Heavenly hellebores

What would a winter garden be without hellebores? A few of mine have come out in the last few days, in spite of the rain and frost. Helleborus corsicus is the most prominent of these with its delicious apple-green flowers. At the Botanic Gardens there are several areas dedicated to these plants, notably as under-planting in the Japanese Maple border.
  The garden is really too cold to work at the moment, but apparently we are about to have a week of fine weather, so I hope to get out and prune the roses some time this week. The general drabness of things is depressing; there are only single flowers out, not the big drifts of colour that I so enjoy in the early summer and autumn. Winter is dreary. I'm not a person who goes skiing so there's really few compensations for me. After a while I get SAD, and just want to stay in bed all day, safe and warm. It's all very well for people to say stay active to stave off depression, but really, walking around in the cold deadness of a Christchurch winter is not really a cheering activity.
   Fortunately I have the Internet and a strong imagination, so I just try to imagine myself in Rome, staying in my favourite street, planning to  go exploring all the wonderful things and places that I didn't see on my first visit. I discovered that there is a synagogue and a kosher hotel just down the street from where I stayed last time; I must have passed it several times without knowing, but I guess the Jews have learned from sad experience to keep a low profile.
   We have a synagogue here in Christchurch, which was destroyed in the earthquake. One of my favourite memories of the 'quake was that one of the search and rescue people (not Jewish) went into the synagogue at great risk to himself, and rescued the Torah. Selfless behaviour on behalf of others seems a rarity nowadays, but perhaps it's just our nihilist media, who like to concentrate on the negative. Well done, that man.