Welcome Spring

We can hardly complain that it has been a bad winter around here; there has been very little snow and it hasn't even been very cold most of the time. The main problem is the endless rain, culminating in that disastrous flooding just after Christmas, but continuing on and off ever since. At one time I thought spring would come very early and I wondered about the consequences of that - but it seems that actually many things are unfolding much as usual, perhaps a week or so earlier but not markedly different. There are a few bluebells out already though. They are early and are very spindly specimens.

I visited my sister in Lincolnshire, which is a hundred or so miles south-east of here and it seemed that nature was a little further on there. The magnolia here is still in bud but there it is fully out. She has just moved from the old mill house that has been her home for 30+ years, to a smaller - but delightful - bungalow in the next village. There is an attractive old church nearby and the churchyard was full of wild flowers: primroses, celandines and these rather pretty violets.