It has been cold.
Very cold.
In fact it has been bloody freezing. For months. There was one reasonably warm and sunny day in March................Hooray! we thought, spring has sprung! - and rushed out to tidy in preparation for the growing season. Even the frogs popped up to say hello. But that was it.............the temperature immediately dropped again and stayed down, and all the little planties that had started the spring fling just stopped dead. We have ONE mini-daff out at the back and two mega-daffs at the front, the crocuses and chionodoxa have appeared as usual but everything else looks all pinched and miserable. There has also been hardly any rain - hence wildfires in the Highlands, up at Hill House last weekend the ground was bone-dry and the grass completely brown. So...........we have planted no seeds because it's just too cold. However the baby tree paeonies are doing very well on the kitchen window-sill, and I have started some prayer plantlets for the Inverleith St Serf's sale in June........And there has been some wildlife...............one morning I heard this strange noise and wondered what it was, was somebody drilling? Yes somebody was - a great spotted woodpecker on the telegraph pole. He had worked out that if he banged on the metal bit at the top it made a better noise...............and had also worked out that the suckers at no. 19 had hung up a lovely fatsnax for him. Unfortunately he is too shy to have his photo taken but we will catch him someday................M. Le Blackcap has been a frequent visitor along with a flock of long-tailed titis, and we have even seen some goldfinches down eating the nyger seed which has been there for about three years without anything touching it............
And now it definitely is spring...................the familiar cccrrrrrrrrOOAAAAAKKKKKKKKK! is emanating from the pond and the frog orgy is in progress............