Flowering-currant

After yesterdays' sunshine, it was rather disappointing to wake up to grey clouds and rain. But it's been extraordinarily mild and breezy too. 

After an early morning food foray, much of the day was spent report writing. In the afternoon the weather brightened a little, and Pete carried out the annual management round the ponds - they look much better but we now have a very large mound of cut sedge and other vegetation in the middle of the lawn! 

I popped out briefly to see what he'd done and took a single shot of the flowering-currant, which is just coming into bloom. This plant always brings back memories of childhood for me, not because we had one in the garden, but because it featured in one of the illustrations in the Ladybird book 'What to Look for in Spring', along with a cuckoo on a washing post. 

I lived in the suburban fringe of London, and it was many years before I saw or heard a cuckoo. Now I'm lucky to live in a part of Britain where their call is a regular part of the unfolding of spring. Shouldn't be too long before I hear the first one...