Eggs galore, but no kitchen.

Our eight hens are laying beautiful brown eggs at last, though some seem to prefer to make their own nests on the compost heaps or under the conifer hedge rather than use their neat wooden nest boxes. I suspect the main reason is the onging henhouse power struggle in which the large, dominant hens evict their smaller, quieter sisters from the perch, nest boxes or the henhouse itself if a bitchy mood takes them. Only the white Sussex clucks about quietly, ignores the kerfuffle, follows the silly-looking fluffy cockerel from next door about all day and then settles quietly into the box to lay her matt, pale brown eggs as serene as can be.

Collecting eight eggs in an afternoon is all very well, but as of today we have no kitchen to cook them in. We have a dusty cooker and sink until Friday, and after that nothing but a microwave in the conservatory. The ground floor of the cottage is being knocked about and completely rearranged by a team of astonishing quick builders. We seem not to have got round to ordering a new kitchen yet so Christmas will be a little on the basic side, but I’m quite partial to a bit of simple living for a while – it will make the pleasure of a new kitchen all the sweeter.

Outside, the real work continues. Peter is cracking on with improving the infrastructure around the nursery – we have newly widened paths, trimmed hedges, a new swinging barrier to mark the boundary between the public and staff areas, and a smart, smooth concrete ramp into the main polytunnel. Nothing much has happened in the garden yet. Despite the frost last week, some trees still have most of their leaves and there is still a lot of greenery around, so it feels far too early to be cutting back. There’s a fine line between tidying up to reduce pest and disease hosts and removing protective habitats and food for beneficial wildlife and the time doesn’t seem right. Or perhaps I just don’t feel like doing it yet.

I had a welcome, brief holiday in Cornwall last week and squeezed in the Allium planting before I left, but still have the tulips to plant – November is not too late for them. I also have a final round of root cuttings to take with Janet and Tracey tomorrow. Some plants are definitely better cut back in March, so I shall leave them, but other than that there is just a vast amount of clearing up and redevelopment to get through between now and March. And 5 months seems so such a long time now, but I know it will slip away fast, nibbled away by the dark, the cold, occasional disinclination and the cheer of Christmas.