We're back in winter again.

Yes, folks. it's been raining for most of the day. And quite heavily too at times.

But not so heavy that I couldn't nip down the garden and see what was happening in the vegetable plots.

And here's a complete surprise. If you look very closely at this photo you will see a pile of light green shoots rearing their ugly heads - or rather their very pretty heads - through the soil. Yes indeed, the Indian corn that I had brought back from Canada and for which I paid just 33 cents for a packet, has burst into life in a major way and this is so impressive.

I planted them very closely together thinking that I would be lucky to have half a dozen but it seems that almost all of them have come to life. This is so impressive.

Even more bizarrely, the bean plants that grew this year, all ... errr ... four of them, all of which looked like they would be struggling to survive, have burst into life as well. They seem to be throwing tentacles everywhere too. In fact later this morning after I had finished on the laptop, I went to gather some wood to make a climbing frame for them, but I was beaten back by the rain. That will have to wait for another day.

After lunch, seeing as it wasn't possible to work outside, I mixed a pile of polyfilla and sealed all of the joints and screws on the plasterboard walls of my little cupboard. I want to crack on with that. The plan is next to sand it all down again, add another layer of polyfilla, sand that down, paint the walls with some of that cheap pinky-orange indoor crepi stuff that I bought ages ago, lay the flooring, and then build some shelves in there. That will give me a place to put everything and hopefully tidy up a pile of stuff out of the way so that I can continue in the bedroom and the shower room.

I hadn't finished either. You may remember that last summer I cut down a pile of herbs and hung them up to dry in the attic, where they have been simmering away for the last 10 or 11 months. Today I decided to pot them all.

The chives didn't work. That was just like dry grass, but the mint, lemon balm, tarragon, rosemary and tansy worked fine and now they are all in jars.

The lemon balm smells gorgeous, it really does. I just wish I knew what to do with it now Maybe sprinkle some of it on a salad - I dunno.

Tomorrow afternoon I'm going to Rosemary's. She needs help tidying out her barn and seeing as my house door will be living there for a while it seemed only fair enough that I should help her make the space. In exchange she's offered to come round for an afternoon next week and help me weed my garden. That should be fun. I often lack motivation when I'm on my own. Two of us doing it should accelerate things quite nicely.