There is no doubt that this has been a hard winter, and for my chums in the UK, the problems are still very much with them as more snow falls today. Here in the Baugeios, it is a blustery early spring day, with sunshine, clouds, quite a stiff breeze and temperatures up around 10 degrees C.
With it being so nice, I have spent odd moments today walking round the garden, in between frantic bouts of e-mailing to sort out next week's business trip. The first of the broad beans are finally starting to push through over two months after they were sown - that felt like a real victory as I was convinced that even with the killer fiends (cats and chickens) that we give garden space to, that the mice would have had a feast! But they are late - and I fear we won't be able to stir fry baby broad beans and asparagus tips fresh from the garden together this year.
Round the quince tree, there are the first snow drops coming out - probably about 8 flowers in all, and on Monday they were living up to their french name - Perceneige or "breaking through the snow". However looking through my photos of the quince tree last year, it was surrounded by lovely crocuses by mid to late February. Today I noticed the very first signs that some crocuses might come though and don't expect to see flowers until March.
Last year, Easter was about as early as it could be - indeed the last time it was so early, the English and French had a major battle here in our village in 1422 and the English lost and the course of the Hundred Years War changed in favour of the French. All the blossom was early too - hardly surprising as both Easter and fruit tree blossom are closely linked to the moon, and our pear tree always flowers at Easter. Consequently when we had a sharp frost in the first week of April, we lost all the fruit - the only thing that seemed to do well last year were apples and they are always later. Easter is later this year and I hope the fruit trees take heed and don't flower too early - with this recession, we will need all the fruit we can get!
Here is a pretty reminder of how nice a big block of crocuses can be from last year.
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