Signs of Spring

Lovely sunshine and blue sky but very cold, certainly compared with recent weeks. The ice had to be scraped off the car before we set out this morning.
Another bad night and this time no gin involved! Chris didn’t do much better he was just getting up (4.30am) as I was dozing off! Anyway we had decided we were going off to Owlcoats (M&S) in time for coffee this morning.
In the usual way of the Internet as I had been looking at Gluten free birthday cakes to order (Grace’s preference is always an M&S chocolate cake ) they emailed a discount voucher for their range of ‘Without’ foods. It had to be used in store so as well as our own shop we decided to go and buy a selection of their gf foods to take with us on our next visit to Bristol at the end of the month and give some of them a try. If they are OK they could be a freezer standby.
We were back before lunch so I took a look around the garden in the sunshine to see what was appearing. The Hamamelis has been flowering since just after Christmas and I was surprised to find the snowdrops nearer to being open than I thought. I cleared some dead Pasque flower foliage to find a large drift of them not far from opening.
I decided to go with these little lilac crocus blooms looking lovely in the sunshine for my blip.  They seem early but they are an early variety and I have known them to be in flower before Christmas in very mild years. I always say I have no recollection of planting them in the bed under the Magnolia and have assumed they have been transplanted by birds from the bed above but strangely this year  I can’t see any sign of what I have always thought to be the original ones. The leaves nearby I think are forget me not plants. I remember last year getting back from Scotland in May to find this bed full of them. Something to look forward to.
All lovely to see.
(Just looked back at this day last year and see it was some of the same flowers in a heavy frost though the ones on the higher bed which seem to be missing this year)