I'm going to try an alphabet soup again this year. Think of a word beginning with,say, A and write something inspired by it. I'll decide what to do with X and Z when I get to them!

A is for Avocado.

For much of the year there's been an avocado plant growing in a pot at the end of my garden. Originally, it turned up uninvited in my vegetable patch. Presumably an avocado stone that had been thrown into our compost bin survived and grew once I spread the compost out. I potted it, brought it in last winter, then put it outside again in the spring. It has grown into a small tree.

When we came back from France a couple of days ago, I thought there had been a frost overnight. I expected my avocado plant to have died. In fact, it looked as perky as ever but I knew I needed to repot it and bring it indoors for the winter. I found the biggest pot I could and filled it with earth, then struggled upstairs carrying it. It's now in our spare bedroom, along with all sorts of junk - several dead computers, a collection of geological specimens which belonged to my mother-in-law, boxes full of old slides and a whole shelf full of files.
My house is like that.