Hundreds of rail and nostalgia enthusiasts had gathered for what was an outstanding weekend of entertainment.

Everywhere you looked there were Tommies, Wrens, Spivs, GIs and ARP officers... except, of course, in Levisham, which was (hopefully) temporarily occupied by the Waffen SS.

The sun was shining and the NYMR railway looked in fine fettle for the big weekend, with station buildings and platforms looking pristine and all heavily bedecked with flowering hanging baskets and troughs, as befited the arrival of the real stars, the steam locomotives, the pride of which has to be the magnificent Sir Nigel Gresley.

That hot sunny weekend was also memorable for me, as it provided the opportunity to purchase a bargain gentleman's overcoat for just a fiver.

Clothes at 1940s prices. Very heavy, thick and warm. In view of the recent cold snap, it was a timely purchase, but there was a button missing. The bargain needed a clean (just in case the previous owner was an unsavoury sort), so I had to shell out an eye-watering £10.50.

The missing button could not be matched and so an entire set had to be replaced for an exorbitant £1.54.

Barely had I recovered from the shock of this expense when I was hit with another bill for £1.25 for some grey thread required for carrying out the necessary button swop. Labour costs were kept to a minimum by making Wifey a cup of tea and telling her I loved her.

Even so, the overall outlay was £18.29, but in the end, despite all that sewing, with these cold nights it was literally something of a stitch-in-time.

Besides I am now warm enough to be able to watch telly by candlelight and not bother lighting the fire.

And I paid for the candles with money I raised selling the old buttons on e-Bay.

The shrewdest move I made, however, came last Monday, when I emptied and cleaned the greenhouse. I picked every tomato, whether red or light green, and took them into the house.

We had quite a few peppers to harvest, while the chilli pepper, still burdened down with fruits, was moved in its entirety into the relative warmth of the conservatory. Once clear, I washed all the greenhouse glass, both inside and out with a mild disinfectant cleaner and scrubbed the floor.

Now clean and clear, the greenhouse was ready to receive my treasured, semi-tender specimen plants from the patio. These included my Oleander, the (fairly hardy) Bottle Brush Plant and a couple of daisy plants. I cleared leaf litter, the odd weed and any visible slugs off the plants, but above all I inspected everything for aphids and was pleased that they appeared to be in fairly good nick.

Any dodgy bits of potentially fungus-bearing stems and leaves I cut out ruthlessly. No point cleaning out the greenhouse just so I can introduce new problems.

I also have a fantastic Agapanthus. These are the strappy-leaved perennials which produce clusters of porcelain-blue flowers on tall erect stems every summer.

I like to protect them in winter, even though they are fairly tough because I find they are slow to come into growth in the spring if left out-of-doors and flowering is less impressive. All tired leaves and old flower stalks were cut back hard, but anything apparently clean and healthy was left to continue growing in the greenhouse where it is usually evergreen.

I shifted a few pots of rosemary, sage and thyme into the greenhouse to provide growing herbs all winter. Winter vegetables like swede, leek, carrots and cabbage combine brilliantly with thyme for making hearty broths and soups, while the rosemary, although tough enough to stand outside, will produce more aromatic oils and therefore more flavour if kept in a protected environment. Perfect with lamb, it is sometimes also used with pork.

Above all, however, it is my fuchsias which I like to protect. I have five fairly beefy fuchsia plants dotted around the patio, and whether the summer be wet or dry, dull or sunny they produces masses of flowers for months upon end.

Even in the incessant rains of 2008 they were up to the task. The best forms, usually the ones with the biggest flowers, are, unfortunately, not reliably winter hardy.

I cut them back quite hard into their tracery of twiggy stems, removing any soft green tissue and old flowers. They can be kept evergreen if you occasionally provide heat, but I store them in a dormant state, keeping them fairly dry, perhaps giving them half a cup of water every three weeks.

Salvaging large fuchsia plants gives you tough mature plants for next summer's growing season, and they provide an excellent framework for giving structure to bedding plant displays. They can be pricey and so they are worth looking after.

As I worked, I became increasingly conscious of the plummeting temperatures. This felt like a freeze and not just frost. I persevered moving treasured plants under cover until all were safe inside. It is still worth protecting many of your plants before they die off. If you haven't a greenhouse invest in some fleece. It is certainly well worth doing. I carried many expensive plants through last winter this way. You might say a shift in time saved mine!