It’s been a windy few days following the arrival and departure of storm Otto. The main storm itself didn’t last all that long but with a highest gust speed of 36mph it made it into my listing of windiest days of the last 14 years based on gust speed alone.

At home, we didn’t have any damage although we have a few plastic bags lodged in trees and bushes that will need to be removed. At the allotment, there was evidence of more damage but not to our plot. On one side, our neighbour’s greenhouse had been blown over and rolled onto our plot.

This seemed rather amazing given that there was no glass in the greenhouse. It would have made a real mess had it been fully glazed. Then at the other side of our plot, panes of glass had been broken in our other neighbour’s greenhouse.

The glass will need to be carefully picked out of our rhubarb and removed before it gets hidden by any leaves. I don’t fancy pulling rhubarb with shards of glass hidden around the base of the plant.

On our plot, it was a case of more tidying up while we have a chance before the growing season is upon us. Once the middle of March arrives, there’s no time to carry out any major tidying up jobs.

There should be a path at the back of this fence so we can pick gooseberries from both sides of the fence. However, since I cut back the laurel hedge at the other side of the path it has become impassable. I decided to see if I could do something to retrieve the path.

I’ve made a start and providing I keep the laurel hedge on one side and the kiwi planted on the fence with the gooseberries in check all should be okay. However, it does mean I have another pile of debris to burn so hopefully the dry weather will continue for another week or so and give me chance to have another bonfire.