Capel Manor On A Sunny January Afternoon

It's a pain in the bum having to take a malfunctioning laptop across London to be fixed, but it's marking season and I have a pile of work to do. The computer said 'no' and I needed an engineer to persuade it otherwise.

When I got home, the resident poorly person reminded me that we had a plan to visit Capel Manor Gardens in Enfield, and it was such a lovely sunny day the thought was irresistible. We spent an hour marvelling at the variety of plants, shrubs and trees, which look just as good in winter as they surely will in spring and beyond. It's an agricultural college and I peered through a window through which you could see plaster horses heads poking out of the walls, draped in bridles and other horsy accoutrements. There is a small zoo featuring a white crow, and two Scottish wildcats who are there as part of a conservation programme. They were hungry, and were glaring at anything they thought might be worth hunting. One of them emitted some very deep 'miaows'. There is a small maze, and we managed to get to the viewing platform and back without crying- or cheating, as we did in Kielder Forest when we went with Kenji and Till.

What a lovely place. I'm looking forward to going back in spring.

Two chaps winter gardening; an avenue of pleached limes; a small alpine house; a triangular flowerbed, one of three; scented witch hazel; white barked birch; giant thistles.