Spring has sprung!

It has been the most beautiful day here today, Not only did we get the most glorious sunshine but it was mild, particularly if you stayed in the sun. I had to get a bit of shopping and got so hot in the shops due to my wearing Winter woolies still. It's now just after 6.00pm and the temperature has dropped significantly so it's quite chilly. The sun seems reluctant to disappear for the night so we have a glorious sunset with the sky a delightful orangey red watercolour mix. Artists glory in sunsets such as this-I am a huge sunset fan so never bore of watching their all too brief existence. What's so incredibly wonderful about sunsets is that nature doesn't place any limit on the number we can enjoy. Eclipses happen once every so many years, sunsets can occur night after night and never be diluted by the frequency of the act.



I was compelled upon waking to get out in the garden and take some photos. I also took my camera out with me but totally forgot about it so the beautiful flowers down at Ernie and Bobbies will have to wait. These Narcissus are from in my garden but we have rather a glut of Daffodils nearby. I live literally round the corner from the river that runs through my town. It's not a huge river and it meanders through my town gently apart from when it's torrential rain when it breaks it's banks with alarming frequency-people still are repairing thrir homes after the floods of last 'Summer'. I've always longed to live with a river running either through or at least at the bottom of my garden. Last Summers floods showed that such a dream can also be a terrible nightmare. My town flooded badly twice in consecutive months. Our much loved river became a common enemy to many-no one will ever view it in quite the same way agin.


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Nonetheless most of the time the river is something we all gravitate too though it's not only humans who enjoy it's charms. Behind my garden I have the town bowling green, tennis courts, putting green and fishing pond. The pond is directly behind my garden. The combination of all that water results in a great variety of nature. We have an owl, a sparrow hawk (good and bad), the most enormous amounts of frogs and toads in the garden (and in the Summer with open doors often in the house!) and ducks! At night they go to bed on the pond and you can hear them squabbling (or that's my view anyway) with honking and squawking as they presumably elbow one another in an attempt to get a bit of space to sleep!

In the day they sit all over the place and adore it by the river where they nest. The joy of walking into town counting the ducklings as they sit on the riverbank which itself is covered in daffodils never diminishes. As the ducklings grow they learn to swim and again counting becomes almost compulsory with a current conversation between town folk running along the lines of:

Person A'I saw 12 ducklings today by the river'
Person B 'Really, I've seen 10 but last year I saw 14 swimming behind one mother duck'
Person A '14? Blimey, I wouldn't want 14 children!'
Person B 'Ah, but if you're a duck you don't have them for as long as we do!'

Laughter from both!

When the ducklings arrive I will try and take some photos top post on here. In the meantime we've some Primroses, Narcissus and a stunning Hellebore from my garden.