Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness

No matter what you may have planned for the day it all goes out of the window the moment you walk out of the door and are shrouded in mist. It will be like this, as I recall from last year, from now until March. The only variation is on what time the mist will disperse, or when it snows in February for two weeks, just to make a change.
But, unlike last year, I am not going to get depressed. I am going to turn the horses out, muck out, and then if the mist has cleared I will work one of the horses, or maybe two if I get time. I have had a very good half term, as Missis has been home, so I've only had to do my own stables. The hard part is going to be training John that as he owns two horses, and it is now winter, he can take on the responsibility of mucking them out at the weekends. But I have to be nice to John now that Max has broken his Market Harborough, as I desperately need to borrow Mr O's. God help us if Max breaks that one as well!
I have finally swept all the leaves up from our tiny garden, and it does look slightly bigger but very dull and empty. Gardening generally has been a big disappointment this year, but again I think the experience will have better prepared me for next year. Basically, nothing grows up here because we live on a hill. You only have to walk a hundred yards down the road and everything's coming up roses (well daffodils anyway) and ours don't appear for six weeks after that). I brought all my favourite gardening books with us when we moved, but haven't looked in any of them. I gave the old- fashioned vegetable book to a charity shop, and it turns out that's the one I could have used the most.
If anything goes wrong where Missis works, she has to do a 'lessons learned' sheet and hand it in. I feel rather like that regarding this summer, I need a sheet that says, 'things I could have done better'. Sadly I spent a large part of the summer indoors on facebook, when I should have been outside doing things. We should have had more meals outside and gone for more walks. And I probably should have painted the outside of the stables. But compared to last year it's been bliss. I would still rather poo-pick in the pouring rain than go to a meeting to discuss all the complaints I've had this month and sit trying to think up novel ways of avoiding them in the future. And I must confess, if I hadn't had facebook I'd have been in severe danger of joining the Womens Institute just to have had something to do!