Frozen flowers

Frozen flowers, floppy lettuces - the lollo rosso anyway, the iceberg lettuces don't seem to have been affected by this cold weather yet.  Maybe that's why they are called icebergs? 

Even colder last night,  the garden thermometer read -8.9° at 8.30 this morning.  Yup, minus 8.9.   Strangely enough the flowers in the front garden are not the ones that have gone crunchy, it's the geraniums and pelargoniums in the side garden that have been badly affected which makes me think it was even colder down there.   The skies have been clear both day and night recently so although it's  ear-numbingly cold,  there isn't any frost as everything is so dry.  The dog's water bowls froze over last night and the night before though,  much to their amazement.  I hadn't noticed until they tried to drink from them when we got back from our morning walk.

Too cold to even think about being outside so I've had another marmalade making session, this time I did  lemon and orange marmalade and put some of the mix into a separate pan with a chopped chilli,  I just  made one jar to try.  We've licked the spoons clean and both taste really nice.  In fact John thinks the lemon and orange marmalade is nicer than the orange one as it has more of a tang.  The oranges we use are for juicing and quite sweet, and so it's more of an orange jam.  With equal amounts of oranges and lemons, the result is sharper.  Looking forward to breakfast and hot buttery marmaladey  toast.

I don't like to mention the dreaded rat word, but this morning John saw that it/they have tried to gnaw through the wooden doorstep into the shed where he stores the wood.  Proper wood for making shelves, cupboards and such like, not firewood.  Expensive stuff to buy here so it's the last place he wants them.  2.30pm and it's reached a high of 5°,   he's out there now, wrapped up warmly,  putting a metal panel on the bottom of the door to deter them.  Little *******!   I know they get cold and want a warm, cosy place  to live but I wish they'd find somewhere away from us.  At least we are slowly reducing their available homes.  Maybe they'll take the hint  and move.