Grey Sunday

Last night's rain has frozen on the pavements and odd patches of snow still litter the garden. It all looks a tad bleak. Even the blue tits and the robin are hunched up in their dufflecoats. Most of the goldfinches that usually adorn the garden have gone missing for the duration, though the duration of what quite escapes me. Winter has definitely come early: the Mahonia has all but finished flowering; most years it's at its peak at Christmas, providing a rich source of nectar and unseasonal insects for the tits and blackcaps. I'll have to put out sugared almonds.

The sensation within the family at the moment is my dad's pineapple. He decided he was going to do that thing where you grow new pineapple from the green bits at the top of a shop-bought one (mine's on the landing). The one he kept has grown apace, September's new spurt of leaves having pushed the plant off the back windowledge. He's now got it on the floor in the front bedroom, the better for us to marvel at the thing. For it is now flowering. A small pink pineapple on a stick, full of flower buds and wonder. We don't yet know what you need to fertilise the flowers and set fruit, it'll be interesting to see how it goes. I just hope it's not like a Bramley apple, needing two more plants of different varieties to set a crop.