spring

enamel jug here

Yesterday was a very Pollyanna day! The sun shone out of a blue sky with the odd fluffy white cloud, the birds sang, I saw swallows and the first hoopoes and a redstart has made her nest and laid 4 eggs in it just inside the barn door (so now we can't go in that door!).   How everything changes when the sun shines!  

I think we have had the wettest Spring since we came to live here 12 years ago - it has been quite miserable with just the occasional sunny day to stop me getting too desperate. But - and I presume this has to do with the amount of rain we've had - the cowslips this year are spectacular - I'm not exaggerating  when I say that there are thousands and thousands of them. 

One of my earliest memories is my infants teacher (though the class was called Babies in my school, we then progressed to High Babies!) Miss Brennan making two tight bunches of cowslips and then attaching them somehow to make a large spherical ball of flowers. 

The oaks are coming in to leaf, still waiting for the lovely lime tree in our yard - it's always late -and the walnuts. Their young leaves have a beautiful almost citrussy scent.