I was even more pleased when I opened the blinds the next morning and saw the dusting of snow (below).

Looking out onto a dusting of snow and the bubble wrapped olive pot the next morning

We didn’t have much snow, just a dusting, but then again we didn’t have much heating at this point either so it wasn’t great. Thankfully the snow didn’t last long, and the heating was back limping along soon after, though I did feel for the heating engineer who needed to be working outside to make this happen.

A small nest in the bare branches of one of our small trees

But to be honest there hasn’t been much activity in our garden this month, though there are signs of life - the snowdrops are starting to form and even flower, and there’s evidence of bulb growth too. Most of my garden watchings have been through the window, and it was during one of those stints where I was also entertained by the small bird population who have found our pyracantha berries and the decaying crab apples, that I spotted what I thought might be a nest in one of our small trees.

Or maybe it was a leaf that had got stuck.

But it was there the next day too, and I ventured out to check (actually I might have been on my way to the dustbins, but you know multi-tasking and all that), and it was a nest. Not the greatest place to build one maybe, and I’m sure it’s vacant right now.

Who knows if it’ll have returning or new residents once the tree is in leaf again, but I’m happy they built it in the first place!