Dreaming of spring
I give up. We woke up this morning to a covering of snow, not a heavy one but enough to plunge us back into winter. It has been cold as cold up here this week and all the signs of spring are stubbornly stuck. The fat hellebore buds remain resolutely closed. The primroses, which last year were flowering cheerily alongside the snowdrops, are green and pinched and cold. The snouts of daffodils squat, frozen into immobility. Only the snowdrops are flowering in the side garden and along the garden wall. So today I am going to sit by the fire and dream of spring, not the early spring of hellebores and crocuses but the full frontal overflowing of primroses and daffodils and blackthorn and apple blossom. Blackthorn like this against a blue spring sky. Primroses. Kneel down and smell them. They are the faint, sweet, green smell of spring. February Gold daffodils. Do they bloom for you in February? Here...