What do you do in a garden centre when the winter comes along. When the branches of the weeping birch hang heavy with rain. When the mornings combine frost and fog, and the sun creeps along the horizon, blinking it's sleepy eyes and nodding its weary head.
The birds use all of their energies to move away. Swans wait for their young to strenthen their wings. They lift their necks high and beat the air with practise strokes, as if to say we must be on our way.
Squirrels hunch forward and bring their forepaws up to their face as though to wipe away a tear. Flowers decay and keel over.
A dusting of frost stands at attention on benches and fences, each crystal erect and defiant. Soon the gates will be closing, and the sales of plants will shrivel, and become as hard and tight as the heart of a witch in winter.
