There is a danger that Spring may be round the corner. One of us was outside sweeping up the end of last years leaves and the other was inside feckling out bits of dust that had been sat quiet for too long.

The leaves are all bagged up and hopefully this time next year will have turned into a dark brown mulch that I will be able to spread around elsewhere in the garden.

In the sun the greenhouse was hot and I felt a twinge of guilt that I hadn’t got round to planting anything in there yet. If I had done then the seeds could of been making good use of the heat.

The guilt was assuaged by the fact that I had been able to extract a confession from someone whose tomatoes I have long admired that he didn’t grow them from seed but instead he picked up seedlings from the garden centre instead.

There was one solitary squashed looking daisy in the middle of the lawn but a couple of daffodils had blown cover and there was the first sign of blossom in the trees.

As a last hurrah for the cold months we had a cheese fondue recipe courtesy of Keith Floyd.

It is perhaps difficult to believe the we are blest with having two fondue sets.

I had acquired one as a Christmas present a year or before getting married and then we got the second as a wedding present. hey don’t come out very often although I do have dim recollections of being bold enough to have two different cheese fondues on the go on the one evening. There must of been a few cheese nightmares that night.

If we do have a cheese fondue then it is the Keith Floyd recipe that I use. An almost equal amount of amount of Emmenthal and Gruyere cheese cut up into cubes stirred over a low heat in the fondue pot with wine, a squeeze of lemon juice and a dash of Kirsch mixed up with some cornflour. The cornflour is important as it helps bind the wine a cheese together in a smooth creamy mass.

Don’t forget to rub the inside of the pot with some garlic before you start cooking.

Once the cheese has melted and blending into wine and volcanic bubbles are bursting through the surface, stir in some chop herbs and salt and plenty of pepper, then transfer the pot to the burner and eat with crusty bread and try not to burn your mouth.