Easter Travels

A quick retrospective on the Easter weekend. We started early (on Maundy Thursday) negotiating snowy Welsh hills, and the dreaded M6 queues, on our way to visit family in Cambridgeshire.

We soon left the snow behind, graduating to wet and windy on the Friday, and something resembling a nice day on the Saturday. Managed to fit in a couple of National Trust properties - Wimpole Hall and Anglesey Abbey - hadn't been to the former before, weather wasn't too great so didn't get to see the grounds but the house was nice.

Managed more of a walk round the grounds at Anglesey Abbey, and had been round the house before - in fact somewhere there is a very old scrapbook in which as a child I drew some of the jewelled crosses on display there.

Back home on Easter Sunday - a much nicer day, and lovely quiet roads - and when we got back, spotted the first swallow of the year swooping round the yew tree in the garden!

From Spring Flowers to Snow Showers

As we leave March behind it feels like winter is back with us. Woke up today to gales and horizontal rain. Over the course of the day we've even seen sleet and hail as well as the odd sunny spell - and there's snow on them there hills.

Before today there was definitely a feeling of Spring in the air - lambs doing there lamb racing bouncy things in the fields - things coming into bloom (one of the camellia bushes is in full flower, there are primroses out, the daffodils and crocus of course, and the promise of tulips).

The pieris in particular was attracting large numbers of bumble bees of all things:

Hopefully this is winter's final fling, and there is better weather to come . . .

Getting Growing

As Spring finally seems to be here, it's been time to get thinking about the new growing season. It's been such a cold start to the year that we're a little later getting growing - but in addition to the onions / chillis - we do have a range of seeds (tomatoes, courgettes, peppers) planted up on the windowsill awaiting germination.

The onions are doing ok, although I'm a little unconvinced about whether these spindly little seedlings will actually turn into monster onions!

A couple of weeks back we also planted up four tubs of potatoes, which are now sitting in the big greenhouse and showing the first signs of life. Otherwise we've been digging over the veg plots, and yesterday I did some weeding in the fruit cage, clearing out lots of dead strawberry leaves.

Everything is looking good there - all the fruit bushes are putting on their first leaves, and lots of new canes are coming up round last year's raspberries:

Speaking of fruit, the rhubarb is also doing very nicely thank you:

Mud Month?

Was looking for something interesting to say about February and its weather (see below), and came up with the following from Wikipedia:

Historical names for February include the Anglo-Saxon terms Solmonath (mud month) and Kale-monath (named for cabbage) as well as Charlemagne's designation Hornung. In Finnish, the month is called helmikuu, meaning "month of the pearl"; when snow melts on tree branches, it forms droplets, and as these freeze again, they are like pearls of ice. In Ukrainian, the month is called лютий meaning the month of ice or hard frost.

Actually 'mud month' is a little unfair - February really wasn't that bad - still quite cold, but generally rather sunny:

Thus far, March is continuing cold but sunny - the Green Shoots of Spring remain 'un-sprung' for the most part. St David's Day has come and gone without a daffodil to be seen - although there are signs of flowering any day now . . .

Out and About

February seems to have gone almost before it arrived. Not actually done much around the house / garden - it's remained rather too cold to start planting anything - there are still no daffodils out yet (I'm sure that by St David's Day last year they were almost over!).

Been really busy at work though, was down in Cardiff one week, attending a conference at St Fagans: National History Museum.

The conference was good, but it was also really interesting getting to look round some of the buildings, and spotting the bits they'd used to film Dr Who episodes! It's definitely on the list for a return visit later this year for a proper look round.

This last week was up in North Wales for a couple of days - luckily the weather stayed nice for the most part, and I could admire the snowy views on the drive, without actually getting caught in any blizzards. The road through Beddgelert was particularly stunning (should have taken the main road, but SatNav was set to shortest route and I didn't twig that it was taking me over the high ground at first!), unfortunately I didn't have time to stop for photos .

[You can (just) make out a snowy mountain in the background of this shot taken the following day from Bangor University.]

Otherwise where we are seems to have escaped any more snow - no more than an occasional dusting / hard frost anyway - just enough to provide some good photo opportunities:

Green Shoots of Spring

Well if Spring hasn't quite Sprung yet, it is certainly poking its green shoots up above ground. Most noticeably with regard to our annual crop of snowdrops, but there are also a range of other bulbs on their way to flowerdom.

I planted over 100 cheap bulbs (tulips, crocuses, muscari, fritillaria, and whatever else was on offer in the Poundshop) earlier in January, but not sure if they'll make much of showing this year - hopefully some will survive and flower in Spring 2011.

Otherwise the garden has been cleared of its undergrowth of rotting montbretia leaves. The clematis montana (dislodged when the window men took it upon themselves to do the garage roofline - we hadn't ordered this, and ended up getting it for free) has been persuaded back on to the trellis on the garden wall - hopefully it will recover sufficiently to put on its usual glorious display.

We've finally pruned the raspberry canes as well, and the kitchen windowsill is resplendent with baby onions (decided to grow from seed this year). More to be done though - next on the list digging over the veg plots, and weeding the fruit cage - before more planting (tomatoes, courgettes, spinach, etc.) - next thing we know it'll be time to cut the grass and trim the hedges!

The Big Freeze?

That's what they are calling it - the Big Freeze - where most of the UK got hit with heavy snow for much of the first half of January. We got some here in West Wales, but being on the coast it wasn't so bad - didn't have any trouble getting in to work, as the bus ran every day no problem.

Anyway, here's my run down on January's weather, and if you want to see a more technical rendering the weather station now has its very own blog.