What Are You Looking At?

As an antidote to the miserable news last time, here's a photo from the rectory garden. I've shared images of my visiting deer before, but there's no harm in another. They must come from the woods just beyond the garden further up the hill, but I'm still not sure of their points of ingress and egress. There can't be much to eat in the garden at the moment as the piles of discarded apples from the trees are not in a very appetising state now and most of the lawn is moss!

As it is still the depths of winter I am in the throes of The Great Prune which is why the deer is framed by lopped branches from the apple tree. It never ceases to amaze me how much the plants need cutting back each year: a couple of the bushes put out shoots which can get to ten or twelve feet over the course of the growing season. It keeps me off the streets, anyway. This year my pruning activities have been expedited by the purchase of a hedge trimmer, though they seem to be taking just as long as usual even if they're more exciting.