Purple haze...

At last a day of unbroken sunshine, though the wind's still bitter! After a morning at the computer I took Rosie for a walk along the river to divert myself from snacking, but there was very little to see and the camera stayed in its bag again. When I got home I made a red kidney-bean and sweetcorn salad for lunch, and nearly blipped that because it looked so pretty!

But in the end I couldn't resist the crocuses, which had opened up fully and were looking quite dazzling. The cold weather means that they're lasting much longer than usual, as are the snowdrops. It's only when I look back to previous year's blips that I realise how late this spring is. Two years ago we had forsythia in full flower and I was commenting on temperatures of 14C! Last year the honey bees were busy gathering pollen from the crocuses by this time - I haven't seen a single one yet this year.

In the afternoon I tried out the new graphics tablet that arrived before lunch. I soon got the hang of it and managed to draw a quite complicated habitat map much more quickly than I do when using the mouse. Result!