I didn’t get out and about much last week, what with the showers and with not being very well.

While I was in the house, out in the territory, spring was getting busy. Almost all the trees are in leaf, that burning intense green (with undernotes of copper and yellow) that is almost a cure for all ills by itself. Only the ash and the beech are still lagging, and there are flower buds on the rowan and hawthorn and elder. This flower

makes its presence felt more and more along the river banks as well as in our pond, and the tulips are at their elegant best.

There’s less success among the vegetables. There are shoots of early peas and potatoes, but there’s no sign of carrts or beetroot, and the salads were no sooner up than they were eaten. There are birds nesting in all the hedges and shrubs, and while the blackbirds are sitting on eggs, the sparrows are feeding their first broods.

This last photo is one I took in our local Waterstones. Loads of people I know have gone in to see it really sitting there – between Rimbaud and Scott – so I hope someone buys it to make it worth the shop’s while!