Darling buds and beautiful skies

Hope you all had a good weekend. We certainly had more than a taster of spring here over the past couple of days. It was more like the tail end of summer, beautiful, warm, bright days and cloudless skies. A little premature to believe that spring has sprung but enough to keep me going for a few more weeks.



M and I spent Saturday afternoon in the garden - tidying up and fixing things. M was intent on fixing a broken bench which had originally been earmarked for firewood. I should have guessed by the amount of mutterings that he was having one of his Caractacus Potts moments (you know, the inventor dad in Chitty, Chitty Bang Bang) when out came the power tools and he declared that the bench was to be saved but it had to be dismantled, sawn into pieces and drilled before it would all fit back together again. I'll let you know ...



It was so good to be in the garden again, lopping off the branches from the fig tree and rescuing it from the ivy that threatens to strangle it every year. Look at that sky, not a cloud all day, a brilliant blue, you can't fail to be just a little optimistic on days like these.



I dug over some beds and cut away some of the wintry staggly bits. I'm saying this as one who loves the smells of roses, hyacinths and honeysuckle, that one of the best smells there is is the smell of freshly dug soil, soil that is still wet and sleepy from its winter rest and still manages to excite. Amongst the plants were plenty of signs of new shoots and in the trees were the sounds of the birds singing and, amazingly, two enormous bees buzzing around.



So Spring is on it's way and we're not just talking birds and bees - remember these two? Well look at them four weeks later!



We went for a very long walk yesterday with friends - look at that sky.


Six hours later we came home to much needed tea and cakes, I can't believe how many cakes and packets of biscuits we got through, but it was good.



This morning I was looking through some of our gardening books and found this old book that I love.



It's full of the most wonderful engravings by Agnes Miller Parker depicting the English woodland over a course of a year, written by H E Bates. I reminded myself of just how unnaturally early this weather is and not to get too carried away with my gardening plans. But there's no denying that those buds show promise.