With considerable relief after the last 3 wet months, December began with only the second frost of the autumn/winter, and some welcome cold sunshine and misty scenes in the valley.

The very mild November meant a surprising number of flowers in the garden in the first week of the month, as well as many leaves on a couple of grown from seed Acers.

A high pressure system built over the next 10 days, with frosts to minus 10 degrees C, almost no wind and some wonderful cloudscapes, mists and golden light, particularly at dawn.

As I waited for one sunrise, wrapped up to stave off the extreme cold, I was greeted by the sight of a hardy paramotor wing appearing in the mid-distance and continuing with its quite noisy flight, due South West, down the Tywi valley.

The dry weather and lack of wind allowed an opportunity to take out several diseased young ash trees, which were dangerously close to our greenhouse.

We were also able to locate our 4 x 1,000 litre IBC containers around the garden, shield them with pallets and Miscanthus stems and fill them with our plentiful water supplies at this time of year.

Light snow showers arrived to add to the wintry scenes on 10th, as the annual task of hedge laying also began.

Then yet more bitterly cold but often bright weather continued into the middle of the month, finally ending with a switch from frozen ground, and minus 8 to minus 10, to plus 12 degrees C, strong winds and 40 mm of rain in a day, on December 18th.