March: the lion and the lamb
The end of March. The clocks have gone forward Surely, surely it must be spring. "March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb." I have always loved that saying but this year and last it has not proved true. Last year here in North Wales March went out with the cold savagery of a snow tiger. We had ten foot high snow drifts and many farmers lost sheep and lambs in staggering numbers to the devastating spring snowstorms which come only once in a generation. This year the lamblike part of March was in the first part of the month with sunshine, warm temperatures and gentle breezes which made the daffodils open in a great yellow rush down the hill under the fruit trees. I love these little Tenby daffodils, narcissus obvallaris, and they are naturalising busily now. They are small in scale with a jaunty, upright stance, perhaps less graceful than the pseudonarcissus which were Wordworth's daffodils but gloriously happy somehow. ...